NYC Retailers Boarding Up Their Storefronts Are Sending "Wrong Message" During Coronavirus, Critics Say

If you've walked around New York City at all in the last couple weeks since Governor Andrew Cuomo shutdown all non-essential businesses, you've probably seen them: stores that have been boarded up with plywood, papered over their windows, or even placed barricades outside their entrances. A recent look at SoHo showed that pretty much every luxury brand had emptied out their storefronts and/or boarded up, though this is happening all over the city.

This is of course not wholly unique to NYC: stores around the world, in San Francisco, Newcastle, Toronto, D.C., Chicago and other major cities, are all boarding up in response to local shelter-in-place orders. But is it an unsettling new trend adding to communal unease during the pandemic, or a reasonable response to a period of uncertainty for businesses of all kinds?

Some are calling it an offensive practice: "The stores are sending the message that they expect chaos and rampaging in the future. It's incredibly depressing and disheartening to see," said one Gothamist reader who asked to be anonymous for fear of reprisals at her job. The Manhattan resident said she counted at least 15 stores in the last week that had been boarded up with plywood across parts of Flatiron, SoHo, West Village, Chelsea and Greenwich Village.

"It sends the wrong message for what we should be doing right now," Jeffrey LeFrancois, the executive director of the Meatpacking District Business Improvement District, told Gothamist. "While technically it's not illegal to board up your storefront, it's definitely an uncomfortable message." In his district, which roughly covers Horatio Street to the south side of West 17th Street, and Eighth Avenue to 10th/11th Avenues, he's seen four stores board up so far.

In a letter to the Department Of Buildings, CB6 district manager Michael Racioppo asked whether there was anything that could be done by them to halt the trend: "Boarded-up storefronts, as many businesses struggle to survive, further dampens commercial activity. Small businesses such as restaurants and bars that have had to adapt to a take-out and delivery model shouldn’t be further burdened by a streetscape that inaccurately suggests a crime-ridden present and dystopian future."

The NYPD's crime stats do not indicate that we have entered any sort of dystopian future. "The reaction is not seeped in reality," LeFrancois noted. "It unfortunately recalls the heyday of New York in the '70s and '80s, which is certainly not a favorable image."

Other BID managers we spoke with said that besides an uptick in graffiti, crime has remained low, and the NYPD has done a good job of keeping an eye on things during the shutdown.

According to NYPD statistics, burglaries are up about 15% citywide over the last month, but NYPD Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael LiPetri told the NY Post that bump is because "criminals are specifically targeting cash businesses, supermarkets and bodegas," not retail stores. Compared to last year, overall crime is down by over 30% in NYC so far in 2020.

If you break down the numbers even further by neighborhood, there's seemingly even less of a cause for concern. The SoHo Broadway Initiative Business Improvement District, which runs on Broadway between Houston and Canal, serves as the border between the 1st and 5th Precincts. In the last month, there's been an increase of just three burglaries in both precincts altogether, from 20 to 23 year-to-date.

Mark Dicus, the executive director of that business district, told Gothamist he has been closely tracking the stores which have been boarding up since the pandemic began, and he's seen something of a domino effect happening: "What we're seeing is a high concentration on one block—people see each other doing it, and that leads to more people doing it," he said, referring to a particular one-block stretch of Broadway.

Dicus said that while boarding up may be an overreaction at this point, he was sympathetic toward the owners: "I understand the need to secure buildings during this crisis because there's a lot of uncertainty out there, and we don't know when we might restart." Still, he emphasized that he has advised retailers not to board up, and to "leave storefronts untouched, remove valuable merchandise, leave the lights on and hire security if needed. If they feel the need to put up barriers in their windows, to paint them to help keep graffiti down."

The list of boarded up stores in New York includes the likes of Kate Spade, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vitton, Club Monaco, Sephora, Fendi, Coach, William Sonoma, Isabel Marant and Aesop.

This week, the Aesop location on Bleecker Street removed a sign on its plywood reading, “We’re all in this together: Love > Fear." In response, someone in the neighborhood posted the sign shown below stating, “This Business Does Not Respect the Community,” the hashtag “#boycottboarding," and "It’s offensive and encourages bad behavior.”

Sephora representatives said in a statement that the company has closed North American locations to adapt to the coronavirus and adopted standardized precautions for its properties. “Our goal is to ensure a great experience for our clients when we have the opportunity to reopen,” the company said.

Not knowing when things might reopen, retailers may just be fortifying themselves for the long haul. But as Bob Moraca, vice president of loss prevention for the National Retail Federation, told Robb Report, many of these types of retailers have these emergency plans already in place for all kinds of natural disasters. “This is unique because it’s a pandemic, a public-health issue that has caused city authorities to step in and enforce a shutdown," he said.

LeFrancois has tried to make the best of the situation by commissioning artists to paint murals on all the stores that are boarded up in his section of the Meatpacking District. "What we're doing is making lemonades out of lemons," he explained. "We've brought art to the streets to make it feel a little safer, a little better for those of us who are walking through the neighborhood, running errands, walking the dog, going to grocery stores."

You can see some of Brooklyn-based artist and production designer Theresa Rivera's Calder-Matisse inspired series of murals below.

"Everything is unprecedented, uncharted and unseen," said LeFrancois. "As much as we can advise people to not board up their stores, they have to make the decision as they see fit." He added that he wished the city had done more to emphasize the low crime numbers and set the tone for businesses: "I do wish the city was sending a stronger message that this is a bit extreme."