NYC Is 'Dead' Forever: Here's Why Not

There are no single "Why I'm leaving NYC" essays that have aged more poorly or well than those of James Altucher and Jerry Seinfeld, respectively.

Back in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, New York was hurting. It was bleak.

Nearly everything had been closed for months. The horizonless shut-down that we were assured would be “over by Easter” was stretching into a long, heated summer of violence, rioting and destruction.

We were in Alphabet City, between Ave C and D watching the thin veneer of civilization gradually slip into a chaotic, grim symphony of screams, banging pots and sirens. The sidewalks were piled with mattresses. Refrigerator trucks full of bodies blocked an endless fleet of moving trucks.

A lot of people left. A lot of people, many of them friends and neighbours, died in quick succession. There were no funerals. We didn’t get to say our goodbyes. Our network vanished. It was grim as all hell.

I have a vivid memory of having to ride down Broadway to get a SARS-COV2 antigen test and not seeing a single soul for 12 blocks. (Plenty of boarded-up businesses though.)

Idiot rides down Broadway, May 2020.

By June, Ben Folds had written the perfect combination of lyrics to sum up the surreal feeling that had pervaded every waking minute. We weren’t even halfway through the year yet.

Amid the chaos and uncertainty, during a time of despair and hopelessness, a comedy club owner from the Upper West Side posted an essay about bailing to Florida.

It was one in a litany of similarly-themed essays on platforms like Medium and LinkedIn that bombarded our feeds for months. This one was entitled “NYC Is Dead Forever: Here’s Why.” Nobody asked for an exit speech from those who left New York¹ to fend for itself. But we got ‘em.
A lot of ‘em.

I’m aware it’s easy for New Yorkers to smugly shitpost the doubters with the benefit of hindsight. But as you’ll read, there were others who —without that benefit— in the midst of mayhem, had the gift of foresight. Such is the reason for highlighting the contrast of how poorly the first essay aged vs the latter.

Here’s a slice of wheezecake from Mr. Miami:

…It's completely dead.

"But NYC always always bounces back."
No. Not this time.

"But NYC is the center of the financial universe. Opportunities will flourish here again."
Not this time. 

Right now, Broadway is closed "at least until early 2021" and then there are supposed to be a series of "rolling dates" by which it will reopen… And will it have to be only 25% capacity? Broadway shows can't survive with that! And will performers, writers, producers, investors, lenders, stagehands, landlords, etc wait a year?

Same for the museums, Lincoln Center, and the thousand other cultural reasons millions come to New York City every year.

The hot dog stands outside of Lincoln Center?
Finished.

I’m currently typing this on my phone from the hot dog stand outside of Lincoln Center.

The only thing finished about him is his stock of mustard. I just saw a sold-out show at full capacity at David Geffen Hall. The rest of the season is completely sold out. I did the same thing at Radio City last week; It was sold out. Shoulder-to-shoulder. A friend gifted me a ticket to finally see Hamilton on Broadway for the first time. It was completely full. As was every other theatre on the block. Far from ‘finished’.

After that essay went a bit viral…

…New Yorker and staunch advocate for everything therein, Jerry Seinfeld, wrote a response in the New York Times. To this day, it holds up as a singular example of the resilience and resolve of New Yorkers in the face of the most abject of cataclysms. It is entitled, “So, You Think New York Is ‘Dead.”

Here is a crusty slice of Jerry’s withering riposte:

You found a place in Florida? Fine. We know the sharp focus and restless, resilient creative spirit that Florida is all about.

You think Rome is going away too? London? Tokyo? The East Village?They’re not. They change. They mutate. They re-form. Because greatness is rare. And the true greatness that is New York City is beyond rare.

It’s unknown. Unknown anyplace outside of New York City.

You say New York will not bounce back this time?
You will not bounce back. In your enervated, pastel-filled new life in Florida. I hope you have a long, healthy run down there. I can’t think of a more fitting retribution for your fine article.

This stupid virus will give up eventually. The same way you have.
We’re going to keep going with New York City if that’s all right with you. And it will sure as hell be back.

Because of all the real, tough New Yorkers who, unlike you, loved it and understood it, stayed and rebuilt it.

This isn’t to say that neither Altucher nor Seinfeld got a few things right, and a few things wrong.

As it turns out, some people do really like the flexibility of remote work. But in the aggregate, Jerry’s take was the most prescient.

Yes, people still work remotely, but most NYC-based companies now require employees to be in the office about 2 days a week, at a minimum. My wife is one of many in New York who are back in the office 4-5 days a week. There are a lot of full-time remote positions, but not a lot of them are for companies with offices in New York. There are buildings being rezoned from business to residential after corporate leases lapsed— New York is adapting to change.

This is what it does.

Yes, broadway had a grim time reopening— no doubt. But it reopened. There were times when shows were closed because of a case spread among the cast, or one of the thousands of masked audience members tested positive, or some other variant spiked, and things had to shut back down. But we managed through it all. Many comedy clubs reopened, and they’re busier than ever.

One particular club on the Upper West Side closed, but I’m told it wasn’t due to slow business. It was allegedly because they weren’t paying their staff. I think they moved to an Italian restaurant in Times Square, but I don’t know how long that’ll last. Maybe that’s a story for another time.

All that is to say, New York is a new version of what it was before the pandemic. Things did change. But it has always been a city of change, of growth, of transformation. That is the reason for its success.
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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Recommended reading:
There are two books I read during the pandemic, both edited by the fantastic

Sari Botton

: The first was called, “Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York” The second was called, “Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for New York”

I liked the second one much better.

1. In the spirit of full transparency: That March, my wife and I got the original, Alpha version of the virus and quarantined outside of the city for about 20 days. We definitely did consider living in Oklahoma for a minute there. Instead, we decided to join the New Yorkers who remained, and rebuilt the city to what it is today.

2. Jerry on New Yorkers: In a recent interview, Jerry articulated what it is he loves about New York, and in particular New Yorkers… (From the 15:00 mark)

It's the clientele. You can't beat the clientele.
The clientele that you interface with just visually, spatially, on the streets, they just get me going. I love them. they're funny looking they're

15:18

they're funny people. They're just what I like as people. That's, that's, of course the core of New York City and they like it and I like it and I'm with them.

It's like when I go to a Mets game; we all love the Mets here. It's such a nice feeling. But New York City to me is a deep rooted core of things I believe in, which is overcoming intensity, a lot of Jewish elements; you know, it's a very Jewish city. Jews Thrive there, you know. When they came from Europe or wherever they came

15:56

from, I guess, and the Middle East and they loved it because it's business. It's work, it's complexity; everything that Jews thrive on.

I felt like the the the gift that New York was —I grew up on Long Island— and I was never comfortable there. It just, you know, I felt stifled for some reason and I felt like New York took me and made me. I feel like it made me.

I wanted to be this guy. I wanted to be a New Yorker. Every New Yorker comes a lot of them come from other places wanting to

16:35

be this type, and I feel like I travel the world showing people: This is what New Yorkers are like. If you want to see something unusual, something that you don't see every day, I will represent that.