Is New York dying? The pandemic shuts down the city that never slept

Francesc Peiron

02/13/2021 13:01

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 02/13/2021 1:01 PM

Despite its glory and fame, all that so typical that this city does not sleep, nor does it let sleep because there is always a party around the corner, New York is today a boring place.

The Big Apple is in pause mode

.

In

standby

, trying to tame a pandemic that has so badly punished her in loss of life, job misery, business closure and starvation among the tinsel.

Its excessive dependence on tourism, which has put the hotel industry in a coma, has led to

a million residents being unemployed.

Although it is a phenomenon that affects other cities in the world, the Big Apple enacts the contemporary splendor of the golden Rome of the old empire.

The comparison was made by John Lennon more than 40 years ago.

As with that Rome, a citizen debate has arisen here, at the mercy of the people who have left: Is New York finished?

She's dead?

Marilyn Monroe is credited with the phrase "I like New York because it escapes me."

That feeling of uncompromising has been reduced to almost nothing.

It should be understood, from the point of view of the well-known leisure offer, that afterwards each one is free of their particular will.

The popular Broadway Street in New York, half deserted by the pandemic, in July 2020. Photo: BLOOMBERG

But after a year of health crisis, visiting the same parks and the same streets, having visited museums (the only accessible culture, with reduced capacity), having turned shopping in the supermarket into the distraction of the weekend ( not a few people queue up like in a club), applying the norm of social distance that alienates friends and scares strangers away, the margin of merriment is limited, and more so in the cold.

"New York misses itself," says writer Michael Greenberg during a debate via zoom organized by the Public Library.

Indoor living

"After the First World War and the Spanish flu, that feeling that you had to celebrate every night, because the next day you could die, had incredible power and boosted creativity," said Hari Kunzru, a British novelist based in Manhattan and who sighs for the reset button to be pressed.

“What we long for is contact.

We will all get excited when we get into a bar.

It will make me happy to stand in the entrance of a restaurant shoulder to shoulder with a lot of strangers waiting for a table, ”Kunzru emphasizes about what he misses.

You have to turn to the inner life.

The neighbor next door, named Norma, an appropriate name for a woman with musical syndrome, plays the Metropolitan's operas at full volume.

Tourists disappeared from New York, which was the US city hardest hit by the pandemic last year.

Photo: The New York Times

If you are looking for a live sound, you can go out into the corridor, as if you were going to take the elevator, and stay planted, listening to the other neighbor, a professional jazz player, while he rehearses the piano so as not to forget who he is.

At that point where even the reading or home viewing of series and movies provoke boredom, when cinemas, theaters, concert halls, or bars and restaurants –the patching of the terraces requires courage in freezing temperatures–, They find themselves in a position to collect cobwebs and the city of fun is an inert mastodon, any novelty acquires the relevance of the unexpected.

"In the midst of everything else, we need this, New York needs this," writes Michael Kimmelman, an architecture critic for 

The New York Times

.

The review alludes to the newly opened Moynihan train station, an extension of the decrepit Penn Station, the rail hub of mid-Manhattan and the busiest in the United States, a refuge, in addition, for the homeless abandoned to poverty and drugs hard.

A half-empty restaurant in Times Square, in the heart of Manhattan, in a November image.

Foot: REUTERS

The new lobby, named in honor of the visionary senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (who died in 2003), occupies what used to be the central post office, a giant Beaux Arts-style building, with a spectacular staircase and Corinthian columns outside.

Inside, the result of the reform and adaptation, its transparent glass ceiling and its cathedral marble stand out in an open space.

"A big step to a better city," emphasizes Kilmmelman.

"I heard it was a very nice place and I wanted to check it out," explains Ethan, a lawyer who is accompanied by his girlfriend.

"I commented that he could eat on this floor, how clean it is," he says in his praise of the venue.

“It is a rare time.

The city is boring, but it is for our health.

So visiting a new building is perhaps the most exciting thing we can do, ”he acknowledges.

"Is New York finished?"

"It's not open, but it's still very much alive."

She is not dead, she has taken a little nap and will return like never before.

“It is not the vibrant city that it used to be, you cannot be side by side in a bar, but it is something temporary and we have reconnected with our parks, with the public space, we have adopted the European coffee culture and we dine on the terraces, even in winter.

I've never seen my neighbors on the street so much, ”says Jonathan Rosen.

Longtime PR Rosen, along with his trade colleague, Risa Heller, launched the

NY Forever

,

Forever

, nonprofit initiative with the goal of neutralizing the narrative that the Big Apple is dead and conspiring for its revitalization.

Chinstrap passengers get off a bus in New York at the end of 2020. Photo.

AP

"New York is more than alive," Heller replies.

“There are many people who are deeply committed to staying here, to lend a hand in its revival.

NY Forever's task is to involve all these people and give them the tools to collaborate, ”he stresses.

"We have created this organization in response to the frustration of last spring with all those who left, with the idea that the city died," he continues.

“We have talked for months with colleagues, with friends to specify what we could do with impact.

The goal is to keep people connected, remind them of how exciting New York is and involve them in the project in different ways, ”he insists.

There were other crises - the bankruptcy of the 1970s, 9/11, the financial crisis - and the city has always come back, Rosen says.

“New York consists of density, in places where people congregate.

Covid is a great challenge, but it will end and new restaurants, businesses, entrepreneurs will emerge, tourists will return.

I think that we have to work so that those who have suffered the most from the virus have the necessary support and we must all contribute to the city to move forward ”, he clarifies.

Campaign to "revive" the city

Rosen and Heller conveyed their proposal through a video on social networks in which well-known New Yorkers, led by comedian Jerry Seinfeld (the first who a few months ago rose up against the New York funeral),

demand from citizens their commitment to the city

.

Actors, musicians, designers, athletes, celebrities, entities of all kinds (from banks or technology companies to real estate companies or sports teams, passing through social groups) expressed their commitment.

Without forgetting the ordinary citizens.

They have set the goal of collecting 500,000 votes by April, with the horizon of one million.

"We want to create a movement of popular power," Heller clarifies.

"It is not enough to go back the same as before," adds Rosen.

"Sleeping Beauty"

They are concerned about the city and its citizens: the essentials, the students drowning in debt, the homeless, the families suffering from lack of food.

One of its first campaigns consists of collaborators in the fashion world designing garments to raise funds for workers in the gastronomy industry, one of the most punished.

"Sleeping beauty" is the qualifier with which Rosen describes New York.

"He will wake up," he predicts.

State Governor Andrew Cuomo recently announced his Valentine's gift.

The restaurants will be able to serve 25% occupancy inside them from this Sunday.

And the mayor, Bill de Blasio, spoke of the "good omen" for the future of the city.

A few days ago a snow owl (Bubo scandiacus) was spotted in Central Park.

Something like this hadn't happened in 130 years.

La Vanguardia, New York, correspondent

CB

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