Let us eat cake!
Cheers as Junior’s reopens in Times Square
Times are changing in Times Square.
Sen. Chuck Schumer stopped by the Junior’s Restaurant on 45th St. on Thursday to celebrate his beloved Brooklyn cheesecake empire’s return to Times Square after an almost 14-month coronavirus-related closure.
Though Junior’s original Brooklyn location returned last June for takeout, its hugely popular Times Square spot has sat dormant in the sleepy Theater District, which has been starved of tourists throughout the pandemic.
On Thursday, the cutting of the white ribbon with an oversized pair of orange scissors signaled Junior’s grand return to a Midtown that’s starting to shake off COVID and come back to life.
Schumer (D-N.Y.) happily declared that the city is going to “place a fork” in the pandemic.
“If there’s an iconic place on the planet that tells the toll of COVID, it’s Times Square,” Schumer told reporters. “All of Times Square is coming back. And we’re here to say now that in Times Square there is light, there is liveliness, and there is cheesecake.”
The Senate majority leader said he’s savored Junior’s since his parents hauled him as a tot from southern Brooklyn to Downtown Brooklyn to eat cheesecake. The family business opened in 1950 — the same year the lawmaker was born.
He said that his daughter relied on Junior’s for her wedding cake and that he wagers the restaurant’s treats when he bets on sports with his fellow lawmakers in Washington.
The Junior’s nestled into 45th St. quietly reopened on Monday, and its owner, Alan Rosen, said it has hosted about 400 customers per day this week, a fraction of its prepandemic level. A second Times Square location on 49th St. has yet to open.
He said a long road awaits, noting it will take global tourism and the return of theater to push sales up. But he added: “We’re looking forward to having a decent summer around here.”
As a surprise to many, Mayor de Blasio announced last week that the city will fully reopen by the start of July, promising that the “summer of New York City” is on the way.
But some have balked at the mayor’s aggressive timetable given coronavirus variants and vaccine hesitancy — and the Broadway shows that power Midtown’s economy are not scheduled to begin to reopen until September.
Still, neatly sliced desserts shimmering on white plates seemed to offer the promise of the postpandemic Big Apple on Thursday.
And Schumer soaked in a small, sweet victory over the virus that rattled New York last spring, dramatically altering life in the city.
As he sat at a table in Junior’s, he devoured a pastrami sandwich — electing to chase his cheesecake with meat — and drank a can of Dr. Brown’s diet cream soda. And then he offered a favorable forecast.
“New York will be back,” he said as orange and white balloons floated nearby. “I have every faith in New York.”