Ciana Quintero
Pembroke Pines, Florida
Pines Boulevard
7 p.m. Friday, April 3, 2020
This doesn’t look like Friday in Pembroke Pines
Pines Boulevard is the main thoroughfare of Pembroke Pines. Anywhere you need to go locally, you most likely have to travel on it. Traffic on the main road is almost never slow, flowing with kids coming out of school, parents trying to get home from long days at the office or even friends meeting up for a late dinner.
Today I find the streets barren with only a few cars making stops at the few essential businesses that remain open. I decided to make a stop at a plaza off the main road, a key hangout spot for teens on Friday nights. The property is always abuzz with high schoolers catching movies with friends at the Regal or parents taking their little ones to the gelato place next door.
The lot is now empty and so is the movie theater in the plaza. The marquee that typically lists the movies now playing instead spells out “Temporarily closed.” The scent of buttery popcorn is missing.
I effortlessly found parking without having to first circle the lot three times. Seeing it like this, you would have never guessed it was a Friday.
I made it to my neighborhood community without any red stoplights and pulled off the main road only to see people filling the sidewalks. Usually I don’t ever have to stop when making that turn into my development, but today I braked for a family to cross the street.
In my two years of living here, I have never seen so many people outside: a man is walking his dog across the street; two brothers in an intense basketball match in their driveway; a woman jogging past them absorbed in her music. A few more individuals are not too far ahead on the same path.
Pines Boulevard was a dull ghost town but my own neighborhood was filled with life as neighbors took advantage of the beautiful weather.
It was inspiring to see how everyone adjusted to this unique situation. I almost never have free time with a hectic school and work schedule, but today I think I’m going to follow in everyone’s footsteps and take a walk around the community.
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