“It’s an ill wind that blows no good” is something my father would say to me when I was a kid complaining about something or other. It’s another way of saying every cloud has a silver lining and it’s a pretty good way to think about life. My dad was an optimist and he did pretty well with that philosophy. Life often seems like a brutal battle and, as Marcus Aurelius said, more like a wrestling match than a dance.
But the overriding character trait of humans and why doomsday predictions are always wrong is because humans adapt to things. We problem solve, we adjust and we overcome, especially in America. And so it is with COVID, the virus that simply will not go away. It killed millions and put the global economy on pause for two years. The travel industry, the sports industry, the entertainment industry, education, restaurants, cruise lines, the fashion industry—everything took a major hit.
No one seems to know what the new normal will look like, but I did get a glimpse of it last week as I was taking my morning walk around my neighborhood. I began to notice that many homes are being expanded. McMansions are on the rise. And as Billy Crystal would say, “They look marvelous, darling.” They really do.
As COVID forced us to quarantine, stay home and shelter in, no one dared to go to restaurants, go on trips or go to Broadway. And this meant that the nation did something it has rarely done before. It saved money. And as the coffers swelled and the sun finally came out once again, we realized that for once we had money in the bank which we could spend. And so the spending has begun. Mostly the spending is on homes but not only on homes. I see new businesses opening up in Williston Park, which is the town I am most familiar with.
For me personally I found the time to write a book proposal, get a contract with Routledge to publish it and finally complete it. It took two years. I call them the COVID years.
When I ask my friends about gains accrued from the COVID years, they say things like more family bonding and business owners will say their firms are more productive since there has been less time wasted on commuting. Professionals and white collar workers who would ordinarily be spending upwards of three hours per day in cars or trains going to and from Manhattan were getting used to working from home.
And this seems to have become the new normal with many professionals no longer being willing to drive into New York City for work. This has created a problem for major firms in NYC, which need staff to keep their law firms, medical practices and accounting firms in operation. But as I said about human ingenuity and adaptability, the response to this problem is that now big city firms are opening up offices on Long Island, which will not only benefit Long Islanders but it will benefit young professionals who are seeking employment but not too happy about traveling into Manhattan.
One of my friends is Matt Kasindorf, a senior partner at Meister Seelig & Fein, the powerhouse NYC law firm. His firm has the full gamut of services, including Commercial Real Estate, Litigation, Corporate, Tax, Intellectual Property, Estate Planning, Criminal Defense, Crisis Management, Employment and Hospitality. But in order to expand he needs to attract young lawyers and he has decided to open a branch office in Jericho in those swank offices in the Jericho Quadrangle.
He realizes that to attract bright Long Island lawyers he can no longer expect them to schlep an hour or more each way in traffic into Manhattan. His philosophy is “to build it and they will come.” This is yet another example of the silver lining on the cloud of COVID. Long Island will now have big city lawyers right down the block.
COVID has been an incredible challenge for every family on Long Island, but we are all true New Yorkers. Americans are indefatigable, resilient, adaptive, practical, ingenuous and creative, a group of national traits referred to as American Exceptionalism. World War I did not stop us. World War II did not stop us. The falling of the Twin Towers did not stop us. The economic meltdown of 2008 did not stop us. And COVID did not stop us.
This is American optimism and our secret ingredient that keeps us on top of the world.
The reason tourists visit Manhattan is to see the Statue of Liberty, the High Line, Broadway, Little Italy, Times Square, the Empire State Building, and the great NYC skyline. The Indian and Italian and the Irish ironworkers built all of our bridges and roads and buildings and they call NYC “the land of manmade mountains.”
More than any other city, New York City is a great big miracle that was built by fearless men who were undaunted and undeterred. And we moderns, guys like Matt Kasindorf or my neighbors who are expanding their homes, are the same way—undaunted and undeterred by COVID and its many setbacks. As the saying goes, that which does not kill us makes us strong. This is the way of human nature and especially the way of New Yorkers.
