Corona crisis and subculture – is old New York disappearing?

“What’s been actually interesting in this time of the coronavirus is that in some strange ways New York feels again a little bit more like New York.”

New York feels a little more like New York again, says Jeremiah Moss. But that’s strange, because the reason for this is of all things the coronavirus. For years Moss has been fighting against the rapid change in the cosmopolitan city, against gentrification. He fights for the subculture and the counterculture, the “counter culture”. For the small bars, bookstores or cinemas that cannot afford the expensive rents and shut down. And for their people. The “old New Yorkers” as he calls them.

New Yorkers stray from the big city

“When I came to New York from a small town, I wanted the city to make me a New Yorker. But a lot of the new people want New York to be like the small towns and suburbs they came from. You don’t like big cities at all. “

By “New Yorkers”, Jeremiah Moss means people with often well-paid jobs who have been coming to the city since the 2000s to work and make money. But not because they are convinced of New York as a city, as a way of life. That’s why they want to turn the cosmopolitan city back into a village, he fears. But how did the coronavirus of all things stop this dynamic?

“A lot of those people, when the virus came, they fled New York.”

Many “New New Yorkers” fled the city when the virus came. To their hometowns or to their weekend houses in the surrounding areas because they can afford it and because they believe that it is safer there. But Jeremiah Moss cannot be happy about this mass exodus. On the one hand, because the hospitals in New York are overloaded and many people are dying from Covid-19. On the other hand, because the crisis also threatens “old New York”, for which Jeremiah is committed. The crisis is devastating for many small shops. You’d probably go broke.

Treasures and originals suffer from the virus

“I’m afraid that it will be devastating for small businesses. It’s almost too heartbreaking to think about for me.”

It breaks his heart to think about it, says Moss. And he’s afraid of the time after the virus.

“I’m terrified to see what it’s gonna be like on the other side of this virus.”