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Second, tourism was almost at the level it had been during the pandemic, though this is, happily, a quiet month. The challenge, he says, is creating – and subsidising – enough affordable housing.

Which takes us to the nub. Money. When Fran Lebowitz was asked recently what she would advise her 20-year-old self if she was moving to New York City now, it was “bring money”. That’s never been more true. The city is skewing rich.

While a wide range of people left the city during COVID, the bulk was mostly lower income earners. Between 2020 and 2022, 2400 millionaires moved out, while 17,500 moved in.

Since 2020, the unemployment rate in all five boroughs has sat at just under double the national rate. The hospitality industry was hammered; many of my favourite restaurants have shut. But the upper echelons are flourishing. Data from the NYC comptroller’s office found that the adjusted gross incomes of New Yorkers who were earning between one and 25 million rose by 21.3 per cent in 2020 – while, the incomes of those earning more than 25 million increased by 84.5 per cent.

The inequality gap is growing, and chafing.

In early 2020, one million jobs evaporated, and unemployment had rocketed from 3.4 per cent to 18.3 per cent by May. Ever since, the unemployment rate has stayed at almost double the national rate. The US Census Bureau estimates about 17.2 per cent of New Yorkers live under the poverty line, compared to 11.6 per cent of all Americans.

To afford childcare, couples need to earn a minimum of $US300,000. Bit tricky when the median household income in New York City is $74,694, according to the Census Bureau.

Housing costs also remain high. Co-op and condo board fees have gone up by almost three times the price of inflation. Figures from the Bureau of Labour Statistics show there has been a 19 per cent increase in consumer prices since 2020, but a 54 per cent increase in co-op bills for utilities and upkeep. Once, the rents were expensive but the daily cost of living was affordable. Now, the cost of basic goods and services has noticeably spiked in the past three years.

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One thing that did strike me when I first rushed out into the brisk air, was the smell of weed on every street corner. The city is littered with glowing green weed signs. In 2021, a year into the pandemic, New York became the 15th state to legalise recreational marijuana use for adults 21 and over. The bureaucratic hurdles for opening smoke stores have been so complicated that there are only twelve legal shops in the city, and about 1500 illegal ones, which the authorities have been unable to stamp out.

There are sometimes three on a single block – they are everywhere.

It’s a quieter, more fragrant city, steadying itself from the traumas of COVID and preparing itself for the uncertainties of a fraught election period.

It still feels like a place where anything is possible, where art is made, books written, songs sung.

As the lyrics from The National, go: “New York is shedding its skin again; it dies every 10 years, and then it begins again.” So when it begins again, this time, who will be able to stay?

New York will always be kaleidoscopic, which is partly why I love it. Change is at its core, it’s intrinsically dynamic – and so electric, it changes those who come here, too. Its resilience
is what makes it a truly great city. It rolls on and on, absorbing the determinations, disappointments
and dreams of those who come here, then moulting, shedding its skin and then beginning again.

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