A few weeks ago, we were having drinks at a local cocktail spot by the office. As we looked around, we noticed how much NYC has changed over the past 14 months. Outdoor seating where you couldn’t have imagined, distanced tables, QR codes for menus, and signs that say “Must purchase food with every order.”
With all of that said - and all of the change - we felt optimistic about the future of New York City, and we have a feeling that New York will come back like never before.
On that day, we reminisced on what the previous fourteen months looked like, for us and for the city.
In March 2020, the world shutdown and New York was the epicenter of the pandemic. We went from living in the city, seeing one another on a daily basis, to living with our parents in our respective hometowns. We left all of our inventory in New York City, because after all, we just needed to ‘flatten the curve’.
It soon became apparent that it would take more than a few weeks for the virus to subside and like every other business, we made remote, work. We scheduled daily calls to keep up with our business, kept in close contact with our suppliers to make sure they were ok, and anxiously went on with our work.
I was living in New Jersey, which made it pretty easy to drive into the city when we needed to fulfill orders or retrieve inventory being shipped to our apartments. As I drove through NYC, I’ll never forget how empty the streets were. I drove through Times Square and stopped in the middle of the road. No honks.
It’s surreal to even reflect on. I never thought New York City could look like it did.
Many of our friends and family said ‘New York City is dead’. Reporters said that the city would never return to normal. It’d be a lie if we never thought the same thing, but more than anything, we never allowed ourselves to believe it.
We returned to New York in late spring / early summer. Just like it has shown this year, warm weather and Vitamin D did some healing, but the city was still on shaky ground. Compared to a few months prior, there was hope in the air.
As summer burned off and fall approached, COVID-19 cases started to rise again. Lines for testing centers were wrapped around the block, and ‘Out of Business’ signs appeared more frequently across the city. People were eating outside in Parkas. You could still find joy in things, but you had to bundle up and try really hard to see the light.
Here we are now, however, sitting at this bar in April of 2021. The QR code menus, ordering food with every drink, and distanced tables don’t really bother us. If that’s what it takes to keep businesses open, let’s do it.
It’s getting warm again and the vaccine is rolling out. The city is starting to look like the place we all love! Tourists are again taking pictures in front of the charging bull. I recently sat next to someone on the subway. I saw a few guys dressed in suits walking to work.
NYC is coming back.
And we want to capture it.
Over the last 21 days, we’ve been walking all over the city taking a picture in front of a New York landmark with a Scribe in hand. We hope that the project has brought some awareness to the great parts of New York City that people all over the world know and love.
We are so excited for the city to fully reopen on July 1st and we invite all who said ‘NYC is dead’ to the city to see if they still stand by their opinion.
Here were the 21 places we visited!
1. 90 Broad Street
2. The corner of Spring Street and Crosby
3. Bleeker Street Bar
4. Strand Bookstore
5. La Colombe
6. Brooklyn Bridge
7. Stay Forever - Our first retail shop!
8. Union Square Park
9. The Oculus
10. Joes Pizza - The best pizza in NYC.
11. Grand Central
12. Michaels Apartment
13. Charging Bull
14. Washington Square Park
15. A view from the city across the river - Jersey City, NJ
16. Empire State Building
17. Times Square
18. Central Park
19. Subway Station
20. The Met
21. Statue of Liberty
To find out the relevance of each location to The Scribes follow us @thescribesco!
- Pooja Patel