Missing from Manhattan
Last spring New York looked like the epicentre of the pandemic with boarded up shops, makeshift morgues in refrigerated trucks and the constant wail of ambulance sirens echoing through the deserted streets. This summer, as America\u2019s biggest city emerges from the coronavirus crisis, what has changed? For Assignment, Lucy Ash focuses on the most dramatically affected area \u2013 the Midtown section of Manhattan \u2013 and goes on a hunt for the missing people in this once dynamic, densely populated part of the Big Apple. She talks to those who have fled for the greener pastures of New Jersey where property prices have spiked and she meets a Broadway star who became a florist when theatres went dark. Lucy also finds out what happened to tens of thousands of Midtown cleaners and restaurant staff who couldn\u2019t work from home and were abruptly laid off with no safety net. As undocumented migrants, most didn\u2019t qualify for any state aid.
New York producer: Guglielmo Mattioli\nEditor: Bridget Harney
(Image: A view of Midtown Manhattan and Bryant Park. Credit: Reuters/Carlo Allegri)