Where Does Ramadan Live in New York City? To Noran Morsi: Everywhere.

A red brick building in New York City stands hushed under layers of snow. Its windows glow softly. One tells a story of a black cat, who watches the days pass over its kingdom, each one becoming whiter and blurrier. This year’s winter in New York has been especially cold - historic blizzards and snowstorms have drowned the city in a consistent flurry of white powder. Under the black fire escapes, one apartment glows differently. Blue and red flags stretch across the walls, lanterns are perched on the windowsill, while a crescent moon catches the light outside.

This is a story of Ramadan in New York City - a feeling visual journalist and illustrator Noran Morsi is trying to convey. For the second year, Morsi is returning to her series, ‘Ramadan in New York City’, where each day of the month, she posts one gouache painting on her Instagram, @studionoran.

Morsi, from Cairo, is celebrating her fourth Ramadan in New York. Inspired by the popular TV shows in Egypt that are released nightly throughout the month, she attempts to continue that tradition in her own way. “I thought showing my own version of Ramadan in New York City would be cool”, she says.Ramadan is simultaneously an intimately personal journey and a communal experience; Morsi’s art sits at this overlap. What does Ramadan mean when you’re away from home? Where, then, do you find it?

To her surprise, Morsi has found it everywhere: “Suhour at a 24-hour deli, having a date to break fast while waiting for the ever-delayed subway, taraweeh overlooking the city skyline.”

This art series is an exercise in noticing these small but significant details. “You don’t realise how many Arab or Middle Eastern stores are all over the city. Or halal restaurants. Or places that are just open 24/7 that attract those observing Ramadan at the wee hours of the night. Sure, there’s the enclaves, Astoria, Jackson Heights, Bay Ridge, but if you look hard enough, you’ll find Ramadan in the strangest of places, even midtown!”

This feeling is what her paintings bring to life. When lacking the encouragement of a city-wide Ramadan, meaning gathers in the details: medjool dates on a plate, steam rising from tea, the deep red of Egypt’s beloved Karkadeeh. "These symbols may not scream New York, but it’s part of my dinner table here too!”

Ramadan in Cairo and in New York, she explains, are “completely different experiences.” In Cairo, Ramadan is a collective and festive rhythm. “The whole country unites to celebrate and relish in this spirituality together.” In New York, Morsi says, it may be quieter but is just as profound: “Because you’re not in a city where everyone celebrates it, those who do make an extra effort to get together and make it even more meaningful.”What these gatherings do is try to bring slices of home to the storied apartments of New York. After all, no Egyptian Ramadan is complete without molokheya and macarona béchamel, dishes that paradoxically appear among, as Morsi puts it, “cramped apartment overlooking snowy streets.”

What has changed for Morsi is not the spirit of Ramadan, but where it lives. “It’s so different, but so similar,” Morsi says. "Instead of being at the table with my family, I’m having suhour on FaceTime while they’re fasting.” Her first painting in the series captures this feeling perfectly: a plate full of food, a steaming mug, the New York skyline, and a single rose for company.

This year, Ramadan in New York City is a little different from previous years. With the city’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani, Ramadan has branched out slightly from the quiet of people’s homes to the streets of the city. In her latest work, Morsi depicts him mid-iftar in one of the city’s quintessential halal diners - a quiet scene, but loud in meaning.

In a city that never sleeps, Ramadan can be found in the moments of stillness Morsi captures. “Living in New York has really shown me that beauty is everywhere. While it may not always be an aesthetically pleasing city, it is a city full of artists and out-of-the-box creatives.” In this way, Ramadan can be found in the city’s people: in the small ways they remember home, in the community they foster, and the experiences they share. “There is so much going on all the time, and by virtue of that, you can always find something beautiful.”