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It’s Wednesday.
Weather: A lovely day — sunny and dry, with a high in the upper 70s.
Alternate-side parking: In effect until Saturday (Juneteenth).
Coffee shop and restaurant tables laid out six feet apart. Offices with health screenings at the entrance. Strict cleaning protocols at hair salons and barbershops.
After more than a year, pandemic-era safety precautions have become established aspects of daily life in New York. But on Tuesday, the state announced a major change: Nearly all restrictions on businesses and social gatherings are now lifted, since more than 70 percent of adults in the state have received at least one coronavirus vaccine dose.
“This is a momentous day, and we deserve it because it has been a long, long road,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said.
[Read more about the changes to the restrictions.]
Here are a few things to know:
Most restrictions are no longer mandatory.
New York will end, in most cases, state-mandated capacity limits and no longer require social distancing. Disinfection protocols and health screenings will also be removed, allowing individual businesses to decide whether to impose such safety precautions.
Even before the announcement, bars and restaurants were allowed to operate at 100 percent capacity and remain open past midnight.
But some signs of pandemic life will remain.
Some stricter restrictions will remain at correctional and health care facilities, as well as in schools, public transit and homeless shelters, according to my colleague Luis Ferré-Sadurní.
The state will also continue to abide by federal mask guidance: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised that unvaccinated people should wear masks indoors and maintain social distancing.
Decisions around removing many of the restrictions — like allowing vaccinated shoppers to walk the aisles without masks — will be up to individual businesses. Some may decide to keep them in place for the time being in order to help clientele and staff feel safer.
Vaccinations are rising, but with low rates in some areas.
Health officials remain concerned by low vaccination rates in some ZIP codes across the state, including pockets of New York City.
About 65 percent of adults — those 18 or older — have received at least one dose in the city. Some of the lowest vaccination rates are in the Bronx, where 57 percent of adults have received at least one dose, and in Brooklyn, which has only a slightly higher overall rate.
In some ZIP codes in Brooklyn, including those that contain parts of the Canarsie and Midwood neighborhoods, less than 45 percent of adults have received at least one shot.
From The Times
Battle for Black Voters in N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race Centers on Policing
What’s at Stake for the Mayoral Candidates in the Final Debate
How to Watch New York’s Final Democratic Mayoral Debate
New York Is Getting $22 Billion in Federal Aid. How Should It Be Spent?
Cuomo’s Inner Circle Raised Money for Aide Who Was Convicted of Bribery
Harvey Weinstein to Be Extradited to Los Angeles to Face Rape Charges
Want more news? Check out our full coverage.
The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.
What we’re reading
New York City public school families will soon begin receiving food benefits to help cover the cost of missed school meals during the pandemic. [Chalkbeat]
A real estate developer was sentenced to several years in prison after prosecutors said he hired someone to set his own buildings on fire to drive away tenants. [Daily News]
Detectives are investigating the death of a 12-year-old girl on Long Island who drowned in a pool in her family’s backyard. [NBC 4 New York]
And finally: An orchestra’s roving season
The Times’s Javier C. Hernández writes:
For any major music ensemble, planning a season of concerts as a pandemic stretches on is daunting. For the New York Philharmonic, there is an added challenge: The orchestra’s home, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, is in the midst of a $550 million renovation.
That will leave the orchestra roving for the next year as it tries to recover from the pandemic, which resulted in the cancellation of its 2020-21 season and the loss of more than $21 million in ticket revenue, forcing painful budget cuts.
But the Philharmonic won’t travel too far. It announced its 2021-22 season this week: a slate of about 80 concerts, compared with 120 in a normal year, spent mostly at two other Lincoln Center venues, Alice Tully Hall and the Rose Theater, with four forays to Carnegie Hall and a holiday run of “Messiah” at Riverside Church.
The orchestra has been at the center of the recent revival of the arts in New York. It appeared at the Shed in April, its first indoor concert in 13 months. And it performed at Bryant Park last week, the first time its musicians had played together without masks since the start of the pandemic.
On Sept. 17, the full season will open with the pianist Daniil Trifonov playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 at Tully. A few of the concerts will be at an unusual time: The orchestra will present three Sunday matinees, the first time it has done that since the 1960s, in an effort to broaden its audience. The coming season will be the first time in recent decades that the orchestra has not had access to its own hall.
“People are starved for live entertainment,” Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic’s president and chief executive, said in an interview. “There may be some slight hesitancy at the beginning, but I think people are going to come flocking back.”
It’s Wednesday — open your ears.
Metropolitan Diary: His stop
Dear Diary:
It was 1972, and I was a freshman at Brooklyn College. I had just turned 18 and was required to register for the draft.
One morning, I drove to school, attended my classes and then strolled out onto Flatbush Avenue, where I caught a bus to Downtown Brooklyn and the Draft Board Office there. A few hours later, I was the owner of a newly minted draft card.
After I was finished at the draft board, I wandered to the nearest bus stop. When the next bus arrived, I began to get on and then paused before dropping my token into the fare box.
“Do you go to Brooklyn College?” I asked the driver, who was busily counting transfers.
He stopped what he was doing, slowly turned toward me and looked me in the eye.
“Yup,” he said with a straight face. “I go at night, but I’m nonmatriculated.”
— Steven Wilensky
New York Today is published weekdays around 6 a.m. Sign up here to get it by email. You can also find it at nytoday.com.
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