By Michael Eric Stein
New York Daily News | Sep 05, 2020
A city’s major economic engine can’t go into hibernation indefinitely. Its arts, media, entertainment and dining sectors can’t be put on ice or rendered seasonal and survive. But that is now a potential threat for post-COVID New York that could cause the city irreparable harm.
Gov. Cuomo has recently announced that restaurants and bars might have to close down during the cold weather months, although it sounded more like a threat, because he mentioned that he was angry about too little compliance with existing regulations.
That’s like saying that due to a few bad apples, make sure the whole crop rots in the fields and dies. Because that’s what will happen — along with the ruination of all the workers who depend on bars, restaurants and small clubs, the landlords who collect from the establishments and their workers, and a lot of the hoped-for eventual tourism business. And let’s not forget retail remains at restricted capacity in many cases and theaters and movie houses are also closed.
Left and right, east and west, uptown and down, from Brooklyn to the Bronx, small businesses are shrinking New York City operations or leaving the city. Equally ominous is branch offices of worldwide businesses that employed New Yorkers cutting back or closing down and reopening elsewhere as other regions in the state or other states or other countries open up more fully or remain open.
When questioned about this on a recent news show, Cuomo replied, “you’ve had a lot of businesses that have gone to now remote work, work-from-home for a number of months. A lot of businesses are saying, you know, this isn’t so bad. They’re out on Long Island, they’re in the Hudson Valley.” He continued, “in a place like New York City, where Broadway’s not going to be up and running, the great restaurants aren’t going to be up and running….you’ll see people staying in their second residences, I fear, in the outer ring, in the suburban ring.”
There’s certainly good reason for such fear. Aside from the fact that this will result in many more reverse commutes for New Yorkers, it’s also deeply injurious to the economic health of the city.
Cuomo has steered New York City on a strict and well-thought-out course through this pandemic, and the results have been that the city is one of the nation’s few success stories in combating COVID. But judging from the city’s seeming paralysis, it seems the pandemic is devastating New York far more than Miami or Dallas. Even though COVID cases are now minimal here and New Yorkers have followed most mandated instructions beautifully, we’re being effectively shut down into depression. As night follows day, vagrancy and filth and crime follow.
If we’ve matched the virus-containing achievement of cities like Berlin, we should be able to operate like Berlin. Even Hoboken and Jersey City, just a few stops down the PATH train, have 25% capacity indoor dining. New York now has a solid testing infrastructure and fast-developing contact tracing networks. Restaurants and bars can open with UV lights or alternate strict sanitation measures, plexiglass separators, masks and hand-sanitizers required and restricted occupancy.
For movie theaters and music and comedy clubs, there can be blocked-off seats to ensure physical distancing. Most importantly, such indoor activity should be by timed and reserved entry with patrons’ names, times of arrival, and smartphone numbers recorded to facilitate any later testing, contact tracing and isolating that might need to be done. New York City businesses are perfectly capable of taking those measures.
We can either have a prudent reopening of all remaining businesses except those that require mass gatherings, or face a hollowed-out future of vulture investors in Manhattan and Brooklyn, ghost condos, urban office parks, rising crime, massive unemployment in all the boroughs and tear-downs when thousands leave.
The root of quarantine is the word “quarante,” French for forty, as in 40 days. Over 140 days is enough. Wake New York City up before September ends.