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It’s Tuesday.
Weather: Sunny and dry, with a high in the upper 80s.
Alternate-side parking: Suspended through June 21.
One hundred days after its first coronavirus case was confirmed, New York City, where more than 210,000 people have been infected and nearly 22,000 have died, took the first tentative steps toward reopening.
As many as 400,000 workers began returning to construction jobs, manufacturing sites and retail stores for curbside and in-store pickup on Monday, part of the city’s first phase of reopening. It was a surge of normalcy that seemed almost inconceivable several weeks ago, when as many as 800 people were dying from the coronavirus on a single day.
[Commuters in face masks take to the subway as N.Y.C. begins reopening.]
“We’ve been home for two months, going a little stir crazy,” said Anthony Gianfrancesco, 45, a construction shop steward, as he waited to have his temperature checked before he could get back to work.
Officials said that they were optimistic the city would begin to spring back to life, but that the road back will be challenging. More than 885,000 jobs were lost during the outbreak, and strong gains were not expected until 2022. The city budget now faces a $9 billion shortfall over the next year.
The reopening also provides a major test for New York City’s public transit system, which was all but abandoned when the pandemic swept across the region. Transit officials predict that up to 825,000 riders, or 15 percent of the usual number, are likely to use the system during the first phase of the recovery.
Here’s what reopening looked like on Day 1:
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To allay concerns about a typically crowded subway system, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo rode the No. 7 line on Monday morning.
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To provide transportation alternatives, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city would add more bus lanes and close some streets to cars. The measures are meant to allow buses to move more quickly, though the miles of bus lanes added were not as many as the transit agency had requested.
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Hospitals in the city can now resume elective surgeries, Mr. Cuomo said, as the need for hospital beds has lessened.
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Some New Yorkers were thrilled to be out again. “I’m so fed up being in my apartment, eating my own cooking,” said Michael Gilsenan, a professor, after finishing coffee and cheese cake outside a bakery in Greenwich Village.
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Some retailers are waiting for tensions to ease after the recent protests, and many stores remain closed. “I think New York City needs a week or two of healing before a week or two of selling,” said Ken Giddon, a co-owner of Rothmans, a small clothing chain with a flagship near Union Square.
The reopening has been complicated by the mostly peaceful marches that have swept the city to demand more police accountability, forcing government officials and business owners to adjust their plans because of looting and other damage.
The governor reiterated his message to demonstrators to consider themselves exposed to the coronavirus and to get tested. He also urged police officers to wear masks after photos of the protests showed that many were not.
State legislative leaders on Monday vowed to approve a broad package of bills targeting police misconduct. The pledge defies longstanding opposition from law enforcement groups, including police unions.
[New York lawmakers vow to crack down on police misconduct.]
The measures include a ban on the use of chokeholds and the repeal of a decades-old statute that has effectively hidden the disciplinary records of police officers from public view, making it virtually impossible for victims to know whether a particular officer has a history of abuse.
The legislation would mark one of the most substantial policy changes to result from the nearly two weeks of national unrest that followed the death of George Floyd, a black man, while in custody of the Minneapolis police.
From The Times
It’s America’s Bluest House Seat. How Is This Man a Top Contender?
An Unarmed Black Man Is Killed by a Trooper. His Family Wants Answers.
Prince Andrew and U.S. Prosecutor in Nasty Dispute Over Epstein Case
Is the Party Over on Fire Island?
Want more news? Check out our full coverage.
The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.
What we’re reading
These neighborhoods are still experiencing alarming coronavirus infection rates. [NBC New York]
The city’s street vendors will no longer be under the purview of the Police Department. [Eater New York]
Nearly 90,000 students in New Jersey do not have internet access or a device to participate in remote learning, according to state officials. [NJ.com]
And finally: New York’s workout equipment shortage
In Syracuse, one exercise equipment store’s sales skyrocketed more than 600 percent in a couple of days. At online retailers, some equipment, if not on a three-week waiting list, is being sold at markups as high as 150 percent.
When the coronavirus forced Americans indoors — out of offices, away from grocery stores and off public transit — gyms underwent an economy-rattling shift.
Suddenly fitness enthusiasts were forced to reimagine not only where they could work out, but also how they could do it. People snapped up benches, resistance bands, dumbbells and kettlebells (ball-shaped weights with handles). In New York, the demand led to a citywide shortage of workout equipment.
“I did not see this coming,” Meron Tamrat, a Harlem resident, said. Ms. Tamrat, 32, purchased a dumbbell and kettlebell immediately after the stay-at-home order was announced in March. But a few weeks later, when she needed more equipment, she hit a dead end. “Everything was just gone,” she said.
“It’s pandemonium,” said Ed Pryst, the chief sales officer of Gym Source, a New Jersey-based workout equipment retailer with several offices in New York. “I’ve been in the business for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”
In recent weeks, Mr. Pryst said, when he visited closed Gym Source locations in New York preparing for reopening, he would encounter passers-by tapping on the storefront glass, asking about kettlebells.
An April study of consumer interests by Yelp, the site for searching and reviewing local businesses, found that interest in fitness equipment had risen by 500 percent in the United States since March.
But the rush for equipment may ebb as quarantine restrictions begin to lift. Cumberland Foundry in Rhode Island has been one of the few American foundries able to step in and make kettlebells. Its owner, Thomas Lucchetti, said, “There’s a demand for it now, but how long is that going to last?”
It’s Tuesday — carry that weight.
Metropolitan Diary: Long walk home
Dear Diary:
It was 5:30 p.m., and I was walking home nine blocks with my 14-month-old son. It was hot out, and he was screaming.
He did not want to sit in the stroller. He wanted me to carry him. But I was holding my purse and his diaper bag, and I was pushing the stroller. I couldn’t carry him and everything else.
I cringed as people passed me. Did they think I was a horrible mother? My son continued to scream as we kept walking. I started to cry.
At one point, I stopped to readjust and to try to comfort my son. We had only four blocks to go.
An older man was sitting on a nearby stoop. He had probably heard us coming from a block away. He watched me struggling and my son crying.
The man looked at me, and I braced for a negative comment.
He shrugged and smiled.
“Maybe he is practicing to be an opera singer,” he said.
— Eileen Adder
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