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 h…