New York: Thousands of apartments in Manhattan are vacant due to the virus crisis

Residents flee the city

Exodus in New York: Suddenly thousands of apartments are empty in Manhattan

Thursday, July 16, 2020 | 11:10
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There are quite a few moving trucks on the streets of New York City these days. After the traumatic experiences at the beginning of the corona epidemic in the USA, in which New Yorkers sat day in and day out in too small apartments and were afraid of infection in their densely populated metropolis, many are now turning their backs on the city and moving to their suburbs or in the country. There are now empty apartments everywhere in the center – and New York is once again on the brink of upheaval.

Looking forward to a life outside of New York

“I wasn’t ready to leave yet,” Nick Barnhorst recalls, recalling his emotional state in February, when the new coronavirus had not yet put New York into a state of emergency. The 41-year-old had lived in NYC for eleven years and loved the city. He didn’t want to move away to have more space for his growing family until at least a year. But then the events rolled over: Barnhorst’s wife became pregnant with her third child – and Sars-CoV-2 raged in New York. Barnhorst hit the realization like a blow: “Let’s get out of here, and as soon as possible”.

Next week Barnhorst and his family will move into a house in Marmaroneck, a wealthy suburb. “I always thought that I would have to be dragged away from here – but now I can’t be happy enough,” says the 41-year-old.

Barnhorst is not the only one around him. A friend and his eight month pregnant wife fled New York to relatives in Massachusetts for a weekend in early March – and never came back to the Big Apple. The friend traded his condo for a home in suburban Westchester County.

“To be trapped in a small apartment with two children for four months and nothing that defines this city takes place anymore – that makes it easy to leave,” says Barnhorst.

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Finding a new place to stay was not easy for him, however, because prices in New York’s suburbs have skyrocketed. A whopping 20 percent price hike is not uncommon, says Richard Stanton, real estate agent in Montclair. A “real flood” of prospective buyers is coming to the small town in the neighboring state of New Jersey.

“New York Pride” like after 9/11?

Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio often compare the corona crisis in New York with the situation after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which the city mastered with dignity. Dillon Kondor feels very differently.

The “New York Pride” after 9/11 drew him to the city, says the guitarist, who has worked for Broadway musicals. But now everything that made New York a magnet – its restaurants, theaters and shops – has been paralyzed, says Kondor. And the crowds are no longer a source of inspiration for him, but a cause for concern.

This became clear to the musician when he was walking through Central Park with his wife in the spring and they met too many people without masks. On the way home, “one of us said: We have to get out of town”. Indeed, the couple moved to Tarrytown in the Hudson Valley in June.

In the south of Manhattan, more than five percent of rental apartments are now vacant – something like this has not happened in ten years. But the current exodus is also an opportunity for the city to renew itself, as is so often the case, says real estate agent Stanton. “Should prices fall in New York City, it would be a good opportunity for young people to move in there.”

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