SoHo Catered to Free-Spending Tourists. What Happens Without Them?
The New York Times
No commercial district in Manhattan may have been hit harder by the financial havoc caused by the pandemic.
In the chic neighborhood of SoHo, more than 40 stores have closed during the pandemic. More than a quarter of the offices, once among the most desirable and expensive in New York City, are empty, the highest vacancy rate in Manhattan. The international tourists who fueled the area’s economy vanished a year and a half ago.
Perhaps no neighborhood in the American city hardest hit by the pandemic’s financial devastation has been hurt more than the picturesque district of ornate cast-iron buildings, art galleries and designer boutiques that made it one of the country’s hippest neighborhoods.
As New York climbs out of the depths of an economic free-fall, it has notched some major milestones lately. In-person classes have resumed at the city’s schools, Broadway theaters have reopened and 300,000 municipal workers have returned to their offices for the first time in 18 months.
