'I’m trying to grieve in advance, to gird myself for this monthslong personal project of assessing the damage to my mental map of New York,' writes maxfalkowitz
Gem Spa is among many New York business that won’t reopen. Photo: Bill Tompkins/Getty Images Have you gotten tired of “when this is all over” yet? If I manage to keep each commitment I’ve made while in quarantine, I’m due to eat my weight in blintzes at B&H Dairy, make a pilgrimage to D.C. icon Ben’s Chili Bowl, catch up with three separate groups of people over dim sum, and join a buddy on a barbecue road trip through the South. Surely we’ll never cancel plans last-minute again.
Every New Yorker understands this process, a personalized census of our favorite delis and dive bars. “Now It’s a Fucking Fro-Yo Place” became “now it’s a juice bar.” When the juice bars inevitably fail, a bank or pharmacy is always ready to take its place. The replacements change. The slow-but-sure death of food businesses we love stays the same.
The volume of the impending closures from this catalyst is unthinkable. Back in the beginning of April, the investment bank UBS forecast that 20 percent of American restaurants will permanently close because of the pandemic. That percentage will likely be greater in high-rent cities like New York, and will only grow as secondary and tertiary consequences of the coronavirus make an impact on perennially fragile restaurant budgets for years to come.
I can’t recall a memorable period of my life in New York that doesn’t involve a restaurant. In a city starved for personal space, restaurants and bars are where we live out our public lives. This is the prismatic magic of restaurants, their ability to create a million kinds of space to hold our moods and memories. I remember when Manhattan reopened after Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
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