As tourism brightens, Times Square hopes to regain luster
NEW YORK » David Cohen has been yearning for a return to the days when business boomed at his family’s souvenir shop in Times Square.
While tourists have begun returning, foot traffic into Grand Slam souvenirs is still not what it was before the coronavirus pandemic, when hordes of global visitors crowded under the canopy of electric billboards just outside his door.
But the return of foreign tourists to a place popularly called the crossroads of the world may help hasten recovery for businesses like his — many of them momand-pop shops — that collectively employ thousands of people and serve as one of New York City’s most important economic engines.
“We welcome them back with open arms,” Cohen said after the U.S. began allowing vaccinated international travelers into the country this month. “We’ve got a long way to go.”
Times Square has long stood as an emblem of New York’s hustle and bustle. But as Broadway theaters shut their doors and the city became an early epicenter of the global pandemic, 9 in 10 businesses in the area closed, according to a district civic group, The Times Square Alliance.
“We really were were a symbol to the world of the pandemic and the pause,” said Tom Harris, the alliance’s president.
Three-fourths of area businesses have since reopened, bit by bit, as Broadway shows began reopening to vaccinated-only audiences.
Among those hopefully restarting are businesses that don’t cater directly to tourists, but are part of the city’s entertainment ecosystem.
Sam Vasili’s Shoe Repair reopened last month across 51st Street from the Gershwin Theater, where it had operated for three decades before a long pandemic closure.
Owner Sam Smolyar was all grins on a recent afternoon as he shared the news that a Broadway production set to reopen nearby had requisitioned his help. For years, he helped outfit the Rockettes with custom-fitted boots. “We rely on the theater, and on the businesses around here,” he said.
He hopes more people buying tickets on Broadway will mean busier times.
“It starts to get better,” said Vasili, who employs three people at the shop.
Just before the COVID-19 outbreak, New York City was posting record numbers of tourists — 66.6 million in 2019, including 13.5 million from outside the U.S. Then the pandemic prompted severe restrictions on foreign travel.
A marketing blitz has been underway for months to remind Americans that New York City is again open for business and ready for the visiting masses. Now the city is expanding its outreach to those outside the U.S., who are especially coveted because they spend more time and more money during their visits.
While domestic travel accounted for 80% of visitors, foreign tourists account for about half of the city’s tourism spending and typically represent half of all hotel bookings.
Harris of the Times Square Alliance said the district is already rebounding. Since May, he said, the number of pedestrians counted in some places has grown from 150,000 per day to as many as 250,000 — still far below the roughly 365,000 people who tramped through the grid of streets before the pandemic.
“Between the return of Broadway, the return of international tourists,” Harris said, “we really expect to be at those pre-pandemic numbers sooner than most people predict.”
Those returning visitors included people like Marina Galan, who soaked in Times Square from the bleachers under a cascade of lights. She and her friends flew to New York from Madrid on the first day U.S. borders opened to vaccinated tourists.
“When you come back to New York, this is what you want to see,” she said. “Everything is kind of back to normal.”
Her friend Pablo Leon said he was eager to return. The group took a risk last March when they bought tickets for the Broadway musical Hadestown, despite being uncertain about when they’d be allowed to travel to the United States.
“That was the true gamble because we bought the tickets for tonight, without any knowledge if we were going to be able to come here,” Leon said.