New York City’s office districts turn into ghost towns amid COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned New York’s famous business districts into ghost towns. In Manhattan, NYC, shuttered stores, boarded up restaurants and empty office towers are now a common sight. In a city to which office culture is intrinsic, much like the famed yellow taxi cabs, companies are now attempting to entice workers to return to office spaces after the pandemic passes, especially now that the rollout of the vaccine is underway.

“If they don’t come back, we’re sunk,” Kenneth McClure, vice-president of Hospitality Holdings said, according to AFP. 

The group, which has closed two of its six restaurants and bars in Manhattan permanently and temporarily shut the doors of the rest, used to see its bistros in Midtown flooded with office goers during lunch time. 

“Customers that you saw three, four, five times a week just virtually disappeared,” McClure told AFP.

As per data collected by security firm Kastle Systems, only 14% of New York’s one million office workers had returned to their desks by the middle of January, owing to which countless sandwich shops and small cafes in Midtown and Wall Street were put out of business.

Also read: Google Maps’ upcoming feature to display COVID-19 vaccination sites

79% of employees questioned in a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey said that working remotely had been a ‘success’, but the report also noted that office spaces cannot be given up on just yet.

Some 87% of employees said the office was important to them for ‘collaborating with team members’ and ‘building relationships’, aspects they felt were easier and ‘more rewarding’ in person than over video conferencing.

“Being here, seeing my colleagues and getting out of the house, it changes my mood for the whole week,” said Jessica Lappin, President of the Alliance for Downtown New York.

Few workers plan on being in offices Monday to Friday, nine to five, though.

“The vast majority of employees say a hybrid system of two-to-three days working from home and two-to-three days working in the office is their preferred approach,” said Deniz Caglar, co-author of the PwC report, as per AFP reports.

According to experts, companies should focus on transforming their offices into spaces suited for ‘mentoring, camaraderie and fostering creativity’. Larger, more flexible conference rooms rather than cubicles, better decor, outdoor spaces like a balcony or terrace and multipurpose recreational spaces (such as gyms and cafes) can feature in the new dynamic.

For instance, in August, Facebook leased a 730,000-square-foot space in Midtown, while a Google spokesperson told AFP the company is planning on expanding its campus in the Chelsea neighbourhood.