New York City’s Day of Reckoning Is at Hand
Divisions between government and private business, and between rich and poor, make it harder to overcome massive economic damage.
Big city, big problems.
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesThis is the first of two columns. The second can be found here.
A large group of New York business leaders, all with pedigrees and some of them well-known, sent up a flare over City Hall late last week.
“Despite New York’s success in containing the coronavirus, unprecedented numbers of New Yorkers are unemployed, facing homelessness, or otherwise at risk,” they noted in a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio. “There is widespread anxiety over public safety, cleanliness and other quality of life issues that are contributing to deteriorating conditions in commercial districts and neighborhoods across the five boroughs.”