Posted on 01/24/2021 7:30:47 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Wall Street is offering to help get New York vaccinated and get life back to normal for workers in the Big Apple.
Over the last 12 months of the Covid pandemic, the city has been brutalized by small business shutdowns, financial firms moving south, increasing homicides and the general ineptitude of Mayor Bill de Blasio. As we have noted here on Zero Hedge, the result has been barren streets and plunging rents.
Now, financial firms - historically not known for helping anyone but themselves - are reaching out and doing what they can to help distribute the Covid-19 vaccine. They are aiming to show the industry it is safe for employees to come back to Manhattan, Bloomberg notes, before there is "little reason left for them to do so".
NYC real estate mogul William Rudin said: “Needles in arms and people back in their seats and offices. We need to get the vaccine out more ubiquitously to every part of the city and get people confident and comfortable, to get them back into the city and back to work.” DJ D-Sol, CEO of Goldman Sachs, agrees. He was among several firms that included Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citigroup and KKR & Co. that offered to help with vaccine distribution and logistics for the city last week.
Meanwhile, Mayor Bill de Blasio is dealing with a shrinking supply of vaccines, which caused him to cancel more than 20,000 appointments for the jab last week.
As of now, it looks as though working from home is going to continue for at least the first half of 2021 for many firms. "As of Jan. 13, the New York area had an office occupancy rate of about 13%," Bloomberg notes. It was the second lowest figure, behind only San Francisco, among 10 major U.S. cities. Rents have plunged, as we noted, and retail real estate is flooding the market. Commercial and residential property deals in the city were down 46% last year compared to 2019. This resulted in a $1.6 billion loss in tax revenue for the city.
Workers, meanwhile, are in the midst of giving up on expensive apartment leases and are, instead, moving to the suburbs or cheaper areas of the city.
Ruth Colp-Haber, CEO of real estate services firm Wharton Property Advisors said: “The office market is the crux of the whole New York City economy. Until office workers come back to the market, restaurants, retail will not revive. Same with mass transit.”
A consortium of Wall Street leaders were on the verge of suggesting employees come back last September, but those ideas ran head-first into a mounting infection rate as the city approached the winter. By December, the few who had returned to work were starting to thin out once again.
But now, the tone has turned more dire. Firms are offering up their distribution networks, including their retail branches and other real estate they own in the city, to try and help. Wall Street leaders seem to have genuine (and warranted) concern about whether or not New York's economy could simply collapse if it continues down the path it's on.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon - also likely tired of not having an intern bring him coffee every morning - said last week that “hopefully by September” things will be back to normal. He concluded: “You do see people want to go back to work once they feel safe. A vaccine will be a big part of that."
Don’t think anyone is going to voluntarily come back - especially until they make the city S A F E
It would be a real blow to New York City if Wall Street
picked up stakes and left for greener pastures.
I hear there are some pretty green spots in Texas.
Just raise taxes.
Let them eat cake.
There you go again, being a fascist!
Welcome to Florida!
Anyone leaving NYC is probably better off. Why anyone would pay a fortune to live in a closet sized apartment is mystifying.
Once they leave the crowded city and find out what it is like to live where there is open space and reasonably priced decent sized living arrangements, they might not want to go back.
TO LATE NY is as DEAD as the GOP!!
It may never come back, not like it was. People found they could work from home, companies found the only need a quarter of what they used to need.
Yup, stick needles in it. That always solves the problem. NYC is dead and will never be the same.
Can’t they move Wall Street to Ariz. next to London Bridge?
Liberal refugees, don’t vote for what you fled.
NYC = d-e-a-d !!!
LOL!
“The office market is the crux of the whole New York City economy. Until office workers come back to the market, restaurants, retail will not revive. Same with mass transit.”
1. Why would they come to an office after reordering their lives around work from home?
2. Where are they going to eat? Does it make sense they would bag lunch?
3. Where would they Happy Hour?
4. Entertainment venues are still closed and Broadway will take two years to rehearse anything they have funding for and if people aren’t in the city how can they turn a profit?
5. Pre-fix dinner before Broadway? Uhm sure....not
6. Shopping experience? Destroyed.
7. Criminal elements lay in wait.
8. Ride the train with the homeless and all those germs? Could be fun. Why not?
9. Walking with a mask on in the summer? Hilarious...
10. Jewelry Center shopping? Good luck and doing it in a ridiculous mask is gonna suck?
11. Where do go to celebrate after picking up a nice bobble you just spent a small fortune on? Madison 11, Jean George, Grammercy Tavern, Peter Luger, Delmonico’s, MMormons?
You dekcuF up my two favorite cities: Manhattan and San Francisco...
New York is a hellhole. Much worse now with commie Blasip
I’m from philly. A much cooler town. Easier to walk around. Eat Park etc
Philly is run by commie losers too now. Rendell was the last good mayor
The disease that’s killing NYC is liberalism and de Blasio is the Super Spreader.
New York needs to come back to life or else Florida and Texas will turn blue by 2024.
Vaccines are not going to help what’s wrong with NYC.
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