There’s a moment in Sex and the City that has outlasted the show itself: Carrie Bradshaw, strolling through Manhattan with her friends, looks out at the city and declares: “You only get one great love – New York may just be mine.”
Lately, though, it feels as if the romance has fizzled out. The Manhattan of 2025 feels noticeably subdued.
The glow of Midtown’s towers still flickers, but the pavements feel emptier, tour buses with spare seats are idle, shops are deserted and queues that once wrapped around Broadway box offices have dissolved into scattered handfuls of theatregoers.
A view of the Empire State Building. It reports observatory visitor numbers are nearly 60 per cent lower than before the pandemic. AFP
The Empire State Building, once packed daily with photo-snapping, jet-lagged travellers, has had days with no queues at all.
The numbers confirm what the streets suggest.
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