I didn’t think I would forget the early Covid days, but looking back, things have really blurred. I went out to shoot this on March 24th, 2020. Chicago had asked folks to stay home. And with the cold weather, people obliged. I was living in Lincoln Park at the time, close to the Lake Shore Drive bike path, and wanted to see just how empty the city was. It was surreal.
What had messed with my memory is that the next day was my birthday. Kiley and I went for a bike ride down that same path to Northerly Island. The weather was beautiful, and after a few days of staying inside, it felt like everyone in the city was out. On our ride home, there were cop cars driving down the bike path. They had megaphones telling people to go home. The lakefront was closed.
Three years later I switched these days. I forgot that the city had gone from empty, to full, and back again. And it would stay quiet for a few months, before residents re-emerged and took back their outdoor spaces. Now it’s hard to imagined the locations filmed here ever being this empty again.