NYC: Cities in Flux
As ancient mythology states, the Phoenix is a bird that cyclically regenerates over and over again. While it dies in a spectacle of fire and combustion, it always arises again from its ashes, constantly reminding us that rebirth is an opportunity for expansion and growth.
As BAMM has seen in its current trends report, The Drop, this pandemic has been all about the theme of pause and reset (i.e. death/renewal). While New York City faced the fire between the months of March to August as millions of native New Yorkers fled to the suburbs, seeking safety and the luxury of having more space, this led some to believe that New York City was in fact “dead”. Yet, as New Yorkers made it through the roughest parts of 2020, bracing the flames of economic catastrophe, rampant unemployment, and the continued uncertainty of COVID-19, New York City’s rebirth through the ashes seems to be on the horizon.
Workers clean the street in front of Victoria’s Secret’s recently closed flagship store. The store cost the company almost a $1,000,000 per month in rent & is just one of many casualties of Covid-19 in the area.
Before lockdown, approximately 55% of people in the world lived in cities, a number that has almost doubled in the last 50 years. Yet several months into the pandemic, the appeal of urban life has been questioned. New York, the city that never sleeps, was forced to close down shop and lay dormant. While brands and companies have struggled to stay afloat, many have taken action by canceling leases and closing up their NYC store locations, offices lay empty, frozen in time to the March evacuations, as employees look set to continue remote working into the new year. In our trends study, BAMM also found that 75% of people agree that “ideally after the COVID crisis they would want to split their time between working from home and being in the office”. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, believes in a hybrid model and “sees the future as being more flexible”.
By talking to realtors and NYC residents who have made the difficult choice to either stay or leave during the pandemic, we saw key themes emerge regarding this decision making process. First was acceleration, the idea that people who had already formed plans to leave the city, were going through with them quicker than initially intended. What this meant for city-dwellers was that people who had made up their minds to eventually leave the city sped up their timelines and left early with no intention of coming back. Jon Cziner, a New York native said, “moving away from New York City has been a gradual process, I was always going to move this summer, but the pandemic expedited that”. He has since purchased a home in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, and plans to stay. For people planning to move into the city, the thinking was reversed, as NYC realtor Jessica Taylor explains, “Life is kinda on hold right now, nobody is planning a big move into the city, in the middle of this uncertainty”.
Jessica Taylor, NYC Realtor, sitting in an apartment she’s currently listing.
The second was temporary upheaval, where people packed up and left at the first signs of the city’s decline, with the intention of returning in a few months when some degree of normality had been reestablished. One family we spoke with, Russell and Daryl Stern with their two daughters who have a home in the upper east side of New York City, left abruptly when the pandemic began and relocated to a spacious country home they rented in Litchfield, CT. After a few months spent there, Daryl said, “I feel like we’ve been living in a bubble up here, and I’m very thankful and appreciative of that bubble, but I do think it’s time to get a little dose of reality and go back to the city”.
Daryl & her husband Russel on the porch of their rental in Litchfield, CT
The 3 story house + out-house, quite a juxtaposition to their NYC apartment.
Daryl working remotely, with her daughter in the background. The extra space was a big factor in the move.
The view from the area Daryl works.
And third, a state of hope, that despite the current lowered standard of living, the opportunities and cultural richness that NYC offers would outweigh any potential benefits of leaving. We spoke with John Delago, a resident of Greenwich Village who’s been living there since 2018, who shared with us that he chose to re-sign his lease in April despite the pandemic and is “really hopeful that people who are thinking about moving here in the future, will get to experience it the way it was before because it was and is pretty spectacular”.
NYC restaurants showing their resilience and adaptability with makeshift out-door dinning
John Delago, confident that NYC will get back on its feet.
NYC residents playing table tennis amidst the backdrop of closed down shops.
Now, as we have seen the city in a state of flux over the past few months, we must ask ourselves, what’s next? Will the ability to work from home really change the need for people to be in the city? What opportunities will arise from the increase in available retail space? What does this mean for people who have thought about moving to the city, but have put this off due to the high costs of living and the lack of opportunities available? While we ponder these questions in the months to come in light of the upcoming election and the potential for a second wave of lockdown, we believe that New York City never let the fire take it out, but instead allowed it to emerge from the ashes with the prospect of growth, change, and a new way to think about the importance of city living.
Photography By: Tom Ford
Words By: Sarah Cziner & Tom Ford