Tag Archives: New York

Rebuilt after 9/11, World Trade Center threatened anew by coronavirus

By Daniel Trotta and Gabriella Borter

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As the ruins of New York’s World Trade Center smoldered following the September 11 attacks of 2001, skeptics doubted it could ever rise again.

Now, as the 19th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the grand vision set forth after its destruction has largely been realized. But the rebuilt World Trade Center complex is under threat anew – this time, from a microscopic virus.

“People are much more worried about someone coughing on them than someone blowing up a building,” said Vishal Garg, chief executive of mortgage refinance startup Better.com, headquartered at 7 World Trade Center adjacent to the site known as Ground Zero.

After the Twin Towers and surrounding buildings were destroyed by al Qaeda hijackers, killing 2,753 of the nearly 3,000 people who died that day, the economy of lower Manhattan was devastated.

But a plan was born, and a lengthy metamorphosis turned the disaster zone into a giant pit, then a walled-off construction site, and finally, some $25 billion later, a tourist attraction and business center with three skyscrapers, a transportation hub, a museum and a memorial.

The coronavirus pandemic has stalled its completion, with a performing arts center under construction and a fourth and final skyscraper planned. Six months after New York City began shutting down due to COVID-19, the World Trade Center and the once-bustling Financial District are now eerily devoid of crowds.

“It’s pretty melancholy. A bit gloomy,” said James Busse, a retail stock broker taking a cigarette break nearby.

Ground Zero became both a solemn memorial and a leisure destination. Choked-up visitors to the 9/11 museum or memorial could step onto an esplanade of children eating ice cream or out-of-town visitors admiring the glass-sheathed towers.

One World Trade Center, America’s tallest building at 1,776 feet (541 meters), was built with a bomb-resistant base, as the old World Trade Center had been attacked in a truck bombing in 1993.

The vision laid out in Daniel Libeskind’s 2003 master plan drove a renaissance that has diversified the local economy, previously reliant on finance.

The public and private sectors have invested some $25 billion in reconstruction, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the land.

“Everybody coming to New York wants to come to Ground Zero,” Libeskind said in an interview. “It is the center of New York. It is the great public space.”

At its heart are two reflecting pools designed by Michael Arad, marking the footprints of where the Twin Towers once stood, with a pair of four-sided waterfalls draining into an abyss. The names of the victims are etched into its bronze borders.

Pre-pandemic, hundreds of visitors would gather there. But on a recent afternoon a family from Wichita, Kansas, were the only people at the south tower pool.

TWIN TOWER NOSTALGIA

Nostalgia over the Twin Towers grew after they were destroyed along with so many innocent lives, but they were unloved in their time.

Completed in the 1970’s, the World Trade Center replaced a neighborhood known as Radio Row with an oversized block containing the Twin Towers and little else. The site was frequently called a “windswept plaza.”

“The problem with the World Trade Center is that it never really was that good,” said Carl Weisbrod, a former city planning official who worked on the redevelopment of the new site. “What’s emerged is a central business district that is now a model for the 21st Century as opposed to a sort of a historical artifact of the 20th Century.”

Planning the new site stirred public emotions associated with the attack on the United States, the loss of life and fears of working in tall buildings again.

Critics say the end result still lacks affordable housing and lament the absence of a direct rail link to major regional airports. Architectural critics have called One World Trade Center lackluster.

But there is agreement that, considering all the interests and complexities, it works.

“They did a really wonderful job of knitting it back in the city, but still honoring that sacred site,” said Leslie Koch, president of the complex’s Performing Arts Center.

THE MOVERS ARE HERE

In New York’s vertigo-inducing real estate market, prices rarely drop except after events like 9/11 or a recession, and prices are falling again now.

Downtown Manhattan rents are down 1.4% through July, the largest annualized fall since 2010, said Nancy Wu, an economist with the real estate database StreetEasy.

As of 2019, the neighborhood’s rental market was the city’s fastest-growing. But the inventory of available apartments rose 80 percent this July from a year earlier, Wu said.

Guy Khan,  director of banking at a financial services company, said the downturn was apparent around his home near City Hall, with chain stores and mom-and-pops closing and neighbors fleeing for the suburbs.

“You see moving trucks every day,” he said.

Developer Larry Silverstein acquired a 99-year lease on the Twin Towers from the Port Authority for $3.2 billion just six weeks before 9/11. He has spent the past 19 years rebuilding.

In 2015, Silverstein forecast the entire site would be rebuilt by 2020, but that changed after the planned anchor tenant for 2 World Trade Center pulled out.

“Life is so unpredictable,” he said.

Silverstein and Libeskind, the master planner, see the pandemic as a temporary pause in downtown Manhattan’s ascendance, noting how predictions of decline after 9/11 proved wrong.

“People said New York will never come back. And it’s the same thing during the pandemic,” Libeskind said. “But I don’t believe it. New York is too resilient,” .

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta and Gabriella Borter; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Dan Grebler)

COVID-19 cases rise in U.S. Midwest and Northeast, deaths fall for third week

(Reuters) – Several states in the U.S. Midwest and Northeast have seen new COVID-19 cases increase for two weeks in a row, though nationally both new infections and deaths last week remained on a downward trend, a Reuters analysis showed.

The United States reported more than 287,000 new cases in the week ended Sept. 6, down 1.4% from the previous week and marking the seventh straight week of declines. More than 5,800 people died from COVID-19 last week, the third week in a row that the death rate has fallen.

Nevertheless, 17 states have seen cases rise for at least two weeks, according to the Reuters tally of state and county reports. They include Missouri, North Dakota and Wisconsin, where between 10% and 18% of people tested had the new coronavirus.

In the Northeast, Delaware, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York also reported increases in new cases for at least two weeks, though the positive test rate ranged from a low of 0.9% in New York to a high of 4.3% in Delaware — below the 5% level the World Health Organization considers concerning.

In some states, testing has increased as schools reopened. New York City, for instance, is testing 10% to 20% of students and staff every month. The University of Illinois is testing students twice a week.

Nationally, the share of all tests that came back positive for COVID-19 fell for a fifth week to 5.5%, well below a peak of nearly 9% in mid-July, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the outbreak.

The United States tested on average 741,000 people a day last week, up 5% from the prior week, but down from a peak in late July of over 800,000 people a day.

(Writing by Lisa Shumaker; Graphic by Chris Canipe; Editing by Tiffany Wu)

New York police probing motorist who drove into Times Square protesters

(Reuters) – New York City detectives are trying to determine whether a motorist who drove into a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters in Times Square on Thursday night committed a crime, the city’s police commissioner said.

Video of the incident, shared widely on social media, shows a black Ford Taurus driving through a group of marchers and people on bicycles in Times Square, a major tourist destination and entertainment center in Manhattan.

New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said on Friday that detectives were investigating the incident. He noted that no one has come forward with injuries and that two protesters had struck the window of the car.

“We have to interview both sides. We’d like to interview anyone that was in that vehicle, because we believe there was multiple people in that vehicle, and anyone that was on the scene,” Shea said on Fox 5’s Good Day New York.

The demonstrators had gathered to protest the death of Daniel Prude, a 41-year-old Black man, after an encounter with police in Rochester, New York, in March. The incident has become the latest flash point in a summer of civil unrest over racism and police brutality.

The Times Square protest followed similar demonstrations in Rochester this week triggered by the release of body camera footage of Prude’s arrest showing police officers putting a hood over his head – apparently to prevent his spit from possibly transmitting the novel coronavirus – as he knelt on the ground, handcuffed and naked.

Seven police officers were suspended on Thursday in connection with Prude’s arrest and death, which the medical examiner has ruled a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.” An autopsy also cited acute intoxication by phencyclidine, or the drug PCP, among additional contributing factors to his death, according to the New York Times.

Prude’s family has called for the arrest of the officers involved in the March 23 incident in the upstate New York city.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Dan Grebler)

New York pushes ahead with more reopenings as COVID-19 cases rise in U.S. Midwest

By Maria Caspani and Barbara Goldberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Governor Andrew Cuomo on Thursday announced more reopenings in New York state as new coronavirus infections remained low in what was once the U.S. hot spot of the pandemic.

Next Wednesday, New York City malls will be allowed to reopen at 50% capacity and casinos statewide can reopen at 25% capacity, Cuomo said.

“Thanks to the hard work of New Yorkers, we are at a point in our fight against this virus where we can safely reopen malls in New York City as long as they adhere to strict health and safety protocols,” Cuomo said. “Masks, enhanced air ventilation systems, and social distancing will be mandatory.”

The governor also waded into the hotly debated issue of indoor dining in New York City, saying during a conference call with reporters that the final decision rested with the state.

New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson came out on Wednesday in favor of allowing indoor dining in the city, which is home to a thriving restaurant industry that was battered by the pandemic.

“It’s time to allow indoor dining in New York City with reduced capacity and clear guidance to ensure social distancing and safety,” Johnson said in a statement.

Cuomo said he would like to see restaurants reopen for indoor dining in the city but that compliance and enforcement remained a major hurdle in doing so.

“We open restaurants, that’s going to complicate by the hundreds if not thousands the number of establishments that need to be monitored,” he said.

Indoor dining is allowed in New York state with the exception of New York City, where more than 300 restaurateurs recently filed a class-action lawsuit seeking $2 billion in damages, according to media reports.

On Wednesday, gyms in New York City opened for the first time in months. They must operate at 33% capacity, with floors rearranged so patrons can exercise more than 6 feet (1.8 m) apart.

SHIFTING TRENDS

New York has seen by far the most deaths from COVID-19 of any U.S. state, more than 32,000, but its rate of new infections has dropped to among the lowest in the country.

Nationally, new cases of coronavirus have fallen for six weeks in a row, but infections are surging in the Midwest. Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota are reporting the highest percentage of positive test results in the country – over 20% in each state.

Iowa, with a population of more than 3.1 million people, saw over 8,300 new cases last week, up 116%. That compared with about 4,400 new cases in New York state, which has more than 19.4 million residents, according to a Reuters analysis.

Cases also rose 27% last week in Minnesota and 34% in Indiana.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has told state officials to prepare to distribute a potential coronavirus vaccine as early as October, according to documents made public by the agency on Wednesday.

The vaccines would be given first to healthcare workers, national security personnel and nursing homes, the agency said in the documents.

(Reporting by Maria Caspani and Peter Szekely in New York and Barbara Goldberg in Maplewood, New Jersey; Additional reporting by Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Peter Cooney)

U.S. COVID-19 deaths exceed 180,000, cases continue to fall

By Lisa Shumaker

(Reuters) – U.S. deaths from the novel coronavirus topped 180,000 on Thursday after a surge of new cases in June and July, many of them in hotspots like California, Florida, and Texas.

There were some signs of an improving outlook. Last week, deaths fell 17% from the prior week and below an average of 1,000 a day for the first time in weeks, according to a Reuters analysis.

However, while U.S. metrics on cases, deaths, hospitalizations and test positivity rates were declining, health experts warned there could be another surge as schools reopen and colder weather forces more gatherings indoors.

This week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said people exposed to COVID-19 but not symptomatic may not need to be tested. This contradicted earlier guidance from the CDC, shocking doctors and politicians and prompting accusations that it may have been based not on sound science but on political pressure from the Trump administration.

The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut slammed the CDC’s move as “reckless” and “not based on science,” and said they will not change testing guidelines in their states.

“CDC and HHS have not shared their scientific rationale for this change in policy, which substitutes sound science-based public health guidance with the president’s misinformation,” they said in a joint statement. “Health experts recommend testing close contacts of individuals with COVID-19 to identify and prevent asymptomatic spread. This type of robust testing by our states has been a key factor in our success so far to flatten the curve in the tri-state area.”

On Wednesday, the top U.S. government infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci told CNN he was having surgery during discussion of the change and expressed worry about the CDC’s move.

U.S. confirmed cases are now over 5.8 million – the highest total in the world. The U.S. death toll is also the world’s highest.

On a per capita basis, the United States ranks 12th in the world for the number of deaths, with 54 deaths per 100,000 people, and tenth in the world for cases, with 1,774 cases per 100,000 residents, according to a Reuters analysis.

U.S. consumer confidence dropped in August to its lowest in more than six years, as households worried about the labor market and incomes, casting doubts on the sustainability of the economy’s recovery from the COVID-19 recession.

The ebb in confidence followed the expiration of a $600 weekly unemployment benefit supplement on July 31.

For weeks, Republicans and Democrats have been deadlocked over the size and shape of a fifth coronavirus-response bill, on top of the approximately $3 trillion already enacted into law.

(Reporting by Lisa Shumaker, additional reporting by Maria Caspani, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and David Gregorio)

New York gyms set to re-open to athletes, members shedding ‘quarantine 15’

By Aleksandra Michalska

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Before coronavirus shut down the United States, gym re-opening used to mean simply unlocking the front door and greeting the herds squeezed into spandex pants.

Now, as New York gyms gird to re-open as soon as Monday, exercise centers like Chelsea Piers Fitness in Manhattan are upgrading air filters to hospital grade, disinfecting sand on the beach volleyball court, spreading work-out equipment 6 feet apart, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

“Reopening is going to be intense. It’s going to be tough,” said Chelsea Piers trainer Oscar Herrera as preparations to re-open one of the largest gyms in New York City kicked into high gear.

While New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said gyms could reopen with restrictions as early as Monday, hopes of quickly reopening in New York City were dealt a setback by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said none would reopen before Sept. 2.

State restrictions include limiting admittance to one-third of capacity, temperature checks and wearing masks at all times. Gyms must maintain sign-in sheets to help contact tracers.

New York will join at least 43 states and Washington, D.C., in permitting gyms to reopen to some extent since the coronavirus pandemic forced shutdowns beginning in March, said Meredith Poppler, spokeswoman for the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, a nonprofit trade group.

Last year, 3 million part-time and full-time employees worked in as many as 50,000 health and fitness clubs in the United States, she said.

In New York City alone, some 2,111 gyms employ 86,551 workers.

“We estimate the industry lost $700 million per week during the height of the shutdown, and $7 billion lost through July 1,” Poppler said.

Tempers flared over gym shutdowns among those who regularly pump iron to boost health and happiness and shed gained weight, often called the “quarantine 15”. In Bellmawr, New Jersey, two owners of Atilis Gym were arrested last month for defying state shutdown orders and their business license was revoked.

At the enormous exercise center located on a Manhattan pier jutting into the Hudson River, Chelsea Piers member Faye Stenning, founder of Grit Coaching, said she was thrilled the gym would be reopening.

“Fitness is a huge part of people’s lives,” Stenning said.

(Reporting by Aleksandra Michalska; Writing by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Pompeo likely to visit U.N. on Thursday in pursuit of sanctions on Iran: diplomats

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will likely travel to New York on Thursday to seek a return of all U.N. sanctions on Iran and meet with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, diplomats and a U.N. official said.

To trigger a return of the sanctions, the United States will submit a complaint to the 15-member U.N. Security Council about Iran’s non-compliance with the nuclear deal, even though Washington quit the accord in 2018.

Pompeo will likely meet with Indonesia’s U.N. Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani, the Security Council president for August, to submit the complaint, diplomats said. Pompeo is also due to meet with Guterres, a U.N. official said.

In response to what the United States calls its “maximum pressure” campaign – a bid to get Iran to negotiate a new deal – Tehran has breached several central limits of the 2015 deal, including on its stock of enriched uranium.

But diplomats say the sanctions snapback process will be tough and messy as Russia, China and other countries on the Security Council challenge the legality of the U.S. move given that Washington itself is no longer complying with what Trump called the “worst deal ever” and has imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran.

The United States had threatened to use the sanctions snapback provision in the nuclear deal after it lost a bid in the Security Council on Friday to extend an arms embargo on Tehran, which is due to expire in October.

Once Washington submits its complaint about Iran to the Security Council, the body has 30 days to adopt a resolution to extend sanctions relief for Tehran or else the measures will automatically snapback. Any attempt to extend the sanctions relief would be vetoed by the United States.

The U.S. mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

New York Governor Cuomo says gyms can open as soon as August 24 with restrictions

(Reuters) – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday said that the state’s gyms could open as soon as Aug 24 at 33% capacity as long as they enforce strict health measures, including mask-wearing, to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Localities must inspect every gym before it opens or within two weeks of it opening to ensure compliance with health guidelines, Cuomo told a news conference.

As part of the state’s reopening plan for gyms, air ventilation systems must meet certain guidelines and people must sign in and out so that the gym maintains a ready contact-tracing list, Cuomo said.

“Localities can also determine whether or not the gym has classes inside it,” he said.

The planned reopening of gyms, indoor businesses where health experts say there is a greater risk of viral spread, comes as New York’s COVID-19 infection rate continues to decline below 1%. The state’s infection rate dropped to 0.71% on Sunday, the lowest since the start of the pandemic, Cuomo said.

Last week, the governor said that museums and cultural institutions in New York City could begin reopening at the end of the month at limited capacity.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

United Airlines bets on Florida, adding dozens of flights a day starting November

By David Shepardson

(Reuters) – United Airlines is adding up to 28 daily nonstop U.S. flights to Florida starting Nov. 6 as the Chicago-based airline bets on a rebound in leisure travelers heading to sunny skies.

The direct flights are from non United hub cities in Boston, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, New York/LaGuardia, Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio to four Florida destinations.

United said it is part of its “continuing strategy to aggressively, and opportunistically manage the impact of COVID-19 by increasing service to destinations where customers most want to fly.” But the carrier said it could reduce the number of flights if COVID-19 infections in Florida remain high.

New Florida flights will go to Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Orlando and Tampa.

Ankit Gupta, United’s vice president of domestic network planning, said the new flights represent “United’s largest expansion of point-to-point, non-hub flying and reflects our data driven approach to add capacity where customers are telling us they want to go.”

United can adjust up or down. Gupta said the added Florida flights could amount to more than 400,000 additional seats this winter season. He said many U.S. travelers are picking Florida instead of international destinations.

There are modest signs of improving air travel demand. The Transportation Security Administration said it screened 831,789 people on Sunday — the first time it screened more than 800,000 people since March 17. That is still down 70% over prior year figures.

Still, Florida has reported 542,792 coronavirus cases, the second most of any U.S. state behind only California, according to a Reuters tally, and more than 10% of all reported U.S. cases. If coronavirus cases in Florida remain high, “we will adjust our plans,” Gupta said.

Southwest Airlines chief executive Gary Kelly said at a Texas Tribune forum on Wednesday the airline is still trying to figure how many flights to offer as it works to reduce its $20 million a day losses. “It is pure guesswork at this point” Kelly said.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by David Gregorio)

Big U.S. companies form group to boost hiring of minorities in New York

By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) – Leaders from major U.S. companies, including banks and tech giants, have formed a group aimed at increasing the hiring of individuals from minority communities in New York.

The New York Jobs CEO Council, which counts chief executives from 27 firms among its members, aims to hire 100,000 people from low-income Black, Latino and Asian communities by 2030.

Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co, IBM CEO, Arvind Krishna, and Accenture CEO, Julie Sweet, will co-chair the group.

Other companies in the group include Amazon.com Inc., Google, Microsoft Corp. and Goldman Sachs, according to a press statement.

U.S. companies have been under increasing pressure to do more to provide minority groups with access to opportunities in the wake of anti-racism protests sparked by the death of a 46-year-old African-American man, George Floyd. Floyd died in May after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

The protests also came as minorities were disproportionately represented in coronavirus deaths, and lower-income communities in the United States were hit hard economically.

“Today’s economic crisis is exacerbating economic and racial divides and exposing systemic barriers to opportunity,” Dimon said in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, adding that often high-achieving people across New York were not given opportunities at the city’s top employers.

“Young people in low-income and minority communities feel this failure the most. Unless we actively work to close the gap, COVID-19 will make matters worse,” said the opinion piece which was co-authored with Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, the chancellor of the City University of New York.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)