Photos: Ghostly COVID-era New York City, captured from a motorbike

In its best days, in its highest moments, New York City is dizzying. But for now, it is become a place of familiar landmarks and well-trodden streets thrown off kilter by an invisible adversary that is taking some of its people away and terrifying the rest. | Above: A man crosses a street against the backdrop of One World Trade Center at dusk in New York.

In many of these images, the people are what's missing. They are not where they should be. In others, a few tread where throngs usually walk, an unsettling sight in itself. Restaurants, closed. Taxis lined up, parked and unoccupied. Wide highways, unwelcoming in their emptiness. People, alone where the crowds should be.

Many of New York's moments have, in fact, been stolen in these most recent weeks of its life. Pieces of the city have waited for its people to come back before, though never quite like this. And just as before, the city waits for its people. If the past is any indication, they will return. But not yet.

Condensation from liquid oxygen tanks fogs the corner of the Elmhurst Hospital Center in the Queens borough of New York. The hospital has dedicated most of its operations to caring for COVID-19 patients

Red teddy bears sit at the outdoor tables of a restaurant on Madison Avenue in New York. Many restaurants in New York City have converted to delivery and take-out orders only as people are encouraged to stay home

A woman stands alone outside an empty subway entrance on 42nd Street in Times Square, which is usually bustling with activity, in New York

Empty taxis are parked in front of a garage in the Brooklyn borough of New York

A empty street frames One World Trade Center in downtown New York

Pedestrians, one wearing a face mask, cross Park Avenue in New York.

An ambulance from The Brooklyn Hospital Center speeds through the Boerum Hill neighborhood in the Brooklyn borough of New York

A woman wearing a face mask waits to cross the street in the East Village neighbourhood of New York

The Brooklyn bridge is lit against the dusk sky in the Brooklyn borough of New York

A man pulls a shopping cart filled with his belongings as he walks down an empty street in New York.

A couple walks in front of shuttered shops in the Chinatown in the Brooklyn borough of New York

A woman with a face mask walks past a mural in the Brooklyn borough of New York

Buildings in Brooklyn and Manhattan separated by the East River are seen from the Williamsburg Bridge in New York

Two police officers stand on a street corner to encourage social distancing in New York

An ambulance turns the corner beneath the Flushing Avenue subway station, photographed from the back of a motorcycle, in the Brooklyn borough of New York

Lights illuminate a gas station on a dark and empty street in the Brooklyn borough of New York

A jogger runs past blossoming trees on a path next to the Henry Hudson Parkway in New York

Several men wearing masks wait under an overpass in the Queens borough of New York

A man gazes out of a window of a restaurant as he adjusts potted plants in New York