A Biz Leader’s Plea: Let’s Reopen Gotham

Last week, investor and author David Bahnsen, managing partner of the Bahnsen Group, sent a letter to 26 prominent business leaders — including JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon and Mike Bloomberg — urging them to resist the political and corporate push for a Big Apple under semi-permanent lockdown. The following is an excerpt:

ESTEEMED Business Leaders — I write to you today as one who loves New York City, as one who loves the United States of America, to plead with you to accelerate the return date of your New York office personnel. Before I even type the next sentence, I will immediately dispel the obvious and instinctive reply I fully expect: I understand that safety of your employees is your top concern, and there is no part of this letter remotely suggesting anything irresponsible, unsafe or uninformed by appropriate medical considerations.

I write, rather, taking for granted that in your capacity as a business leader and public figure, you would not endanger your valued employees, and that your organization’s vast resources are being deployed toward ensuring effective risk mitigation, allowing for a safe and hygienic environment for your employees and vendors.

And yet beyond that foundational concern, I am growing increasingly concerned by a consensus favoring perpetual delays and a cavalier spirit toward returning personnel to the office.

I understand how the COVID-19 moment has allowed many companies, mine included, to see in reallife simulation how remote capabilities can work, and I further understand that for many of your companies, those results may have been surprisingly satisfactory.

I am neither qualified to nor interested in commenting on the specific pragmatic ramifications of your company’s work operations. My agenda is not your company’s working efficiencies, something you are exponentially more suited to understand than I or anyone else is.

Rather, my concern is the downstream impact that will result from the city not being open for business — with people not coming to work, with New York no longer being New York again.

Who is captured in this downstream impact I refer to? The dry cleaners no longer having men and women drop off their suits for weekly press. The shoe shiners no longer seeing men sit in their chairs for a morning shine. The deli workers without people on a lunch break to order a sandwich. The coffee-shop folks not getting tips to brew up iced coffee. The busboys not getting shifts because restaurants won’t open without businesses reopened. The bartenders not serving an evening drink before someone jumps on a train back to Connecticut out of Grand Central.

This is what I refer to — not merely the effects on our whitecollar jobs and industries, but the withering of the invisible hand of the New York economy, which harms those who have been disproportionately damaged by the crisis.

The regulatory environment and “new normal” of reopening realities certainly have a lot to do with this. New York’s data points right now are, by the grace of God, a sight to behold. Cases have collapsed. Mortalities

are running as low as some small towns in Wyoming.

Simply put: The city is ready for a new post-COVID life. But if our great businesses push out further and further the time that they reaccommodate their employees coming back to work, the impact is not just in your office and in your company. The community of New York needs your people back, too. Not in January 2021, but in September 2020. Labor Day, not New Year’s Day, please.

After the tragedy of 9/11, the response of the toughest city on earth to those who wished us harm was not to cower from our skyscrapers, but to build another one. It was actually to build many, many more, as the skyline of the city can attest. It was bold, it sent a message and it was tough — New York tough. My letter today is to ask you and the companies you lead to set the example for New York tough yet again.

COVID bent us, but it didn’t break us. The normalcy of a postCOVID life requires our buildings being filled again. It’s the New York way. Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to what the future will be for the greatest city on earth.

After 9/11, our response wasn’t to cower from skyscrapers, but to build another one. It was actually to build many, many more.