News from
PHOTO BY B Fifth Avenue in Midtown has seen a loss in foot traffic. EN FRACTENBERG/THE CITY
Business leaders push for faster action
to spur NYC’s economic comeback
BY GREG DAVID
THE CITY
Struggling hotel, restaurant
and building owners are
turning up the pressure,
arguing the deliberate approach
on reopenings threatens New
York’s recovery. Government
offi cials point to the city’s low
coronavirus infection rate.
Hotels in New York City limp
along with 40% occupancy.
Only about 8% of companies
have brought their workers back
to their offi ces, leaving business
districts moribund.
Some restaurants stay alive
with outdoor dining, but the city
is now the only place in the Northeast
where indoor dining remains
prohibited.
The city coronavirus infection
rate among those tested remains
below 1% — a product, government
offi cials say, of the careful
phasing in of a return to public
life that extends to Tuesday’s decision
to delay in-person classes at
public schools.
But business groups, from hotels
to restaurants to owners of the
city’s massive offi ce towers, are
pressuring Mayor Bill de Blasio’s
administration to move faster on
reopening parts of the economy
still hamstrung by pandemic
restrictions. They argue the rules
present insurmountable hurdles to
the recovery of the city’s economy.
“With indoor dining set to
resume in New Jersey, New York
City is now surrounded by indoor
dining while being locked out
from participating at signifi cant
economic peril,” said Andrew
Rigie, executive director of the
New York Hospitality Alliance.
“The situation is at a boiling
point and our government leaders
must provide a plan and start
opening indoor dining in the fi ve
boroughs, just like they have
throughout the rest of the state.”
Staggering Job Losses
New York lost 914,000 jobs
in April as the shutdown rippled
across the economy, or about 20%
of all the record-high 4.7 million
jobs that existed in February.
Despite gains during the last
three months, employment in the
city remains 702,000 jobs below
the February mark. While the national
unemployment rate in July
fell to 10.2%, New York’s barely
budged, coming in at 19.8%, near
Great Depression levels.
Hotels, meanwhile, saw their
summer and fall marketing
plans derailed by fears of New
York offi cials about visitors from
other states. Some 30 states,
Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin
Islands are currently on Gov.
Andrew Cuomo’s quarantine list.
“Hotels were starting to gear
up for staycations from people in
nearby states, but that is effectively
dead due to the quarantine
requirement imposed by the
governor,” said Vijay Dandapani,
CEO of the Hotel Association of
New York. “The mayor’s latest
move to compel hotels to ‘police’
the initiative to collect state of
origin data is a further deterrent.”
John Fitzpatrick closed his
Fitzpatrick Manhattan hotel on
Lexington Avenue at 57th Street
when the statewide shutdowns began.
He kept open his Fitzpatrick
Grand Central because it had a
few airline crews staying, but
never fi lled more than 25 rooms.
“We started to get a few rooms
back in,” he said. “What really
killed us was closing New York
to other states. We can’t even do
domestic business.”
He said he’s laid off 130 of his
160 employees.
Push to Fill Empty Offices
Landlords like Jeff Blau, CEO
of Related, the owner of Hudson
Yards, have taken to trying to lure
their tenants to bring employees
back to empty offi ce buildings as
white- collar workers toil from
home — in the city or beyond.
Blau told Bloomberg News
recently that he was personally
calling the CEOs whose companies
rented space in his buildings,
pleading with them to reopen
offi ces.
“Business leaders face a stark
choice,” he wrote in a Wall
Street Journal op-ed published
last month. “We can allow the
economy to continue to decay or
we can revive New York by bringing
employees back to our offi ces.”
Related reopened its offi ces on
June 22 with the start of Phase 2.
The British government of Boris
Johnson launched a campaign this
week to pressure fi rms there to
restaff their offi ces in London,
New York’s primary rival as a
fi nancial center.
What’s missing, some business
leaders say, is help from the mayor
and other offi cials. James Whelan,
president of the Real Estate Board
of New York, contrasted the
bustle in areas like Greenwich
Village and the Upper East Side
with the quiet of Midtown.
“Our government leaders have
done a good job of educating
when they issued the stay-at-home
orders and, more recently, the
constant refrains about wearing
masks and social distancing,”
he said. “What is needed is
educating the public that with the
safety protocols in place it is safe
to come back to work.”
Legal Actions Loom
But restaurant owners are tired
of waiting for the return of offi ce
workers and other customers.
The Hospitality Alliance recently
threatened to sue the city
to force indoor dining. Separately,
some 330 restaurants joined
a suit, with the lead plaintiff,
Queens restaurant Il Bacco, demanding
$2 billion in damages
because of the indoor dining ban.
The city, pointing to COVID-19
spikes elsewhere, contends indoor
dining remains likely to spark a
resurgence of the virus.
“When you look at the data really
from across the world, there
is no doubt, one very common setting
in which infections occur —
and not just individual infections,
but what we call super-spreading
events and those are settings
where there was indoor dining
and drinking,” Dr. Jay Varma, a
senior advisor to the mayor, said
during a recent press briefi ng.
This story was fi rst published
on Sept. 1, 2020 by THE CITY,
an independent, nonprofi t news
outlet dedicated to hard-hitting
reporting that serves the people
of New York.
10 September 3, 2020 Schneps Media