Times Square, New York

An empty bow-tie

For 100 years before the COVID-19 pandemic, Times Square — the diagonal intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue at 42nd to 47th Streets — was the most photographed urban intersection in the world.

Pre-pandemic foot traffic averaged 330 000 pedestrians per day and rose to over 450 000 at peak.

The LED advertising billboards that line the square — covering perhaps 70 buildings at varying heights — represented some of the most expensive advertising real estate in the world, with the largest single sign (One Times Square's full-tower wrap) leasing for $4 million per year.

On the afternoon of 22 March 2020 — the first weekday under New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's New York State on PAUSE stay-at- home order — Times Square was essentially empty.

The lights stayed on

The most striking visual feature of pandemic Times Square was that the billboards continued to play full advertising content for an empty audience.

The leases on the billboards were contractual and continued running regardless of foot traffic. The advertising spend, having been committed long in advance, was simply burned.

The billboards were modified during this period to include public service announcements about masking, distancing, and stay home messaging interspersed with the regular Coca-Cola, Toshiba, M&Ms, Nasdaq, Disney, and Spotify advertising.

The visual effect — bright, playing, full-colour LED billboards illuminating an empty square — was widely photographed and became the iconic image of the American pandemic.

Broadway closed for 18 months

The 41 Broadway theatres clustered around Times Square closed on 12 March 2020 — the most dramatic shutdown in the history of American commercial theatre.

The closure was initially announced as a "32-day" suspension. It eventually lasted 18 months.

Broadway theatres reopened progressively from 14 September 2021 onwards. The closure cost the New York theatre industry an estimated $14 billion in lost revenue. Of the 41 Broadway shows running before the pandemic, 8 did not reopen.

The collapse particularly affected the workers of Broadway — stage hands, dressers, sound engineers, musicians — who, unlike actors, did not transition to streaming-content work. The Actors Equity Association estimated that 95 per cent of its New York members were unemployed during 2020.

The pandemic that didn't end

The COVID-19 pandemic was the largest public health emergency in modern American history.

By the end of 2020, the United States had reported approximately 350 000 deaths from COVID-19. By the time the WHO declared the public health emergency over on 5 May 2023, the US death toll exceeded 1.1 million — the highest absolute toll of any country, though not the highest per capita.

New York City's death toll, especially severe in the spring 2020 first wave that filled hospitals beyond capacity and required refrigerated trailers parked outside hospitals to serve as temporary morgues, exceeded 30 000 by mid-2020 alone.

The pandemic's social and economic effects — the shift to remote work, the disruption of education, the acceleration of e-commerce, the political polarisation of public health measures — outlasted the acute medical emergency.

Times Square recovered its foot traffic by mid-2022. By 2023 it was busier than before the pandemic.