NYT should visit New York City

The New York Times sent intrepid reporter David Gelles into deepest, darkest New England to report on the impact of the COVID-19 shutdown on Bristol, New Hampshire, a town of 3,300 people.

Gelles wrote of its Freudenberg factory, "which employs 350 people and makes bonded piston seals and other components for carmakers around the world, has an outsize impact on Bristol’s economy."

The plant is shuttered temporarily.

If the Times wants a story on a town so devastated by COVID-19 that it is unlikely to recover in 10 years, it should send David Gelles to New York City. Manhattan is a ghost town.



The streets are empty in a city of 8 million. This is not their fault. Yes, they could have acted sooner but this punishment does not fit the mistake.

In Bristol, Gelles wrote, "On April 3, the bad news started to spread around town. Freudenberg announced it was firing more than 100 people, shutting down its manufacturing of bonded piston seals and looking for additional buyouts. With car sales around the world essentially halted, automakers were suspending operations, and suppliers like Freudenberg were suddenly without revenue to pay workers in places like Bristol."

Tourism is its backup plan.

Well, you can see how good that is now. West Virginians feel their pain. Our chemical factories, steel mills, and aluminum plants were devastated by first Japan, then NAFTA, and now Red China.

The New York Times, however, supported all this and supports the shutdown because it believes another depression will wipe out capitalism in America. The Times overlooks the fact that it is a capitalist operation. No ads, no Times.

Let us look at New York.

The financial center of America is now the epicenter of COVID-19 of America. Wall Street is now telecommuting. Is there any reason to stop once the all-clear signal sounds?

The trillions of dollars invested in stocks and bonds can be bought and sold online. Why bother having a presence in Manhattan where the rents are high? Brokers are still needed, but they can relocate to less congested places that are less susceptible to Chinese viruses.

Other corporate headquarters also will re-locate. Why would a CEO risk his health to live there? The Times story on Bristol, New Hampshire, did not say whether anyone in the town had COVID-19. I suspect no one does. The story said many people have their second homes there. They may wish to make them their primary homes. 

Then there is Times Square and tourism. Visit New York City? Are you crazy? Why would anyone from Twin Oaks, Ohio, want to risk getting the next COVID-19 there?

This is not 9/11 where everyone rallied behind New York. Rudy Giuliani is not the mayor now, some communist named de Blasio is. New York was a victim in 2001. Now many Americans blame New York City for this shutdown.

Then there is real estate. Most residents are renters. Decades of rent control have led to a crazy quilt of uneven rents and subleases. A three-month rent holiday devastates not only landlords but people who are renting out their apartments. This is just the beginning of the woes of landlords as people flee. No money, no maintenance, and more people will leave.

Restaurants will feel the pain. People in New York have learned to cook. While the New York Times sent a reporter to Bristol, New Hampshire, the Los Angeles Times sent Stephen Battaglio to Manhattan.

Melissa Fleischut, president and chief executive of the New York State Restaurant Association, told the paper, "I think people were afraid after 9-11, but they weren’t afraid to go out and eat. As long as the pandemic continues to go on, I think the prospects for the majority of restaurants to come out on the other side is slimming. I think it is an altering event — a moment of change for the industry for sure."

Her job is to cheerlead her industry. She can't.

The Los Angeles Times noted, "Nearly half of restaurants in New York are closed even with the provision that they can serve food and alcoholic beverages for takeout and delivery."

I doubt they will re-open.

The demise of fine restaurants will affect the elitists. Do you really think a stuffed shirt like John Podhoretz will take his kids to McDonald's. Oh, they will keep their condos. There is no market for them anyway. But they will spend their money in Palm Beach, Palm Springs, and wherever else rich folks go.

The rest of the service industry also will suffer. Fewer offices means fewer maintenance crews. It also means fewer packages sent by FedEx and the like. The people who make the city run face layoffs.

Tax revenues will fall. City services will falter.

Manhattan will be like it was in the 1970s again, only there is no young Donald John Trump on the horizon to reverse the fleeing, and there is no Rudy Giuliani to fight the crime.

This is tragic. 8 million people will suffer for a far longer time than most people realize. If you think I get any joy out of this, you are wrong. I have seen economic devastation in West Virginia, and yes, it catches up with the local paper.

The New York Times is wrong. COVID-19 will not kill small-town America. Bristol will come back. Car factories will re-open. They will need Freudenberg parts.

No, COVID-19 is killing the biggest town in America.

The New York Times fancies itself as a world newspaper, but it is still a New York newspaper. Its local ads help pay the bills. The paper's managers should get their noses out of the air and realize that the biggest crisis is not the president they dislike but that their city is about to suffer an economic collapse that has not been seen by an American city since at least the depression and perhaps the civil war.

New York needs leadership. The Times could provide it. Instead of trying to save the world, it should try to save its city and itself.