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The Coronavirus Comes for My Hometown

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Those photos of famous public spaces in Paris or Manhattan in the age of corona-lockdown convey an eerie absence. The eyes search the frame for the people who aren’t there.The empty Main Street of my hometown will never be mistaken for the Tuileries or Times Square. Outside the new Vietnamese restaurant, which opened just before the coronavirus swept all the potential customers from the sidewalks, the “Grand Opening” banner dangles with the bygone hopes of February. A delivery man is banging on the locked window of one of the two local pizza joints. No answer.Here in Nyack, an old Hudson River village about 20 miles above the northern tip of New York City, the vacant storefronts are growing ominous. When the coast is clear, Times Square, with its global brands and distracting neon, will bustle back to life. Will the barber shop?“I can tell you that our downtown is devastated,” says Roger Cohen, president of the Nyack Chamber of Commerce. Most small businesses, he says, especially restaurants, have only enough cash to keep going for about 25 days.Heading east, Main Street runs about eight-tenths of a mile downhill. Before it meets the river, Main crosses Broadway. These two commercial arteries host more than 100 small businesses, including a yoga studio and, improbably, a jazz club, as well as restaurants and retail stores. Despite its proximity to the city, the commute from Nyack is inconvenient, which has fostered a community keyed to New York’s off hours. There are surely more actors and musicians in town than investment bankers.Including South Nyack and Upper Nyack, about 12,500 people live here, which means the ample downtown requires visitors from other towns to keep it thriving. Crisis mode is not unfamiliar. In 1998, one of the largest malls in the country opened a couple miles to the west. Local merchants panicked. Then came the sprawling tentacles of Amazon. Then the financial crisis of 2008, leaving empty storefronts and a long, painful recession in its wake. Now Covid-19.Maria Luisa Whittingham has been retailing clothes and small household items here for three decades. It’s a tricky business: Her two stores have to appeal to affluent shoppers who know their way around Manhattan. She has succeeded in building a local institution on Broadway with a distinct identity.“In my 33 years as a retailer in downtown Nyack, I’ve experienced several financial crises and as serious as they have been (most of us small businesses never fully recovered from the 2007-2008 market crash), they now seem minor compared to this Covid-19 pandemic,” she says by email.Whittington has applied for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan, a component of the coronavirus relief package passed by Congress. It provides up to $10,000 to a small business and, despite its name, doesn’t have to be repaid.It takes commitment and coordination to keep small businesses thriving, Whittington says. “Maria Luisa Boutique will make it through this, in a new way,” she says. “Exactly what that new way will be — I’m not completely clear on that yet.”Tom...

(Bloomberg Opinion) — Those photos of famous public spaces in Paris or Manhattan in the age of corona-lockdown convey an eerie absence. The eyes search the frame for the people who aren’t there.

The empty Main Street of my hometown will never be mistaken for the Tuileries or Times Square. Outside the new Vietnamese restaurant, which opened just before the coronavirus swept all the potential customers from the sidewalks, the “Grand Opening” banner dangles with the bygone hopes of February. A delivery man is banging on the locked window of one of the two local pizza joints. No answer.

Here in Nyack, an old Hudson River village about 20 miles above the northern tip of New York City, the vacant storefronts are growing ominous. When the coast is clear, Times Square, with its global brands and distracting neon, will bustle back to life. Will the barber shop?

“I can tell you that our downtown is devastated,” says Roger Cohen, president of the Nyack Chamber of Commerce. Most small businesses, he says, especially restaurants, have only enough cash to keep going for about 25 days.

Heading east, Main Street runs about eight-tenths of a mile downhill. Before it meets the river, Main crosses Broadway. These two commercial arteries host more than 100 small businesses, including a yoga studio and, improbably, a jazz club, as well as restaurants and retail stores. Despite its proximity to the city, the commute from Nyack is inconvenient, which has fostered a community keyed to New York’s off hours. There are surely more actors and musicians in town than investment bankers.

Including South Nyack and Upper Nyack, about 12,500 people live here, which means the ample downtown requires visitors from other towns to keep it thriving. Crisis mode is not unfamiliar. In 1998, one of the largest malls in the country opened a couple miles to the west. Local merchants panicked. Then came the sprawling tentacles of Amazon. Then the financial crisis of 2008, leaving empty storefronts and a long, painful recession in its wake. Now Covid-19.

Maria Luisa Whittingham has been retailing clothes and small household items here for three decades. It’s a tricky business: Her two stores have to appeal to affluent shoppers who know their way around Manhattan. She has succeeded in building a local institution on Broadway with a distinct identity.

“In my 33 years as a retailer in downtown Nyack, I’ve experienced several financial crises and as serious as they have been (most of us small businesses never fully recovered from the 2007-2008 market crash), they now seem minor compared to this Covid-19 pandemic,” she says by email.

Whittington has applied for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan, a component of the coronavirus relief package passed by Congress. It provides up to $10,000 to a small business and, despite its name, doesn’t have to be repaid.

It takes commitment and coordination to keep small businesses thriving, Whittington says. “Maria Luisa Boutique will make it through this, in a new way,” she says. “Exactly what that new way will be — I’m not completely clear on that yet.”

Tom Lynch, who owns a Mexican restaurant on Main, has applied for both the EIDL and the Paycheck Protection Program, which the Small Business Administration provides to cover expenses, including keeping employees on payroll. The loan is forgiven if employees remain on the payroll for eight weeks.

“I’m trying to remain positive,” Lynch emails. “But losing what could be 3 months of our prime season can truly be devastating. I think landlords will have to be willing to renegotiate leases with their tenants in order for businesses to remain open.”

Nyack depends on a knot of super citizens who keep community ties strong. The local hospital is strained by Covid-19 patients and the same lack of protective gear that afflicts larger hospitals. People have started a temporary venture called Nyack Nourishes to purchase takeout meals from Nyack restaurants and provide them to hospital staff and responders — a two-fer. A network of volunteers has been sewing masks for hospital personnel.

In addition, a former mayor has helped to organize the village’s musical talent, both amateur and professional, to play across the street from the hospital during shift changes. It’s the sort of action that reinforces bonds and local pride.

It’s also indicative of the kind of emotional and civic investments necessary to keep a village core alive. With Amazon forever at your doorstep, shopping locally is more an expression of community solidarity than a blandly rational consumer choice. To survive the pandemic, small-town commercial districts will need both savvy merchants attuned to local tastes and committed residents attuned to civic obligations. Without that, the tragedy of the commons beckons.

At the national level, Covid-19 is providing ample openings for demagogy and division. To keep small commercial centers afloat will require the opposite: Local investments that transcend politics and occasionally defy narrow self-interest. Here on the banks of the Hudson, we’ll sink or swim together.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Francis Wilkinson writes editorials on politics and U.S. domestic policy for Bloomberg Opinion. He was executive editor of the Week. He was previously a writer for Rolling Stone, a communications consultant and a political media strategist.

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