Retail Chains Abandon Manhattan: ‘It’s Unsustainable’

[3rd&Brown]

I'm in NYC.

I quite like not having the tourists here. (Obviously, I know we need their money).

But contrary to popular belief, there are not bands of "thugs" roving the streets attacking people and looting stores. Also, it's 2020. I would think the moment would have taught us that such terms were counterproductive.

Even at the height of the protests, the looting was quite contained.

Anyway. Back to my original point. NY actually feels very intimate and elegant in a way right now. Expanded outdoor dining, closed streets for pedestrians. It feels very neighborly and small in a way that it hasn't felt in years. I'm quite enjoying it.

Now back to your arguing about nothing.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I'm in NYC.

I quite like not having the tourists here. (Obviously, I know we need their money).

But contrary to popular belief, there are not bands of "thugs" roving the streets attacking people and looting stores. Also, it's 2020. I would think the moment would have taught us that such terms were counterproductive.

Even at the height of the protests, the looting was quite contained.

Anyway. Back to my original point. NY actually feels very intimate and elegant in a way right now. Expanded outdoor dining, closed streets for pedestrians. It feels very neighborly and small in a way that it hasn't felt in years. I'm quite enjoying it.

Now back to your arguing about nothing.

Nice to hear. Hopefully the city can maintain that rhythm. I do fear what will happen when the other shoe drops and people who have currently active rentals and leases they are no longer using end up not renewing.

[Capsicum]

To "take Manhattan" has become a figure of speech in pop culture (e.g. Leonard Cohen's "First we take Manhattan", "The Muppets take Manhattan" etc.), as an allusion to success/fame etc.

So, a corollary to that wouldn't to "lose Manhattan" or "give up Manhattan", if we were to so coin the phrase, be the converse of that? Then it would be representing failed or relinquished success/fame.

So all these chains "lost Manhattan", and also so, Amazon HQ2 "lost Manhattan" (oh, wait that was Queens, wasn't it, or Long Island).

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by maru2501

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...r-changed.html

This is a little too doomsday for me. I think cities, especially NYC, will remain as places of collaboration and culture. It's not all about zoom meetings. Chicago and LA, too.

Maybe there's a smaller size of city out there that's actually more at risk than the really big ones.

Then biggest threat to cities may be the collapse of transit: "The nation’s biggest public transit system is facing ruin. Will Congress save it?"

If the poor and working class have no way to get around a city, they may be forced to leave it. And the traffic may become so much worse it adds to the other reasons for the middle and upper middle class to leave.

[park123]

I'm also in Manhattan, in my case Midtown Manhattan. There are a ton more sketchy characters than before Covid-19. It's not even in the same ballpark. Both my businesses (located in expensive parts of Manhattan) were broken into. One of those businesses is 15 years old, and this is the first time this has happened in those 15 years. And neither of the break-ins was related to the looting. One of my friends, an innocuous looking Japanese office worker, was robbed in broad daylight in central Midtown a few weeks ago. I've had people light up joints 10 feet away from my toddler kids in the subway car. Foot traffic has got to be down at least 80% compared to before. I know restaurant owners, even if the sidewalk/street seating looks busy, they are still down 60% (or more) from last year. Some of them have understanding landlords, many others don't, and insist on the full rent with 40% or 20% of the sales. Lots of places that I used to frequent have closed permanently. A lot more will close this winter into 2021, because it looks like there will be no vaccine until mid 2021, and the virus spreads faster in the cold weather. Half or more of the (quite expensive highrise) building where I live is empty. A friend's friend who is a small-time broadway producer just gave up and moved out of the metro area.

Things are not OK in NYC. Everyone's hope was/is that this is just temporary, and things will return to normal the moment there is a vaccine. A lot of people were expecting one in October 2020, then January 2021, now they are saying mid 2021. At best, we can expect a whole ecosystem of small businesses to just be wiped out, and then be replaced by new ones once things return to normal. First, it's no small matter or joke that tens of thousands of small businesspeople will see their life's work destroyed, and depending on the state of the law, forced into personal bankrupcty because of the personal guarantees thare are on almost all NYC retail leases. Second, what is the point of living in a city if half the restaurants closed, all the bars are closed, broadway is closed, crime has shot through the roof? Take away the amenities and people will leave, small apartments for $4k/month are not worth it. Eventually things will come back if crime is brought under control. But there will be a lot of collateral damage until then.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by park123

Things are not OK in NYC. Everyone's hope was/is that this is just temporary, and things will return to normal the moment there is a vaccine. A lot of people were expecting one in October 2020, then January 2021, now they are saying mid 2021.

So sorry to hear about what you are going through. I would clarify the vaccine part. I suspect a vaccine would be available early 2021. The issue is more about distribution. It would need to first be given to health care workers and vulnerable populations. The general public may not get it until Summer 2021.

At best, we can expect a whole ecosystem of small businesses to just be wiped out, and then be replaced by new ones once things return to normal. First, it's no small matter or joke that tens of thousands of small businesspeople will see their life's work destroyed, and depending on the state of the law, forced into personal bankrupcty because of the personal guarantees thare are on almost all NYC retail leases. Second, what is the point of living in a city if half the restaurants closed, all the bars are closed, broadway is closed, crime has shot through the roof? Take away the amenities and people will leave, small apartments for $4k/month are not worth it. Eventually things will come back if crime is brought under control. But there will be a lot of collateral damage until then.

Ironically, NYC's unique transit dependency here makes it far more vulnerable than even other urban American cities (Chicago, SF, DC, Philly, Boston, etc). In the latter cities, people can still shift to car transportation pretty easily, and even though it still is far from ideal (Chicago's central area cannot operate at anywhere near full capacity without its trains and buses being packed), they can probably get by until a vaccine without complete collapse, I imagine.

But NYC is so transit-dependent that if large amounts of people, most of who are carless, are afraid to ride the trains....then big time OUCH!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by park123

I'm also in Manhattan, in my case Midtown Manhattan. There are a ton more sketchy characters than before Covid-19. It's not even in the same ballpark. Both my businesses (located in expensive parts of Manhattan) were broken into. One of those businesses is 15 years old, and this is the first time this has happened in those 15 years. And neither of the break-ins was related to the looting. One of my friends, an innocuous looking Japanese office worker, was robbed in broad daylight in central Midtown a few weeks ago. I've had people light up joints 10 feet away from my toddler kids in the subway car. Foot traffic has got to be down at least 80% compared to before. I know restaurant owners, even if the sidewalk/street seating looks busy, they are still down 60% (or more) from last year. Some of them have understanding landlords, many others don't, and insist on the full rent with 40% or 20% of the sales. Lots of places that I used to frequent have closed permanently. A lot more will close this winter into 2021, because it looks like there will be no vaccine until mid 2021, and the virus spreads faster in the cold weather. Half or more of the (quite expensive highrise) building where I live is empty. A friend's friend who is a small-time broadway producer just gave up and moved out of the metro area.

Things are not OK in NYC. Everyone's hope was/is that this is just temporary, and things will return to normal the moment there is a vaccine. A lot of people were expecting one in October 2020, then January 2021, now they are saying mid 2021. At best, we can expect a whole ecosystem of small businesses to just be wiped out, and then be replaced by new ones once things return to normal. First, it's no small matter or joke that tens of thousands of small businesspeople will see their life's work destroyed, and depending on the state of the law, forced into personal bankrupcty because of the personal guarantees thare are on almost all NYC retail leases. Second, what is the point of living in a city if half the restaurants closed, all the bars are closed, broadway is closed, crime has shot through the roof? Take away the amenities and people will leave, small apartments for $4k/month are not worth it. Eventually things will come back if crime is brought under control. But there will be a lot of collateral damage until then.

Even though it saddens me greatly to read this, thank you for posting.

It contrasts quite starkly with the "nothing to see here, business-as-usual" posts we're hearing from some other forumers.

That said, I don't think NYC will be mortally wounded by this (after all, New Orleans recovered from Katrina, didn't it?) but I fear the really good times won't be back for a while.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by park123

Second, what is the point of living in a city if half the restaurants closed, all the bars are closed, broadway is closed, crime has shot through the roof? Take away the amenities and people will leave, small apartments for $4k/month are not worth it..

That's the crux of the matter right there. I can appreciate that lots of people want to live in the heart of the city, but what happens if a lot of the stuff that drew them there in the first place is gone? Or at least greatly diminished?

And if you add to that some shitty quality of life issues like increased crime and lawlessness, vagrancy, etc.?

[JManc]

Sounds like NYC is flirting with its infamous Taxi Driver days. Hopefully its just circumstantial and nothing systemic. I remember NY in the 80's as a kid and it was pretty sketchy.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by JManc

Sounds like NYC is flirting with its infamous Taxi Driver days. Hopefully its just circumstantial and nothing systemic. I remember NY in the 80's as a kid and it was pretty sketchy.

There is a bit of a silver lining to that cloud, though.

Tougher times lead to cheaper rents and such, which can be good for a city's creativity and originality - artistic and otherwise.

You saw this in the NYC of that era (relative to NYC in recent years which some said was too Disneyfied, manicured and structured) and also cities like Montreal and Berlin which were pretty interesting places during their rougher years.

[twister244]

This discussion is interesting because I feel like every city is being impacted in different ways and magnitudes.

NYC is struggling for their own unique reasons (sky high rent leading to slim margins, complete dependency on transit, etc). Chicago just had a huge hit with looting that was unique to Chicago this past week. LA had their own issues, and has a very high COL like NYC.

I won't compare Denver to NYC/CHI/LA since we are in a different class, but I can compare us to Minneapolis/Seattle/Portland. In that category, the differences might be even greater. Minneapolis seems to have calmed down since the initial madness with George Floyd, but there's bigger pushes there to "defund the police". Seattle had CHAZ/CHOP which was a complete disaster. Portland has had massive issues with over the summer. Here in Denver though, things haven't been as crazy. We had protests, some looting right after George Floyd, but not to the national level as other cities. From my personal observations, local restaurants/shops are getting through this with folks eating outside, wearing masks, etc. Also, we are very much not on board with getting rid of the police as one of our local city council people just found out:
https://www.9news.com/article/news/l...3-b50aa909d81f

For us, this may mean we come out of this looking good to potential younger folks that want to move to a larger city. I won't hold my breath though since it's 2020 and you never know what next black swan will rear its ugly head in your hood......

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Acajack

There is a bit of a silver lining to that cloud, though.

Tougher times lead to cheaper rents and such, which can be good for a city's creativity and originality - artistic and otherwise.

You saw this in the NYC of that era (relative to NYC in recent years which some said was too Disneyfied, manicured and structured) and also cities like Montreal and Berlin which were pretty interesting places during their rougher years.

Agreed. New York lost some of its soul once the yuppies demanding hot yoga and fusion Thai joints everywhere discovered it. I'd hate to see the city slide back to how things were in the 70's but a healthy balance between prosperity and edginess would be ideal.

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by JManc

Agreed. New York lost some of its soul once the yuppies demanding hot yoga and fusion Thai joints everywhere discovered it. I'd hate to see the city slide back to how things were in the 70's but a healthy balance between prosperity and edginess would be ideal.

New York lost some of it's soul once all the X rated theaters were pushed out of Times Square to be replaced by Disney stores in the early 1990s. . .

. . .

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by park123

I'm also in Manhattan, in my case Midtown Manhattan. There are a ton more sketchy characters than before Covid-19. It's not even in the same ballpark. Both my businesses (located in expensive parts of Manhattan) were broken into. One of those businesses is 15 years old, and this is the first time this has happened in those 15 years. And neither of the break-ins was related to the looting. One of my friends, an innocuous looking Japanese office worker, was robbed in broad daylight in central Midtown a few weeks ago. I've had people light up joints 10 feet away from my toddler kids in the subway car. Foot traffic has got to be down at least 80% compared to before. I know restaurant owners, even if the sidewalk/street seating looks busy, they are still down 60% (or more) from last year. Some of them have understanding landlords, many others don't, and insist on the full rent with 40% or 20% of the sales. Lots of places that I used to frequent have closed permanently. A lot more will close this winter into 2021, because it looks like there will be no vaccine until mid 2021, and the virus spreads faster in the cold weather. Half or more of the (quite expensive highrise) building where I live is empty. A friend's friend who is a small-time broadway producer just gave up and moved out of the metro area.

Things are not OK in NYC. Everyone's hope was/is that this is just temporary, and things will return to normal the moment there is a vaccine. A lot of people were expecting one in October 2020, then January 2021, now they are saying mid 2021. At best, we can expect a whole ecosystem of small businesses to just be wiped out, and then be replaced by new ones once things return to normal. First, it's no small matter or joke that tens of thousands of small businesspeople will see their life's work destroyed, and depending on the state of the law, forced into personal bankrupcty because of the personal guarantees thare are on almost all NYC retail leases. Second, what is the point of living in a city if half the restaurants closed, all the bars are closed, broadway is closed, crime has shot through the roof? Take away the amenities and people will leave, small apartments for $4k/month are not worth it. Eventually things will come back if crime is brought under control. But there will be a lot of collateral damage until then.

This is happening here in Chicago too. . . I live just east of the Loop in a relatively quiet high-rise neighborhood which is sequestered off from the surface streets. . . we never see any protesters or have been directly affected by looting/rioting, but as soon as you get to Michigan Avenue it looks rough. . . lots of shady looking people wandering around. . . lots of - what I can only assume are - homeless opioid refugees sleeping in doorways of closed businesses. . . most retail storefronts are boarded up either to thwart looting or because they were in fact looted. . . many of the nearby hotels have had late night incidents with shootings or stabbings. . . all of this was unheard of only a few years ago, slowly been more prominent in recent years and shot up after covid. . . not pretty. . . thankfully we have winter to look forward to. . .

. . .

[park123]

Even if the restaurants look busy with outdoor seating, in an urban environment chances are their sales are way down. The strip of sidewalk and reclaimed street in front of the large majority of restaurants and bars has a much lower customer capacity than their interiors used to (in NYC we still have no indoor dining). Plus it rains, it's too hot, etc.

On a side note, I'm pretty sure there is a police slowdown or informal strike in NYC. After my most recent business break-in (I had 2), the police took a long time to arrive, and wouldn't let me operate because they cordoned off a huge section of the premises as a crime scene. Then it took 10 hours for the crime scene police to show up. During the previous break-in which was slightly before the looting and "defund police" controversy, everything was done from start to finish within 2 1/2 hours.

I had nothing to do and spent some time talking to the police officers. They all seemed pissed. Not at me, they were polite, but they seemed very angry at their situation after talking for a bit. Police overtime was pretty much canceled, which would be a huge hit to their salaries, and their attitude was "ok, no overtime, let's see how you like it when nothing gets done". I learned my lesson - I lost more money from reporting the crime to the police in terms of being shut down for the entire day while fully staffed than from the actual crime itself.

I saw a similar situation with the dozen or so homeless people that started hanging out all day in front of the dollar pizza place, right to the side of my condo building. Just walking in and out, I saw people shooting up, I saw people in physical altercations with each other, and somehow despite the fact that this was happening a 5 minute walk from Times Square, the police never seemed to be there. I kind of get it - if things go wrong and passers-by pull out their smartphones, it wouldn't take much to get fired or even end up in jail. One block away the neighbors were complaining about gun shots, open drug dealing (I read about it from a building management company email). This didn't happen before March 2020.

[Crawford]

Overall crime rates in NYC are down in 2020. They're pretty much lower than at any time since they're had citywide reporting metrics.

Midtown isn't NYC. Midtown is almost entirely geared towards office workers and tourists, and, they won't be in Midtown in normal numbers until there's a vaccine and new regime in Washington. So obviously Midtown (and all the national equivalents) will be weird, and relatively empty and sad, and with visible transients, until we reach those two milestones. No major employer is sending anyone back to office, or allowing any business travel, until we hit those milestones.

My neighborhood (Prospect Park-adjacent) is essentially entirely unchanged from pre-Pandemic, except for masks. But we don't get tourists and there are no office buildings.

[Tom In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Crawford

My neighborhood (Prospect Park-adjacent) is essentially entirely unchanged from pre-Pandemic, except for masks. But we don't get tourists and there are no office buildings.

This seems to apply to Chicago neighborhoods outside of downtown as well. . . anecdotally speaking. . .

. . .

[park123]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Overall crime rates in NYC are down in 2020. They're pretty much lower than at any time since they're had citywide reporting metrics.

Midtown isn't NYC. Midtown is almost entirely geared towards office workers and tourists, and, they won't be in Midtown in normal numbers until there's a vaccine and new regime in Washington. So obviously Midtown (and all the national equivalents) will be weird, and relatively empty and sad, and with visible transients, until we reach those two milestones. No major employer is sending anyone back to office, or allowing any business travel, until we hit those milestones.

My neighborhood (Prospect Park-adjacent) is essentially entirely unchanged from pre-Pandemic, except for masks. But we don't get tourists and there are no office buildings.

I live in Midtown but my businesses are not located there. They are in Manhattan though. I don't want to give away too much about myself so I'm not going to go into details, but the problems are very much not limited to Midtown.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by park123

Even if the restaurants look busy with outdoor seating, in an urban environment chances are their sales are way down. The strip of sidewalk and reclaimed street in front of the large majority of restaurants and bars has a much lower customer capacity than their interiors used to (in NYC we still have no indoor dining). Plus it rains, it's too hot, etc.

On a side note, I'm pretty sure there is a police slowdown or informal strike in NYC. After my most recent business break-in (I had 2), the police took a long time to arrive, and wouldn't let me operate because they cordoned off a huge section of the premises as a crime scene. Then it took 10 hours for the crime scene police to show up. During the previous break-in which was slightly before the looting and "defund police" controversy, everything was done from start to finish within 2 1/2 hours.

I had nothing to do and spent some time talking to the police officers. They all seemed pissed. Not at me, they were polite, but they seemed very angry at their situation after talking for a bit. Police overtime was pretty much canceled, which would be a huge hit to their salaries, and their attitude was "ok, no overtime, let's see how you like it when nothing gets done". I learned my lesson - I lost more money from reporting the crime to the police in terms of being shut down for the entire day while fully staffed than from the actual crime itself.

I saw a similar situation with the dozen or so homeless people that started hanging out all day in front of the dollar pizza place, right to the side of my condo building. Just walking in and out, I saw people shooting up, I saw people in physical altercations with each other, and somehow despite the fact that this was happening a 5 minute walk from Times Square, the police never seemed to be there. I kind of get it - if things go wrong and passers-by pull out their smartphones, it wouldn't take much to get fired or even end up in jail. One block away the neighbors were complaining about gun shots, open drug dealing (I read about it from a building management company email). This didn't happen before March 2020.

I have been going to NYC with my wife and kids almost annually for the past decade or more. Our last visit was in the summer of 2019, and photos of my kids at various NYC sights were popping up in my face due to Facebook's throwback feature in recent weeks in fact.

I can honestly say that in all my visits to the city with my family that we never felt any more uneasy there than we do in the Canadian metro area of 1.5 million people where we live.

[park123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I have been going to NYC with my wife and kids almost annually for the past decade or more. Our last visit was in the summer of 2019, and photos of my kids at various NYC sights were popping up in my face due to Facebook's throwback feature in recent weeks in fact.

I can honestly say that in all my visits to the city with my family that we never felt any more uneasy there than we do in the Canadian metro area of 1.5 million people where we live.

I agree. Until very recently NYC felt remarkably safe given where it was 30 years ago, and given that it is the largest city in the USA. That safety was a prerequisite for everything else. For the tourist boom, for billionaire's row, for the fact that upwardly mobile young people would much rather prefer to live in NYC than in the suburbs, or even for the fact that immigrants took longer to decamp to the suburbs than they otherwise probably would.