NEW YORK — As kids returned to school last month, people watching New York City pull itself out of COVID-19’s shadow wondered whether workers who fled Manhattan’s office towers during the pandemic would finally return in a rush, too.
More workers did return to their offices, at least part time, as the summer ended, limited data suggests. But the onset of autumn has also made it clearer than ever that the recovery will be drawn out, and that some aspects of the city’s economic ecosystem could be changed for good.
“We’re certainly entered a changed relationship between office workers and their offices,” said James Parrott, director of Economic and Fiscal Policies at the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School.
That’s meant hardship for New Yorkers who are part of the economy built around the commuting class.
They are the workers whose livelihoods can’t happen over an internet connection, who have depended on that serendipity of a customer being in the right place at the right time — the sudden impulse to buy a snack, pop into a store, throw some dollars into a street performer’s tip bucket.
They’re people like Emad Ahmed, 58, who for more than two decades has worked in lower Manhattan, running his food cart on a plaza near Wall Street and the World Trade Center.
The pandemic forced a pause, but as soon as he was able, Ahmed came back — and really wishes he could say the same for all the workers he relied on as customers, many of them still working at home and coming into Manhattan only a few days a week, at most.
“The pandemic (is) almost done, nobody uses a mask now, and you can go to the subway and the bus without masks, and people still don’t come,” he said. It’s “absolutely not like before.”
Some had looked to the Labor Day as a possible catalyst, a transition back to the way things were, and indeed, some data has shown momentum since then, including office occupancy in the metro area getting closer to the halfway mark.
Subway ridership is on an upswing, as well, with one day last week reaching almost 3.9 million riders. While that’s only about 64% of a comparable day pre-pandemic, the weekday totals have been inching up overall since the holiday.
A survey of Manhattan companies put out by the Partnership for New York City last month found that on an average day, just under half of Manhattan office workers were in their offices as of the beginning of September.
But when it comes to being back in the office full time, only…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at ABC News: Business…