1. How Greece is rethinking its once bustling tourism industry?

AROUND THE MIDDLE of June, a week before some international flights to Greece resumed, Michael Ermogenis and a handful of other Santorini locals gathered for their daily coffee at a bakery in the postcard-perfect village of Oia. The stone streets of the village were quiet and empty this early morning, as they had been for the past several months since Greece’s strict quarantine measures had taken effect. But unlike other mornings, conversation at the bakery centered around news that a tourist couple and their daughter had shown up on the island. They had sailed from France to Greece and were staying in Oia. Yet, by mid-July, even after international arrivals were once again allowed into all Greek airports and sea ports—minus several high-risk countries like the United States and Brazil—things did not appear to be reverting to normal. Although many foreign visitors were returning to Santorini, fear of the virus as well as economic hardship kept most people away.

From compliance to concern Greece has been lauded for its swift and effective response to the novel coronavirus threat. Immediately following the confirmation of the first three cases of COVID-19 on February 27, and before a single death was recorded, Greek authorities started putting in place restrictions on large gatherings, including in educational and religious institutions. By March 23, restrictions on all nonessential movement throughout the country were enacted, officially commencing a full lockdown in Greece. Over the following six weeks, people wanting to leave their residence were required to send a text message to a government-issued phone number with a code—a number from one to six—stating the reason for their movement. Among the acceptable reasons were: travel to or from one’s workplace (during work hours), going to the pharmacy or supermarket, visiting a doctor, and personal exercise. For the most part, everyone followed these measures without complaint. But with the approach of the summer tourist season, compliance quickly turned to worry. More than a quarter of Greece’s GDP comes from tourism and the thought of losing out on the much awaited and much needed income from the millions of tourists who would arrive in Greece this year was terrifying for some.

“It’s a choice between death by hunger or death by coronavirus,” says George Koukoulas, an Athenian who owns Mezedaki by Lordos, a taverna in Kaisariani, an Athens neighborhood known for its restaurants. Although Koukoulas’s taverna did better this summer than he had anticipated, business was noticeably down compared to other years. “This is an area with many Airbnbs, so without tourists we don’t have the same amount of people,” he says.

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2. Take a virtual tour of South Carolina’s only civil rights museum

NESTLED IN A residential section of Orangeburg, South Carolina, there’s a 3,500-square-foot structure that’s so minimalist, it looks at first glance like an elegant series of conjoined blocks. It is actually a museum designed, built, and outfitted by photographer Cecil Williams. And while there are several sites in South Carolina on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail, this place is the only one commemorating the entirety of the civil rights movement in the state. Among the hundreds of thousands of images that Williams has captured in his lifetime, the most popular is of a young African-American boy, dressed in a white shirt and suspenders, looking upward with bright eyes as he holds his mother’s hand at a rally in 1963.

Only a few feet away from where Williams has displayed that picture, another of his frames stops visitors in their tracks just as suddenly: a pair of cupped Black hands in closeup, holding half a dozen bullet cartridges. The shell casings were left behind when highway patrolmen fired their guns into a crowd of student demonstrators at South Carolina State University in 1968, killing three and wounding 28 in what became known as the Orangeburg Massacre. Williams has spent nearly seven decades chronicling the hopes and agonies of struggles for civil rights in photos like these. Now he has placed more than 300 of his artifacts in the Cecil Williams Civil Rights Museum, which he plans to open to the public when the coronavirus pandemic recedes.

It just clicked Williams, now 83, was nine years old when he clicked the shutter of his first camera—a $2.50 Kodak Brownie from the Sears catalog. He already loved to draw and found photography allowed him better and quicker artistic expression. He also discovered he could make money from pictures he took at weddings and gardens. At 11, young Williams set up a darkroom in his family’s house and began developing his own photos in the bathroom sink—or the tub, if he had a large batch to process. He soon moved up to a more sophisticated camera with a flash unit. And he read everything he could get his hands on at a local soda shop, where a friendly saleswoman let him delve into unsold copies of photography magazines. “I would even wear my camera in my classrooms,” he recalls. “I was hooked.” Williams learned early lessons in discrimination, too. He still remembers his first encounter with racism: At the age of 5, he paid a dollar for a toy car at a five-and-dime store, and a hateful clerk slammed 15 cents of change on the counter between them. Williams couldn’t read books at the county library, which was off-limits to Blacks. He wanted to study architecture at Clemson University, but the school wouldn’t even consider applications from African Americans.

But he felt the times changing. Williams’s mother, Ethel, was a teacher working under Rev. J.A. DeLaine, a principal and minister who organized Black families to demand school buses and protest public-school segregation as early as 1949. Their efforts led to a court case called Briggs v. Elliott, a key forerunner of Brown v. Board of Education. Williams photographed many of the participants. “We were leaving the method of accommodation, which my parents had endured,” he says.

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3. How libraries are writing a new chapter during the pandemic

AMERICANS’ LOVE AFFAIR with libraries has only grown during the pandemic—and so has their book borrowing. According to OverDrive, which libraries use to loan out digital material, weekly e-book lending across the United States has increased nearly 50 percent since March 9, even as some libraries remain physically closed. Libraries today not only provide free access to books, they also serve as contemporary community centers with shelter from the elements, accessible loos, and—usually—free Wi-Fi. “You don’t have to be a book lover or a reader to enjoy libraries today,” says Richard Reyes-Gavilan, the executive director of Washington, D.C.’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, which reopens September 24 after a three-year, $211 million renovation. The landmark 1972 building by modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe saw its blocky glass and steel exterior renovated; its formerly dark and dingy interior was reimagined with a monumental, curving staircase, a roof terrace, and a light-filled, two-story reading room with a digital ceiling collage. Still there: an original interior mural with scenes from King’s life.

Like many contemporary libraries, MLK now stylishly balances stacks of reading materials with creative, civic-minded spaces such as a dance studio, cafe, and workroom equipped with 3-D printers and sewing machines. “It’s a dignified, optimistic, and joyful space where people will want to spend time,” says Reyes-Gavilan. Here’s a roundup of how libraries and other bookish organizations are helping both locals and travelers read out the pandemic this fall. Library architecture’s new chapter Once upon a time, libraries were meant to be mere book repositories, says Peter Bolek, president and director of design at HBM Architects, which specializes in libraries. “They were buildings that housed materials,” he says. “No great natural light, no comfortable spots, no programming or social activities.” But in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, as community needs changed, libraries morphed into architectural marvels and gathering places. Take Toledo, Ohio’s 2016 King Road Branch, which Bolek’s firm conceived as a dazzling, modernist mini-pavilion with floor-to-ceiling windows and a free-flowing, bookstore-like interior.
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