After 14 months of restrictions, New Yorkers can now enjoy a city where most of the restrictions have been lifted. But true to their prudence since the start of the pandemic, many still hesitate to party and reconnect with their social life “before”.
Yesenia Herra, 33, organizer of dinners and parties for tourists and who “loves to go out”, last weekend had her first party since March 2020, inviting around twenty members of her family and friends to celebrate the first anniversary of his daughter.
For the “safety” of her guests, “almost all” fully vaccinated, she organized it outside in Central Park, complete with folding tables and chairs, balloons hanging from trees, and enough to feed a regiment.
“I had not done + baby shower + (party giving gifts for the future baby), or celebrated our return from motherhood,” she told AFP. “This is my first celebration for her, she might not remember it, but I wanted her to know it happened.”
While his guests seemed delighted to be together, many pointed out that they did not want to invite people to their homes yet – except very close ones who they would be sure have been immunized.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever be completely comfortable with it again (…), not immediately, anyway,” said Merry Mathes, 58 years old.
Further in the park, Marcus, 25, a vaccinated lawyer, was partying with a dozen friends, with a synth and appointed DJ.
He has only been to two parties since March 2020, outdoors: one, limited to 10 people, for his best friend’s wedding, the other in Central Park, in early May.
“I’m not ready for indoor parties, maybe in the fall?” He says.
– “What if the epidemic started again?”
“Business is just starting to pick up,” says Lemuel Rodrigues, manager of a Manhattan gift and party store. “Most people (who have a party) organize it at home, in very small groups, or in a park.”
Even if his shop is idling, he praises the persistent caution of his customers: many vaccinated New Yorkers – 60% of the adult population have received at least one dose of the vaccine – continue to wear a mask in the street, even if the obligation was lifted at the end of April.
“A lot of people want to get back to normal very quickly. But here we are more reluctant. Can you imagine, if the epidemic were to start again? New York is too big a city, we can’t let that happen.”
Such caution – while bars and restaurants can be running at full speed since Wednesday – does the business of Amanda Orso, who organizes parties on a human scale, usually at home.
In recent weeks, she has been asked to throw several small parties, by people keen to celebrate “just being vaccinated” – with nods to the pandemic, like drinks served in syringes.
Laurence Anthony, 36, speaker, was one of the first, in April, to request his services: after more than a year of abstinence, he invited 10 people, all immune, to brunch in his Harlem apartment , to celebrate the vaccination and its recent move.
“It was an opportunity to reflect” on the pandemic and “the importance of human contact,” he said.
In mid-May, he went to an indoor party bringing together about fifty people, “the first event (since the pandemic) where I went without knowing the majority of people”.
The event was so close to a “normal”, pre-pandemic evening, that a week later, “everyone was still talking about it,” he said.
So when will the big gala evenings, which make New York one of the hotspots of the jet set, return?
According to Marcy Blum, who organizes parties and weddings for a wealthy clientele, if the large reception venues will not reopen before September, the reservation books are already full until April 2022.
The phone started ringing a month ago, “when it became clear that everyone would have access to the vaccine,” she says.
“Everyone comes out of the woods at the same time (…) But people remain cautious (…), for June, July, everyone still wants to be outside or in a tent, no one wants to go to a reception hall”.
The Met Gala, one of the most popular social gatherings in the world, should symbolize this recovery: traditionally in May, canceled in 2020, it is scheduled for September 13, 2021.
Source: AFP
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