The dip in sales forced Jing Fong to shutter its dining room on March 10, a week earlier than mandated by New York State. At one point in mid-February 2020, Lam counted just 36 customers in a room that can legally hold 794. But even before any mandates to shut down indoor dining, the restaurant saw its daily check totals plummet, mainly a result of diminished tourism but also because of racism and xenophobia surrounding the coronavirus. Sales at Jing Fong are down 85 percent year-over-year, which translates to a loss of about $5 to 6 million, according to Lam. A satellite location on the Upper West Side, which opened in 2017, is unaffected by any of the changes.
The iconic dim sum restaurant, which opened in 1978 but moved to its current location at 20 Elizabeth Street, between Canal and Bayard streets, in 1992, has worked out a deal with its landlord to use the kitchen rent-free on a month-to-month basis. “With our drastic decline in sales and mounting losses sustained over the course of a year, we needed to make the tough call to close our indoor dining space and redirect our resources in hopes to continue our operations,” the third-generation owner and manager Truman Lam said in a statement. Following a growing trend during the pandemic, the restaurant has plans to continue operating as a ghost kitchen to fulfill orders for takeout, delivery, and outdoor dining on its patio. I watched as stores closed down on street corners one by one until nothing but “For Rent” signs remained, and I found myself stunned as I moved through parts of the city that were once thronged by tourists but were now empty.Jing Fong, the largest Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, announced today that it would permanently close its dining room on March 7 due to business loss as a result of COVID-19. I could see that inequality had become more pronounced, observing the rich and the needy forced to share the same sidewalks. Then the spring surge abated and people started emerging, and the vulnerabilities of our city, exposed by the virus, became more apparent than ever. Now.” And I walked outside and started photographing.įor a while, the pictures were mostly empty streets, ambulances and those frightening freezer-truck morgues. When that piece was just a concept and life still seemed somewhat normal, the two of us sat over a coffee. Last year, as the coronavirus began spreading in New York, I worked closely with Renee Melides, a photo editor on The Times’s Business desk, on a photo essay that visualized the city as it became a global center of the pandemic. The photographer Ashley Gilbertson writes: Chen, the executive director of the Chinatown Business Improvement District/Partnership.Ī year after the coronavirus arrived, some visitors and tourists are still keeping their distance because of a rise in hate crimes against Asian-Americans in the city and across the country. Months before the first case was confirmed in New York, reports of a virus outbreak in China curbed foot traffic in the neighborhood.Īt least 17 restaurants and 139 ground-floor stores in Chinatown have permanently closed during the pandemic, according to Wellington Z. In many ways, Chinatown has suffered longer than most parts of the city. Jonathan Chu, whose family is Jing Fong’s landlord, said they did everything they could to help the restaurant, including not collecting rent payments during the pandemic. But the idea is now gaining traction, even as evidence builds that the virus emerged from a Wuhan market. Covid’s Origins: A lab leak was once dismissed by many as a conspiracy theory for the origin of Covid-19.plans to allow older and immunocompromised Americans to get a second updated Covid booster shot in the near future. Life Expectancy: In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic caused the death rate in New York City to climb about 50% over the previous year, according to new data, and life expectancy dropped citywide by 4.6 years.
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