Over a period in February and March, a survey of nearly 9,500 private sector workers, commissioned by the Partnership for New York City, a consortium of corporate interests, asked what could be done to contribute to the renaissance of the city. Some respondents pointed to precisely the ways in which remote working enriches the places where people live. “Recognize that non-Manhattan neighborhoods have actually benefited and stop focusing recovery on returning to the office,” as one employee put it.
“The way I think about it, we’ve had a Manhattan-centric economy for a long time,” Kathryn Wylde, the Partnership’s president and chief executive, told me. “Over the past seven or eight years, we’ve created more jobs in Brooklyn and Queens than in Manhattan. We have seen the beginning of a shift. But we have not changed our schedule or our policies.” She pointed to Governor Kathy Hochul’s resurrection of the idea for a 14-mile transit line connecting Jackson Heights, in Queens, and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, as an example of the kind of thinking that will be needed for a more geographic distributed economy.
Ideally, more jobs would be created outside the traditional corridors, and housing and related businesses would follow. Recently, Maria Torres-Springer, the Deputy Mayor for Economic and Labor Development, explained the importance of several new Metro North stops that have been added in the Bronx, near medical facilities such as Montefiore, which she foresaw start-ups. in the health care sector in the area.
“We’ve seen that area as a great opportunity to leverage those investments in transportation to make sure there’s more economic activity,” she told me.
The Partnership for New York City investigation also revealed lingering concerns about crime and disorder, particularly in the transit system. This is perhaps the biggest barrier to getting people back into office buildings. In addition to this week’s disturbing events, including two teenagers stabbed in several subway stations, the early months of the year witnessed the death of Michelle Go, pushed from a platform in Times Square; a scientist’s attack with a hammer a few minutes after she left work; and the assault of a woman in a Bronx subway station who was punched in the face with human waste.
Whether crime on the subway is truly rampant or simply taken for granted, convincing New Yorkers to spend tens of hours a week in a slice of central Manhattan oversaturated with things they do remains a major obstacle. don’t want to have. prices they rarely find reasonable. The cold brew turns out to be just as tasty at home.
