Manhattanites' response to Ebola

Bright autumn sunshine spilled over the red-striped awning of the Meatball Shop in the West Village on Saturday afternoon. Inside the restaurant, a dozen photographers and journalists elbowed each other for room, waiting for New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to make his appearance.

As is the habit of politicians in times of public crisis, the mayor was trying to allay fears of Ebola by eating in the restaurant in which Craig Spencer had eaten just four days earlier.

De Blasio had already ridden the subway lines that Spencer had taken Tuesday and Wednesday, so lunch at the Meatball Shop with his wife, Chirlane McCray, and New York City's health commissioner, Mary Bassett, was, shall we say, next on the menu.

It hardly seemed necessary.

As he strode in past a phalanx of photographers and sat at a small table in the back, de Blasio could see that the place — despite having been closed for a health inspection Thursday — was jumping. When it reopened Friday night, there was a line waiting down Greenwich Avenue, according to the shop's owner, Daniel Holzman.

Ebola in New York City might have been big news elsewhere, but it hadn't set off cries of Armageddon among most Manhattanites.

"This doctor did the responsible thing, and as soon as he had a fever he called someone," said Joe Farmarco, who lives a block away from Spencer. "That's exactly how it's supposed to be."

How it's supposed to be is occupying everyone from the White House to Harlem, but while the debate continues over whether health-care workers returning from West Africa should be quarantined, many of those who live near Spencer or who frequent the places he visited in the hours leading up to his hospitalization say they are not afraid of Ebola and are leaving the hysteria to others.

Spencer's neighborhood in particular appeared unshaken. In Hamilton Heights on Friday morning, the crowd standing sentinel outside his apartment building included nary a neighborhood resident — just a gaggle of TV technicians and well-coiffed broadcasters with TV trucks.

On Saturday at the Meatball Shop, a young woman who works in the area said she was not at all flustered when she heard that an Ebola victim had spent 40 minutes in the restaurant several days earlier.

"I mean, I'm not really scared because I know that there's such a slim chance of contracting the virus," Emilia Navarro said.

When Spencer had finished his meal at the restaurant Tuesday, he sauntered north to the High Line, the green space built on the tracks of an old, elevated freight train.

He stopped briefly at the Blue Bottle Coffee stand above W. 16th Street , then walked north on the High Line, past the Delaney Barbecue Smokeline, past Terroir on the Porch, which sells beer and wine, and past a haunted house being prepared near the High Line for Halloween.

On Friday afternoon, Erik Jacobsen, in white tie and tails, played his cello nearby, although the Allemande from Bach's Suite No. 1 could barely be heard above the sound check at the haunted house. Jacobsen said he was a "realist" about Ebola.

"It's inevitable," he said. "I've been on subways many times with people who probably had infectious diseases and I'm okay."

On Tuesday, about a dozen blocks farther north, Spencer left the High Line, walked eastward, then hopped onto the No. 1 train and rode it to the 145th Street subway stop, two blocks from his apartment.

What we know next, according to New York City officials, is that the following day, Wednesday, Spencer took a three-mile run along Riverside Drive and around 2 p.m. picked up a box of vegetables and fruit at the Community Supported Agriculture farm share. At 5:30, along with two friends, he headed for the Gutter bowling alley in Williamsburg, taking the A Train south and then catching the L to Brooklyn.

On Friday, around the same time, Kate Paulin was riding the L toward Williamsburg with her Boston terrier, named Bronx. Paulin, who has lived in New York for 10 years, sounded philosophical about the risk of catching Ebola.

"If it's meant to be, it's meant to be," she said. "I'm from the Midwest. I don't panic."

When Spencer and his friends exited the subway at Bedford Avenue, they walked about a dozen blocks to the Gutter bowling alley, barely discernible on a dark street of former warehouses.

Just a Coca-Cola sign with the single word "Bowl" hangs over the entrance. It was closed Friday night and wasn't scheduled to reopen until health officials had the hipster bowling alley-bar-music venue disinfected.

On Friday morning, according to people who work in the area, city officials handed out fliers near the bowling alley. Titled "Ebola: Am I At Risk?" the fliers highlighted how the virus is transmitted, the symptoms of Ebola fever and what you should do if you visited West Africa within the past 21 days and develop a high temperature.

When Spencer was at the bowling alley two days earlier, he called for an Uber taxi to pick him up. Faisal Zaman, who was driving an Uber taxi in the same area, said Friday that he had not heard about Spencer or Ebola. Originally from Pakistan, Zaman expressed concern for the physician but not for himself or his 2014 Toyota Camry.

"I clean my car every second day with disinfectant wipes," he said, brandishing a large plastic carton he keeps in the front seat.

Taxis, cars and trucks hurtled past the Meatball Shop all day Saturday, and the traffic did not come to a standstill when the mayor stopped in for a bite. He ordered a root beer and four chicken meatballs with tomato sauce while a dozen photographers leaned across tables taking pictures of the smiling mayor and his guests. He said that New Yorkers were resilient and that if they were hungry Saturday night, they all should visit the Meatball Shop.

No one asked whether he had enjoyed his meal. But one of his aides hurriedly scooped up the single remaining meatball in his boss's dish and deposited it in a small take-out box, to be eaten later.