On the second Saturday in March, the owners of Gertie, a Jewish-American luncheonette in Brooklyn, finalized a last step in the makeover of their year-old restaurant. They hired a new sous chef, an up-and-comer who had landed hours before on a one-way flight from Detroit.
By dinnertime, though, the restaurant was unraveling.
After spreading silently for weeks, the coronavirus had infected hundreds of people in New York and cast an eerie emptiness over the city and inside the restaurant, which had planned to debut a new menu. Instead, by the end of dinner service that Sunday, the owners…
