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It’s Thursday.
Weather: Heavy downpours all day, with rising wind. The temperature falls to around 50.
Alternate-side parking: In effect until Sunday (All Saints Day).
A city program expanding outdoor dining has thrown a lifeline to thousands of struggling restaurants. Diners gathered around tables on sidewalks and streets are now a regular feature of neighborhoods, possibly changing the look and feel of the city for years to come (by many accounts, in a positive way).
On Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio sought to build on that momentum by introducing a new initiative — the “open storefronts” program — that could further transform the cityscape.
Under the program, Mr. de Blasio said, stores would be allowed to use nearby spaces outside to display merchandise and conduct transactions. The reasoning is that shopping outside is safer than shopping inside. He said the program could jump-start sales for more than 40,000 small businesses as the holiday season approaches.
Jaime-Faye Bean, the executive director of Sunnyside Shines Business Improvement District, said the program was a good step.
“New Yorkers need a safe outlet to shop and experience the upcoming holidays in a festive fashion,” she said in a statement, “and our retailers and local artisans desperately need the lifeline this program provides.”
[New York City could fall behind in rebuilding its economy.]
The context
The city’s economy is hurting. More than one million residents are out of work. The city’s official unemployment rate in September was 14.1 percent, compared with a national rate that dropped to 7.9 percent, from 8.4 percent in August.
The pain hit particularly hard for small businesses, which are key to the city’s economy and to neighborhoods’ vibrancy.
Small businesses provide jobs to more than three million people, about half of the work force, according to the city. An influential business group, the Partnership for New York City, estimated that when the pandemic eventually subsides, roughly one-third of the city’s 240,000 small businesses may never reopen.
Businesses are urging public officials to cut regulations and find other ways to spur a recovery. In September, the New York City Business Improvement District Association released a statement calling on Mr. de Blasio to “allow retail businesses to use public space in creative ways similar to the successful Open Restaurant initiative.”
The details
Under the new program, which begins Friday, ground-floor businesses with storefronts that want to use the nearby space on the sidewalk can apply online. It’s an obvious fit for retail shops, but the city said that repair stores, personal care services and dry cleaning and laundry services can use the outdoor space for seating, the “display of dry goods” or as a place customers can line up.
There are a number of rules to follow.
Unlike the outdoor dining program, retail businesses cannot use any part of the street, unless the street had already been closed to cars. The business must keep an eight-foot-wide path on the sidewalk clear for pedestrians.
Businesses can use tents and umbrellas to keep shoppers dry, except when there are high winds.
Anything the business puts outside as part of the program must be taken in by the end of the day.
The concerns
At a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. de Blasio dismissed questions about how the city would monitor the safety of shopping outdoors and address the disappearance of parking, among other concerns.
“I don’t think it’s going to create the problems you fear,” Mr. de Blasio told a reporter, noting that businesses mostly cannot use street space.
Still, even the successful outdoor dining program has left many restaurants confused about how to comply with guidelines, suggesting that shops may face similar questions in the new program. The cold weather could also dampen customers’ desire to shop outdoors.
Kathryn Wylde, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, said in an interview that opening the sidewalks to shoppers seemed “superficial,” particularly when questions linger about larger priorities — such as rent forgiveness and stimulus money.
“It’s certainly a top priority, to get them as much support as we can,” she said of small businesses. “But that’s got to be real. If they don’t have the revenue, if they don’t have the rent relief, if they don’t have a customer base, the sidewalk is not going to help them.”
From The Times
These Wetlands Helped Stop Flooding From Sandy. Now a BJ’s May Move In.
M.T.A. Slashes in Service Could Erase 450,000 Jobs
Officer Who Pressed a Knee Into Bystander’s Neck Leaves N.Y.P.D.
Want more news? Check out our full coverage.
The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.
What we’re reading
More than 450,000 New Yorkers have voted early in the presidential election. [Gothamist]
Experts and reformers offer ideas on how to fix New York City’s problem-ridden Board of Elections. [The City]
Uber is rolling out a grocery delivery service in Manhattan. [N.Y. Post]
And finally: New York’s Village Halloween Parade
The Times’s Melissa Guerrero writes:
The giant ghouls and goblin puppets that parade through Greenwich Village on Halloween night won’t make their usual appearance this year.
Instead, New York’s Village Halloween Parade, the group behind the procession, is bringing the festivities online.
At noon on Saturday, the group will post online a re-enactment of the parade, using miniature puppets made by about 30 artists.
A crankie — an illustrated scroll attached to spools — will display a backdrop of New York City, including the Statue of Liberty, the normal parade route and even the Cloisters. The tiny puppets will march past it all.
“I wanted to do something that’d be a creative act as authentic, as important as the parade itself,” said Jeanne Fleming, the artistic and producing director of the parade.
In addition to the film, billboards in Times Square on Saturday will show photos of past parade participants. “The Halloween parade has a tradition of giant puppetry,” Ms. Fleming said. So, with the puppets being small this year, the group made “the humans in the parade giant.”
One large puppet, Basil Twist’s giant spider, will make a brief cameo on the Jefferson Market Library’s clock tower on Saturday. Another surprise — which the group is calling a Covid-safe “tricky treat” — will be revealed in person on Halloween, too.
“We felt we had a civic responsibility to do something for the city,” Ms. Fleming said.
It’s Thursday — march on.
Metropolitan Diary: Position desired
Dear Diary:
In the late 1960s, I worked at an employment agency in Lower Manhattan. My department was responsible for placing male high school graduates in entry-level jobs.
One day, I was interviewing a candidate who had filled out the necessary employment application. I read his application as we talked: name, address, year of graduation and so on.
I looked at what he had written next to the box that read, “position desired.”
“Near a window,” it said.
— Sona Doran
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