That’s what everyone wants to know isn’t it? Restaurants have been decimated. All those cultural institutions that people swear are the reason they live in New York even though when you press them they’ll admit they almost never go… The Opera, Broadway, Comedy Clubs, the Museums are all closed with no real re-opening in sight, only target dates that are being “discussed.” Rents are way down across the city, violent crime is WAY up, and major corporations have permanently abandoned their flagship stores in one of the most famous shopping districts in the world. Rivers and oceans of ink have been spilled on both sides of the argument… “New York is Dead!” competes for space with “Long Live New York!” in our nation’s media outlets.
But to ask the question “will New York come back?” is to miss the point.
Obviously the city will come back… it’s an iron law of physics that pendulums swing both ways.
The salient question is how long will it take?
It’s hard to find a more dismal and terrifying vision of New York City than the one in Scorsese’s TAXI DRIVER. The movie came out in 1976 and it was one of the most memorable entries in an entire category of New York hellscape movies that came out in the 70’s from TAXI DRIVER to THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123, AND JUSTICE FOR ALL, DOG DAY AFTERNOON, and DEATH WISH.
Things were so bad in New York in the 70’s that just a couple years after they were over, in 1981, John Carpenter cast the city as a massive open-air LORD OF THE FLIES-style prison island for the worst criminals in the country in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK… and it was all totally believable. That’s where we all thought the city was headed.
And then in 1994 New Yorkers decided they’d had enough and voted Rudy Giuliani their mayor.
… the rest is history.
So yeah, New York will come back, it just might take 20 years.
20 is about right😳