AUSTIN, Texas — They are pictures of an Austin few could have imagined: A haunting series of nightscapes of Downtown Austin's entertainment district, which has been abandoned because of a city shut down by coronavirus.
Photographer Zac Crofford took the pictures of an empty Sixth Street over the past weekend. They depict many famous nightspots locked and boarded-up.
"This would have been the second weekend of South by Southwest," Crofford said. "When it was canceled, I lost my job and so did a lot of others."
Rather than sit at home, Crofford went out to capture the usually busy Sixth Street neighborhood in full lockdown mode.
"I knew a lot of people are shut in now, which is the right thing to do," Crofford said. "I wanted to take these pictures to let people see what it looks like down there and to witness the world we live in now."
Crofford managed to seize a rare moment in history as a way for us to remember that one of Austin’s liveliest places on most weekends has been silenced and shuttered by the coronavirus – a virtually invisible menace that has shut in and shut down many of the people who live in the Capital City.
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