When my wife and I moved back to New York after a decade in New Orleans, she made me promise that I wouldn’t spend the first few months complaining about how much things had changed in our absence. Truth be told, that’s not entirely accurate: I could complain all I wanted, just not to her. But I would argue that bitching about the decline of New York—the perpetually occurring death of it—is a civic right reserved for all residents, even recent returnees. The city changes constantly. Stay here long enough and eventually huge chunks of your past will be erased. 

We’re now a few months in, and it’s clear that the pandemic accelerated a lot of change. My hackles were raised in scornful anticipation, but somewhat shockingly, I don’t hate everything! Of course I hate a few things, but I was pleasantly surprised by the number of new things that seem like clear improvements. Lest I get accused of getting soft in my old age, I will pair some of those bright spots with related gripes, because … well, I live in New York again. (We can’t like everything.) A proviso: This list is a bit idiosyncratic and Upper East Side–centric (where I live) and doesn’t include the obvious horrors (Hudson Yards, the odious Vessel, the death of Eisenberg’s) and clear triumphs (Moynihan Train Hall, the Second Avenue subway) that everyone has already commented on. 

HATE 

The Retail Apocalypse  The decline of retail predates the pandemic and came in stages, like the extended illness and eventual death of a friend. First, we experienced the colonization of spaces by chain drug stores, big banks, more drug stores, more banks. Occasionally, a Starbucks might magically appear. Then new buildings, with larger floor plates and big notes, signed long-term leases … for more banks, drug stores, maybe an occasional cell phone provider. It got so bad, I actually mourned the death of a Barnes & Noble superstore! Now comes the rise of Jeff Bozos, the ubiquitous Amazon vans prowling the streets, coupled with the shattering blow of the pandemic. Who knows what this will eventually mean for shopping? They can’t all be restaurants, can they? 

LOVE 

Outdoor Dining  This is a Covid success story, born of desperation and DIY genius. I love the dining stalls and hope they become a permanent part of the city. Anytime anyone even suggests that we eventually do away with them, I remind detractors of what they replaced: parked cars. Even though some of these stalls are fairly ramshackle and even ugly, a few are quite elegant, and all of them contribute to the social energy of the street, something that was tragically missing during the pandemic and is now essential to reviving the wounded streetscape. 

LOVE 

Expanded Bike Lanes and Bike Sharing  Obviously the expanded bike lanes and bike share programs are great developments, but the experience of using them in Manhattan is an uneven one. Downtown, where the streets are narrower, the experience occasionally approaches what I would call the Copenhagen Ideal: calmed vehicular traffic sharing the road with bicyclists and pedestrians. Uptown, especially on the Upper East Side, internal-combustion engines still rule. Because First Avenue feeds traffic onto the RFK Bridge and Second Avenue does the same for the 59th Street Bridge, the busy bike lanes there coexist with four lanes of roaring traffic. Although they do get you from point A to point B, it is not a pleasant experience. 

HATE 

Motorized Bikes  I am not against these things, even the gas-powered delivery bikes. They clearly have an emerging place in the economy of New York. But many of these bikes travel at excessive speeds, occasionally in the wrong direction. I don’t favor banning them—too many people earn a living on them—but these cyclists need to adhere to an enforced speed limit. And, in the future, the city should create a dedicated delivery lane (on the opposite side of the street, perhaps), which would accomplish two goals: improve the biking experience for everyone else, and eliminate another lane of vehicular traffic. A win-win. 

LOVE 

Incidental Walking  During the pandemic I stopped going to the gym and running on the treadmill and instead began taking long walks in New Orleans’ Audubon Park. A decent day, according to my cell phone step-counter, would be about 3 miles. In New York now, on a typical day of relative rest, I walk about 2.5 miles just going about my daily activities. (Add a mile if you have a dog.) If I throw in a walk for exercise, I can travel anywhere from 5 to 8 miles. There’s a reason why New Yorkers are America’s least-fat citizens, with lower obesity rates than the national average.

HATE 

Ambient Noise  When you live in New York for a long period of time, you learn to tune out the insane levels of noise here. It’s like living next to train tracks. The first time I returned to New York after moving away, I went out to lunch in midtown with a few colleagues. When I stepped outside, I was met with a wall of street noise that hit me like a physical object. “Oh, my god!” I said. They turned to me, worried. “It’s so loud!” I screamed over the traffic. “Don’t you hear it?” Apparently not, or not anymore: they shrugged. I am still working on reacquiring that innate New Yorker’s ability to tune out the sonic madness. 

LOVE 

The Overgrown Central Park Reservoir  One of my favorite places in New York City is the Central Park Reservoir. I have probably run around this manmade lake more than 3,000 times. The track is elevated and affords spectacular views of the city in all directions, and yet it’s also lush and tree-lined and feels a bit removed. Due to a lack of park maintenance during the pandemic, the track is now dense, overgrown, unkempt, chaotic-looking. It’s very reminiscent of the 1970s—my youth, when New York was definitely dying. At the risk of indulging in nostalgia (a tedious exercise; who cares how much I paid for a two-bedroom apartment in the East Village in 1975?), I like the park in its wild state! 

HATE 

The Supertalls  The superskinny supertalls sit empty most of the time. They’re essentially money-laundering vehicles for awful people and, given their low occupancies and heavy carbon footprints, inherently unsustainable. None of these issues concern me during my walks around the reservoir. I find them problematic as architectural objects. They appear oddly stunted and feel simultaneously grandiose and banal. They don’t soar to the heavens, as extremely tall buildings often do, but squat to oblivion. When we look back—if we’re accorded the privilege of doing so—the supertalls will be fitting symbols of our cynical era. 

HATE 

Holes in the Urban Fabric  The pandemic-induced real estate slump has created a relatively new phenomenon on the Upper East Side: vacant lots. This is nothing new for other neighborhoods, but empty plots haven’t been seen here since the late 1980s. This one, located at 78th Street and First Avenue, predates the pandemic and is crawling with saplings. I’ve come to think of it as a kind of art installation, a metaphor. Leave nature alone, the site seems to imply, and it will thrive in spite of us. 

LOVE 

Temporary Glimpses of the Buried City  There is an upside to all of this empty space. The holes in the cityscape have created new vistas. I live around the corner from a block-long empty lot. The gaping hole there has revealed, for the first time in at least 80 years, the stained-glass windows of St. Monica’s Church, a glorious structure on 79th Street that for decades abutted a row of brownstones lining First Avenue. When the market thaws and the banks relent, a 50- or 60-story tower will surely take its clumsy place in the urban firmament. In the meantime, at dusk, I can look across the avenue, always a spewing rumble of trucks and cars, watch the setting sun hit the glittering stained-glass windows, and just barely make out the outlines of a biblical story thousands of years old. I will miss it when it’s gone, as it surely will be.

Restaurant photo by Maria Frank. All others by the author.