The sun setting over the city. Photo by Olivia Bensimon
The sun setting over the city. Photo by Olivia Bensimon
New York City was on track to beat its record in 2020. Sixty six million tourists visited in 2019. The city expected another two million visitors in 2020 – and then the pandemic struck. With everything shut down, including restaurants, cultural centers, Broadway; and people generally reticent to taking the subway… It was time to revamp.
Last month, Mayor Bill de Blasio presented his $98.6 billion “Recovery Budget” for the Fiscal Year 2022, the largest budget in the city’s history, with its aim to drive the city’s comeback after being decimated by the pandemic. “With the Recovery Budget, New York City will emerge from this challenge stronger, fairer, cleaner, greener and safer than ever,” he announced on April 26th.
The budget outlines various sectors it would invest in to support New York City’s “comeback” by investing in working families and driving the city’s economic growth. Despite the “long road to recovery,” this is the city’s opportunity to revamp the way it shows itself to tourists. The Center for Urban Futures (CUF) outlined six policy initiatives that the city could follow “to help support struggling businesses and institutions in the tourism economy today, while getting the sector firmly on the path to long-term recovery.”
Their initiatives, along with budget proposals for FY2022 would help reinvigorate the city’s image to attract tourists. CUF proposes: “Greatly expand efforts to turn out New Yorkers to become tourists in their own city. Create discount and incentive programs to spur local tourism. Reactivate Midtown and other destination commercial districts. Unite all of New York State through a coordinated marketing campaign. Fund NYC & Company to broadcast New York’s success story and change the narrative. Enlist NYC’s creatives to promote NYC.”
De Blasio proposed $25 million to “launch Largest Tourism Campaign in History with NYC&Co,” over $12 million to expand Open Streets and outdoor dining, and $7 million to expand bike lanes. In its 2020 annual report, NYC & Company – a quasi-agency/private company tasked with marketing the city to tourists – asserted that the way to bring back tourists to New York City was to start by engaging with New Yorkers and show them what the city has to offer.
“Our initial focus on hyperlocal is extremely important because, as we learned following the financial crisis of 2008, getting New Yorkers to spend in their city through staycations and other promotions was a key part of our success,” the report says. “Simply put: Once New Yorkers actively engage with their city again, so too will the nation and the world.”
If Twitter was ever an indicator… New Yorkers are engaging with the various ways the city has opened up its roads to its residents. People want to get married on the Open Street on Vanderbilt Ave in Prospect Heights. Between April and November 2020, more than double the number of New Yorkers were crossing the East River bridges by bike compared to the same period in 2019.
As the trees fill with leaves, as the weather gets warmer, the appeal is the outdoors. This project focuses specifically on initiatives that take place or advantage of being outside. Use the filter drop down below to look at how tourism will change as the city recovers through the lens of transportation, food, and culture. Click on the annotations on the maps for details.
If not by car or subway… Click the large dots to learn more.
Map by Olivia Bensimon
As the city was reopening last summer, more New Yorkers took to the streets by bike. Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit organization that advocates giving back the streets to the people, reported that more than double the number of bikers had crossed the East River bridges by bike. In a report released earlier this year, TA argues that if the city repurposed 25% of car space, future city leaders could create acres worth of public space which could “stimulate spending, attract and retain residents and jobs, and encourage tourism.”
Predictably, as the city shut down last year, ferry ridership in the city dropped. Between April and June 2020, usually peak ridership during warmer months, Bloomberg reported an average of 6,177 passengers on an average weekend day compared to 27,000 riders during the same period in 2019. But in February, THE CITY reported that the Economic Development Corporation had agreed to increase its support of the ferry systems to $64 billion. This year, NYC Ferry is set to expand services to Coney Island and to the West Side – the hope is to encourage more people to use the ferry to make those long distance trips.
In late April 2021, City Council approved making Open Streets a permanent program in New York City. In a Siena College Research Institute poll commissioned by Transportation Alternatives, 63% of registered New York City voters polled supported expanding the Open Streets program. Currently, the city has 67 miles of Open Streets, and the hope is to add more. The TA report argues that with more pedestrian space, tourists will patronize local businesses. Who doesn’t love drinking a cocktail in the middle of a revamped roadway?
Outdoor performances and the arts. Click the large dots to learn more.
Map by Olivia Bensimon
Last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a $25 million arts and culture revitalization program called “City Artist Corps,” inspired by FDR’s Federal Arts Project during the Great Depression. A report from the City Comptroller’s office earlier this year said that about two thirds of all city arts, entertainment and culture jobs were lost during the pandemic, according to Gothamist. The program will employ around 1,500 artists, and commission them for projects citywide, with the goal of “beautifying” the city for its “comeback.” Locations, details, etc. are set to be announced in the coming weeks, according to Artnet News.
As Jane Jacobs writes in The Life and Death of Great American Cities, “The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any one place is always replete with new improvisations.” Since last spring, city streets, parks, and empty parking lots have turned into stages for performers to sing, act, dance, and New Yorkers are loving it. The city has already launched various initiatives to help struggling artists, like “NY PopsUp” and the Open Culture Program which allows artists of all sorts perform on designated Open Streets. With Broadway only set to reopen in September, most of the summer performances will keep taking place outdoors .
The city, food, business, and the future. Click the large dots to learn more.
Map by Olivia Bensimon
Just last week, I willingly took a seat at a table next to a small pile of trash. It was a perfect spring day and I wanted to be outdoors (regardless, I am not ready to be indoors). Throughout a year of challenges, outdoor dining became a lifeline for restaurants, and it’s now permanent. New York City joins many European cities in allowing diners to eat outdoors – and many places have made their outdoor set up innovative and beautiful.
Jonathan Bowles, the executive director of the Center for an Urban Future, told the New York Times that business districts outside Manhattan were doing better, because people working from home are spending more time in their neighborhoods and shopping locally compared to before the pandemic. With Governor Cuomo easing the pandemic restrictions on larger gatherings, night markets are able to open and entertain. With the relaunch of the Bronx Night Market, and the expansion of the one in Queens, city pols etc. hope to encourage tourists to visit cultural centers across the city.