NEW YORK – Paul Stein felt useless -- stuck in his Brooklyn brownstone apartment, watching his neighbors suffer deprivations as COVID-19 swept the city.
Then, on television, the retired public-sector lawyer and political activist saw people around the world rallying: “I saw people in France and Italy banging pots and pans out their windows, clapping and singing from balconies.
I wanted to do this in my neighborhood. “ He knew what he had to do. He took out his accordion. And he played. His stage is the steps leading up to his building, his stoop. “For as long as people have been hanging out on their stoops and socializing with their neighbors, they’ve been doing it from their stoops,” he said. “The natural acoustics of the narrow street