As Lockdown Lifts, New York City Still Longs for Its Old Self

(Bloomberg) -- Editor’s Note: No city is more important to America’s economy than New York, and none has been hit harder by the coronavirus. “NYC Reopens” examines life in the capital of capitalism as the city takes its first halting steps toward a new normal.

After roughly 80 days of lockdown in New York City, came five more of something else.

“Phase One,” “reopening”: whatever you call this, it sure isn’t normal. From Harlem to Wall Street, the Upper East Side to Hell’s Kitchen, nothing feels right, still. New York’s first work week in its new phase of the coronavirus pandemic left the city much the same as before: anxious, impatient, confused, hopeful — sometimes all at once. Some retailers opened up for curbside pickup, construction came to life and more New Yorkers ventured out to enjoy the warm, early June weather. Yet large swaths of the city remain desolate.

Here are some scenes from week one:

MONDAY

Morning, Wall Street: Hard hats in neon orange vests outnumbered those in Brooks Brothers suits or Patagonia vests. The clanging of hammers and hum of heavy machinery filled the air. Rakesh Patel, who helps run a news stand near the Charging Bull statue, opened almost a month ago in hopes of picking up customers trickling back in. Business still hadn’t picked up. “Nobody is coming,” he said. “We hope that soon, business is good.”

Morning, Harlem: The first thing Asif Shaukat did when he arrived at his jewelry store, Gold City, on 125th Street, was to get iced coffee from the food cart across the street. It’s been part of his routine for five years. For now, he’s only open for layaway pickups. One of his first customers picked up a gold tooth, ordered before the lockdown.

Morning, Midtown East: Two men dressed in gray suits and shiny black dress shoes headed to the JPMorgan Chase building on Madison Avenue. As they were discussing the weekend protests, they stopped for a moment to look at a broken window of a Coach store. “Crazy,” one said.

Noon, Herald Square: Much of Herald Square’s iconic retailers — from the Swarovski crystal jewelry store to Macy’s flagship location — sat boarded up, a reminder of the protests that convulsed cities across the U.S. One bright spot: Party City, open for curbside pickup. It was advertising graduation balloons.

Midday, Midtown East: Marcus Serrano juggles two jobs, as a barber and a delivery person. Today, he was carrying lunch wearing a yellow mask with two phrases: “NO RACISM” in black and “BLM” in ruby red. He made it himself, but his best friend added the words. “I didn’t attend protests, I’m afraid to get in trouble,” said Serrano, 35, who has two daughters and spent some time behind bars. “This is my way of expressing my position.”

Afternoon, Downtown Brooklyn: At Bond Street and Schermerhorn Street, next to a shuttered Goodwill, a line of over 150 people snaked around the block, waiting patiently to get into one of the city’s Human Resource Administration offices. “I’m hungry, man,” said one man at the back of the line, who’d waited for 20 minutes. He, like the others, was there to collect food stamps.

Early Evening, Penn Station: About a dozen people waited for the C train at the 34th street-Penn Station station during the evening commute, all wearing masks. Most had gloves on. In all, roughly 800,000 people took the subway on day one of New York’s reopening, just 15% of pre-pandemic levels. Earlier in the day, Governor Andrew Cuomo rode a conspicuously clean subway car to boost confidence.

TUESDAY

Morning, Upper East Side: Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long” piped into Jeeves New York as the luxury dry cleaner on East 65th Street greeted the day’s first customer, who brought in a mink vest and a rabbit-fur coat for storage. Business is down 70%, with some customers sending in clothes from the Hamptons. It expanded into wash-and-fold and is doing free Zoom consults.

Noon, Grand Central: The normally teeming terminal — a nexus for the metro area’s trains, subways and buses that used to get about 750,000 visitors a day — remained sparse. Most commuters were wearing scrubs. Its dining concourse is usually home to roughly two dozen shops and restaurants, but just two were open for snacks and drinks. At nearby Los Tacos No. 1, though, employee Fernanda Torres could tell that some offices were starting to reopen. The restaurant had just received an order for 50 tacos.

Afternoon, Times Square: Robert Burck — better known as the Naked Cowboy — admits the money isn’t great these days. The coronavirus has kept tourists away and the protests haven’t helped. At least, the dearth of subway riders had cut his commute from Queens from 90 minutes to 12. “I got enough to buy my weed and alcohol and come back tomorrow, until it all ends,” said Burck, who’s been performing for over 20 years.

He wasn’t worried about the virus, either. Before the outbreak hit New York, he’d went to several other cities to do his thing, including Mardi Gras in New Orleans. “Either I’m impervious,” he said, “or I started the whole thing.”

Afternoon, Midtown East: Despite the lockdown, business has been good for Leather Spa, located on 55th Street. In prior weeks, customers kept sending in their belongings, keeping the company’s repair shop in Long Island City busy. Yet Josefina Ferreira, the director of store operations, was more than ready to get back to some kind of normalcy. Just moments before, an angry customer stormed out. The virus, she said, shaking her head, had put everyone on edge. “It’s gonna be really hard even to keep distancing from customers,” Ferreira said. “Only God can help us, really.”

Early Evening, Midtown West: Liliana Mesa and her husband Carlos Ramirez, who run Romeo and Juliet Colombian Coffee, are three months behind on the rent. She’s asked her landlord for a temporary 50% cut on the $12,000-a-month lease. Her son Daniel, who just turned 14, spent three weeks in bed with the virus. Mesa, who had to let four employees go, caught the disease, too. Locals are helping to keep the cafe afloat, but tourists, which make up 70% of sales, are nowhere to be seen. If Mesa and Ramirez make it to November, they’re going to throw a big celebration for their 20th wedding anniversary.

WEDNESDAY

Morning, Lower Manhattan: Goldman Sachs’s lobby sat mostly empty during rush hour. The firm has plastered blue footprints on the ground outside its headquarters at 200 West Street, telling workers where to stand as they wait in line to enter. Just inside the entrance stood multiple rows of hand-sanitizer stations, spaced out to allow people to get by.

Midday, SoHo: Business has been booming since Fanelli’s Cafe reopened two weeks ago. Young and old alike gathered outside with wine and beer, chatting and having a good time. Steps away, hard hats were busy taking down plywood that covered the broken glass of a Louis Vuitton boutique. Regulars say they’ve been counting the days until reopening. “Even if the sky falls, I’ll still be here,” said Miguel Guevara, a 29-year-old buyer at luxury retail company Net-A-Porter, a Corona beer in hand.

Early Evening, NoMad: A cool evening breeze swept along 27th Street as a dozen patrons sipped drinks outside Oscar Wilde, famed for its 19th-century decor. It’s no secret that New Yorkers, accustomed to shelling out $15 for a cocktail, have recently congregated outside bars around the city to reclaim one of their lost joys: Happy Hour.

But this week, with tables and chairs brought out onto the sidewalk for the first time, things felt different. Nobody seemed more pleased than one unaccompanied patron, who was lounged in his chair, reading “Princes of the Yen” and smoking a cigar. “I’m not your guy,” he said, waving off questions. “I’m just here for my beer.”

THURSDAY

Early Hours, Upper East Side: The last Q train rolled into the 96th Street and 2nd Avenue station well after midnight. As commuters began their sleepy ascent to street level, a crew of cleaners moved in. Equipped with swabs, brooms, mops and an electrostatic sprayer, they had one job: Eradicate any trace of the coronavirus. In the past, train cars would only be cleaned here and there. “Now,” said Carlos Caminero, the station’s superintendent, “it’s all of them, at the same time.”

Late Morning, Diamond District: It was starting to rain, but you could never tell by the traffic. Most of the stores selling gold, silver and diamond jewelry were open. At least a dozen workers were outside, brandishing signs that read: “We’ll buy your watch,” “Gold. Silver. Platinum,” and “Best Prices in Manhattan.” Ten days ago, the situation was very different, according to a diamond-store associate named Israel, who gave only his first name for security reasons. “We’ve had people who threatened to burn us down,” he said.

Early Afternoon, Midtown East: James Petridez was sitting in a makeshift chair selling bottles of water for $1.50 each. “People are back, they’re going to get thirsty, where are they going to get water?” he said, emphasizing that everything else was closed. “I can’t wait, I’m so excited. Not the water, no. The people. I’ve missed the people so much.”

FRIDAY

Morning, Wall Street: Jonathan Corpina, a floor trader at the New York Stock Exchange, has noticed a few changes in the past month since he’s been back. A big one is the sound. “The echoes are louder,” said Corpina, who stood outside the building before the opening bell. Since there are fewer bodies on the floor, “you can hear phones ring, you can hear conversations, you can hear computer systems.”

Normally, the square in front of NYSE is filled with thousands of tourists, clamoring for a picture of the iconic building and its neighbor — Federal Hall. Today, just a few construction workers saunter by.

Afternoon, East River: A man in light blue pants with a matching mask and boat bag, a woman in a coral dress and three others checked in with temperature and pulse oximeter readings. For $795 a just-sanitized seat, Blade was about to take them on a 40-minute hop to East Hampton by seaplane.

These days, there are fewer flights for that weekend getaway in the Hamptons. But for the well-heeled, there’s still something special about the almost-summer, Friday afternoon departure, with its moments of bobbing on the water before takeoff, watching jet skis zoom by.

Late Afternoon, Midtown East: About 20 people line up to board the Ambassador, the Hampton Jitney bus line’s idea of a luxury ride. These soon-to-be revelers stood out in this dense stretch of midtown office towers in their short shorts, Balenciaga sneakers, straw and Goyard totes. The trip won’t take long. “It will take two instead of three hours to get to Southampton,” driver Aldane Clarke said. “That’s the only good thing about this coronavirus.”

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