Even as offices across New York City were allowed to welcome back employees on Monday for the first time in months, the number of those returning to work was far lower than the swarms that once jostled elbows on public transit and packed into high-rise elevators.
With the coronavirus still a threat and businesses required to limit their capacity and ensure distance between workers, sidewalks that would typically be crammed were fairly empty.
Subway cars also had relatively few riders for the start of the workweek, and parks in business districts were sparsely populated during the usual lunch rush.
“I’m really surprised this is still this empty,” Jason Blankenship, an optometrist, said as he looked around a quiet Bryant Park. “I thought it would be more people than this for sure. I wonder if all these people from these offices will ever come back.”
At the same time, many of those who returned to offices and stores were eager to make any step, however symbolic, toward the pre-pandemic status quo.
“It’s nice to get back to kind of normal, even though it’s not 100 percent normal,” said Kiki Boyzuick, 45, who works in human resources in Midtown Manhattan.
More than a hundred days ago, buildings across New York shut their doors and companies sent workers home. As the pandemic swept across the city, lockdown orders left offices dormant, stores shuttered and streets and sidewalks all but abandoned.
On Monday in New York City, two weeks after officials first began easing restrictions, a much larger reopening phase began — one that permits outdoor dining and some in-store shopping, and also allows hair salons, barbershops and real estate firms to restart their work.
“Phase 1 was a big deal,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news briefing. “But Phase 2 is really a giant step for this city. This is where most of our economy is.”
This move toward normalcy, the city’s broadest yet, will pose a major test for efforts to keep the coronavirus at bay, with as many as 300,000 people projected to return this week to jobs that keep them in enclosed spaces for hours at a time.
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New York City was the last region in the state to enter the second of the four stages in the state’s reopening plan. On Monday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that the city’s suburbs were set to enter Phase 3 this week, which allows for indoor dining and personal-care services such as nail salons.
Even as New York City has made significant progress fighting the coronavirus — its positive test rate now hovers around 1 percent, down significantly from about 60 percent in early April — many companies still see the virus as enough of a threat that they have decided to not bring workers back for months, if not longer.
In a survey conducted this month by the Partnership for New York City, an influential business group, respondents from 60 companies with Manhattan offices predicted that only 10 percent of their employees would return by Aug. 15.
Several big media and technology companies with Manhattan offices had already extended their work-from-home policies through the summer. Others have said employees can work remotely through the end of the year.
JPMorgan Chase, one of the city’s largest commercial tenants, said it would not send employees back this week and had not set a return date. Other financial services firms, like Goldman Sachs, anticipated that a small number of employees would return but said that most would not come back until well into next year.
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The real estate company Rudin Management Company said that it reached a collective 5.2 percent of capacity across its 14 office buildings in New York that reopened on Monday.
Workers across the city returning found significantly different spaces awaiting them.
Mike Chapman, 54, a technology consultant, said he was happy to return to his office after three months of working in a small apartment with his fiancée. But he was the only one of seven employees to go back.
“It’s not going to feel normal to be in the office,” said Ciara Lakhani, the chief people officer of Dashlane, a software company with about 100 employees in New York. “You can’t socialize the same way. You can’t really attend meetings in person.”
More than 100 cases of Covid-19 are still being reported each day in New York, according to city data. A contact-tracing program that is supposed to help track the spread of the virus as the city reopens has gotten off to a slow start.
Worried about a surge of cases in states that moved more quickly to reopen, New York officials are requiring that strict social-distancing guidelines remain. Landlords of commercial buildings said they had been preparing to reopen by implementing new safety and cleaning protocols.
Husein Sonara, the chief operating officer at the Sapir Organization, which manages two properties in Midtown, said his company had put markers on sidewalks outside its buildings, in the hallways inside and in elevators so workers can maintain social distancing.
Ken Fisher, a partner at Fisher Brothers, which owns five office towers in Manhattan, said his buildings would use thermal scanners to check the temperatures of everyone who entered. Hand sanitizer would be placed in all communal areas, and only four people would be allowed in each elevator at a time.
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The public health concerns left some people worried that the reopening was progressing too quickly.
Raj Banik, 37, who owns the bar and record store RPM Underground, was concerned that a potential second wave of cases could mean shutting down again.
“I’d rather reopen when it’s safe for everybody,” Mr. Banik said. “I’d rather everyone just be safe once and for all.”
Iveth Otero, 29, a typist for a textile company, was unhappy about having to return to work on Monday.
“It was only Latinos and black people on the train,” Ms. Otero said of traveling on the No. 2 subway line from Upper Manhattan to Midtown. “No white people came to work.”
Work was not busy, she said, adding that she could have been more productive from home.
“It doesn’t feel nice,” Mr. Otero said, “but it’s what you have to do for your money.”
Still, others said they were eager to return to their desks.
Charles de Montebello, who runs an audio-recording studio in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, said that only two of his five recording rooms would operate this week. That way, he said, he could ensure that people did not come in close contact with one another.
Both studios were booked for full-day sessions on Monday.
“It’s been hard to be away and hard to shut my doors and have literally 90 percent of my income evaporate,” Mr. de Montebello said.
In addition to offices, retail stores — which for two weeks had been limited to curbside or in-store pickup — were allowing customers inside, though at a reduced capacity.
“It feels like it’s the light at the end of a very long tunnel,” said Nancy Bass Wyden, the owner of the well-known Strand bookstore in Manhattan. “Almost like we’re Rip Van Winkle.”
Restaurants can also begin serving meals outdoors, real-estate brokers can show listings, and salons and barbershops can welcome customers who have been without grooming services for months.
At Fancy Wave Salon in Flushing, Queens, hairstylists wore face shields, gloves and masks as they attended to their clients’ hair. Derrick Chan, the owner, said he was thrilled to reopen.
“We had to pretty much stay home, no income,” Mr. Chan said. “That’s why you have to save up for the rainy days.”
The second stage of reopening is also posing another test of how effectively the city’s transportation system can safely carry daily commuters.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city’s subway and buses, could not immediately provide ridership figures for Monday. But more people had returned to public transportation during the first phase of reopening than officials had anticipated.
In May, transit officials predicted that daily ridership on buses would reach 40 percent of pre-pandemic levels — 880,000 people — during the first phase. But bus ridership has already reached 56 percent of the usual passenger load.
On the subway, daily ridership has climbed to 17 percent of pre-pandemic levels — two percentage points higher than the M.T.A.’s initial projections. The transit agency expects that number to double, reaching as many as two million people, during the second phase. Before the pandemic, ridership exceeded five million.
Riders are required to wear face masks under an executive order from Mr. Cuomo. While most people appeared to follow suit on Monday, not everyone complied.
Nargiz Aziz, a Staten Island resident who commuted to her job near the World Trade Center on Monday, said people stared at her on the train because she was not wearing a face covering.
“It doesn’t let me breathe well, and it’s not comfortable,” Ms. Aziz, 20, said.
Reporting was contributed by Jo Corona, Christina Goldbaum, Nate Schweber and Daniel E. Slotnik.