Bill Meehan moved into Stonewall House, an affordable, L.G.B.T.Q.-friendly senior housing development in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, early this year, when it was not exactly an ideal time to get to know one’s neighbors.
Between social distancing, mask wearing and the fact that the building had just opened but all the communal spaces remained closed because of Covid-19, interactions between residents were extremely limited.
But Mr. Meehan, 77, a former priest, is not one to be deterred from making connections. Not even by a pandemic. “There wasn’t a lot of stuff in place to meet people, but we’re humans.
You run into people, the first day you say, ‘hello.’ The second day you say, ‘hello’ plus. If you say hello often enough, you get hello back,”.