For years, reports have been issued warning of dire consequences to the “greatest city in the world” due to rising seas caused by climate change. The Lower Manhattan Coastal Resilience survey, released a little more than a year ago, predicted 37 percent of the lower island will be subject to storm surges by 2050 and sea levels might rise as high as six feet by 2100.
Climate change? Forget about it!
The “Big Apple” economy and psyche are already underwater… from the surging tides of mental fear and financial despair caused by political authorities imposing draconian restrictions without any solid scientific backing to deal with the virus.
It is estimated from March to July, the politically imposed lockdown has cost NYC $173 million per day.
The “city that never sleeps” is virtually asleep. The great tourist destination is void of tourists. Broadway is shut down. The restaurant/hospitality sector is a shadow of its former self with hundreds of thousands of workers, and those from supportive industries, out of work.
The Community Service Society reports, “Between mid-March and mid-July, more than 1.5 million people in New York City filed for unemployment, a staggering number that exceeds the cumulative number of initial claims filed in most states over the same period. In June, the national unemployment rate fell to 11.1 percent but New York City’s rate rose to 20.4 percent.”
As we’ve been reporting over the past weeks in the Trends Journal, the city and state, thanks to the continued lockdown rules imposed by Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, continue to make it financially impossible for most businesses to profitably function.
Ego Trip
Exemplifying his focus on punishing the little people while sucking up, bending over, and taking tens of millions in bribes and payoffs (i.e., campaign contributions) from the Wall Street Gang and Big Money powers, in one of his latest dictates, last Wednesday, King Cuomo ordered the liquor authority to suspend licenses from 12 bars for “egregious violations of pandemic-related Executive Orders.”
With crime on the rise and more gun violence in NYC than in nearly a quarter century, the Governor sent the State police and Liquor Authority to conduct compliance inspections. Fifty-five bars and restaurants were served violations that could cost up to $10,000 in fines for each violation and possible suspension of their licenses.
The “egregious” violations included the “Ladies Sports Bar” in Jamaica, which was served violations because eight patrons were drinking booze inside the premises and an employee was without a facial covering, “both in clear violation of the Governor’s Executive Orders.”
Another violation was at “Grill on the Hill” in Manhattan, citing, “Patrons at two separate tables outside the premises consuming alcohol without food, in addition to two patrons standing at the bar inside the premises.”
The devastation caused by the shutdown of New York City has literally crushed thousands of businesses. It is estimated that some 3,000 small businesses in the city are out of business as a result of the lockdowns.
The iconic Strand book store, whose slogan is “18 miles of books,” and which the New York Times has called “the undisputed king of the city’s independent bookstores,” was forced to lay off more than 85 percent of its over 200 employees. The bookstore’s owner said this was the first time the store had to let so many employees go in its 93-year history.
Empire Coffee & Tea, which initially opened during the Theodore Roosevelt administration and later added a store in Hoboken, N.J, closed its NYC store in April.
A New York City eatery in business since 1873 has a simple inscription in its menu: “The Paris Café – Forever.”
“Forever” has now come to an end.
Owner Pete O’Connell has terminated his lease, unable to pay months of rent and other fixed costs with only a trickle of customers.
Offices Empty, Street Guns Loaded
The Wall Street Journal reported on 28 July that over 90 percent of Manhattan’s employees continue to work from home. CBRE Group, which manages 20 million square feet of office space in the borough, reports as of last week, less than 10 percent of workers in their downtown office buildings have returned.
JPMorgan Chase reports only about 20 percent of its office space being used. Microsoft has announced the soonest it would consider reopening its NYC office is October, and that will depend on the level of coronavirus spread.
While city office buildings are quiet, the streets are noisier with gunfire as police report through 26 July, NYC had recorded 745 shootings, an increase of almost 75 percent from the same months in 2019. Homicides were up almost 30 percent.
TRENDPOST: Exemplifying his idiocy, in response to the shootings a week ago Sunday in which two teens were among the seven dead, Mayor Bill de Blasio blamed the escalation in gunfire on the “huge backlog” of firearm cases because the courts were not fully open due to his and the governor’s lockdown orders.
He was rebutted by Lucian Chalfen, spokesman for the Office of Court Administration, who stated the courts were getting back to full speed and had nothing to do with the shootings. And the mayor’s call for gun buy-back events, where citizens can turn in their guns for cash vouchers, has been shown to be ineffective in the past, according to research by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.
Make Life Miserable
In another “Executive Order” dictate, Governor Cuomo, who has convinced his fellow governors in New Jersey and Connecticut to follow suit, announced that any resident coming from states showing a rise in coronavirus cases must self-quarantine for 14 days… and give authorities contract tracing data to follow their movements.
In June, the three politicians listed nine states, but now it is up to 34 states including Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.
Penalties for not abiding to the 14-day self-quarantine restrictions can result in fines up to $2,000.
