Replies

Not only is NYC not dead, this may be the best thing that’s ever happened to the city. It will take some time, but there will be a Renaissance the likes of which are hard to imagine.
NYC has;
Too pivotal a location
Too much infrastructure
Too deep a history
Too much valuable building stock
Too much investment in success

Let folks say it’s dead - all the better for those buying in.

Well I think you are right. NY will come back for the same reasons it grew in the first place. It will not be as it was. Especially when it comes to the office spaces. It turns out huge lease expenses are unnecessary. A large percentage of the work can be done remotely now. This of course affects the support/peripheral businesses. With all that greatly diminished I am not sure what happens to the Theater District. It may end like Vegas. A lot of people go there just for the shows. Of course If NY puts in another leftist jerk like Wilhelm all bets are off.

Agreed. This reminds me of the mid 1970s during the "Ford to New York City - Drop Dead" days. This was when the Bronx was literally burning and Times Square was an X-rated den of perversity. Movies of that era tell the tale..."Taxi Driver", "Mean Streets", "Warriors".

Then the 1980s happened. Reagan. Trump (yes Trump). Guiliani. The city has been on a rocket ride ever since - until this year. But they will bounce back.

“NYC has;
Too pivotal a location
Too much infrastructure...”

New York will probably always be a busy port and center of commerce. As this article explains the advent of universal high-bandwidth internet means the white collar and finance professionals who used to depend on Manhattan’s central location can now work anywhere. The Pandemic has forced this change and there is no motivation to revert to the older more expensive way of doing things. Because of this that “Valuable building stock” you site isn’t so valuable anymore. It’s mostly sitting there empty.

What made pre-CoVid Manhattan so magical was the confluence of an active finance and business center with a thriving arts community funded largely by tourists from all over the world.

In the 1990s I was involved with promoting Broadway musicals to travel agents, I can tell you that it took years of hard work to make Broadway an international tourist attraction. I visited Times Square recently, it’s infested with homeless junkies. I have no idea what it’s going to take to get those tourists back.