From the Bronx to Staten Island, Chinatown to Fifth Avenue, Michelin-starred restaurants and modest corner diners, hardware stores and funeral homes, New York cautiously approached its reopening on Wednesday, with scenes of a recalled normalcy juxtaposed with scenes of caution. It was a moment that so many people had been waiting for, whether it was over endless Zoom calls or in the disappointed silence of a line of shoppers outside a supermarket. It was more like a soft opening than a grand gala, the finish line of a long race that no one wanted to be the first to cross.
New York City shut down 423 days ago, on a Sunday night in March 2020, when it was responsible for half of the nation’s coronavirus outbreaks, and Governor Andrew M. Cuomo directed all non-essential staff to remain at home and indoors. In recent months, the city has reopened partially, but Wednesday was the first day that businesses were able to operate with less restrictions and at near capacity.
The new rules easing mask mandates and capacity limitations were largely overshadowed by millions of people’s personal comfort levels. The reopening was a shamble of chaos, inconsistency, and perplexity — in other words, it was New York City. Many business owners decided to keep requiring customers to wear masks, making Wednesday look and sound similar to Tuesday.
The reopening, on the other hand, was cause for celebration. In the garden shade of the Museum of Modern Art, Julie Ross, 63, summed up the day in one phrase. She exclaimed, “Fabulous.” “It seems like the streets are a little more vibrant. Is that correct?”
As case numbers continue to fall throughout the country and internationally, the tentative first day arrived amid loosening restrictions in the area, with Connecticut and New Jersey announcing similar plans. Looking ahead to the summer tourist season, the European Union decided on Wednesday to reopen its borders to tourists who have been completely vaccinated or who come from a list of countries deemed protected by Covid-19. Despite this, the virus continued to wreak havoc in India, which had 4,529 Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday, the pandemic’s highest single-day death toll in any country so far.
Many New Yorkers seemed to be hesitant to lower their guard — or their masks — due to the conflicting good-news and bad-news headlines. While facial coverings were no longer needed, many people continued to wear them, whether in Manhattan’s big-box stores and tiny boutiques or Brooklyn’s shaded paths of Prospect Park, and they remained on the entrance signs of many stores like Victoria, which sold clothing in the Bronx.
“It’s still store policy,” said Raj Lalbatchan, a 23-year-old manager at the place. Nearby, Elisabeth Ocasio, 51, a server at La Isla, said the restaurant is sticking to its weapons. “We have no idea who is vaccinated and who isn’t,” she said. “We’re doing the same thing here.”
If there was something resembling a uniform mentality on the streets of New York on Wednesday, it was one of waiting and seeing — not waiting for what directives were coming from the state, necessarily, but seeing what improvements peers on the block were making. Shop owner after shop owner appeared to be waiting for a neighbor to make a first move.
