Manhattan landlords plead with employers to bring office workers back and save businesses that depend on foot traffic - as movers say they are so busy packing residents out of city that they are turning customers away

Landlords in Manhattan are pleading with companies to bring workers back into their offices, saying that restaurants and shops in commercial districts are in danger of going under while people work from home.

Meanwhile moving companies in New York say they are so busy they are turning customers away.

Property owners and managers have been quietly pressing top employers including Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and BlackRock to return their workers to downtown offices, casting it as a civic obligation, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

'I've been really pushing the CEOs to bring people back into the office,' Jeff Blau, the developer behind the Hudson Yards project, told the outlet. 'I've been using a little bit of guilt trip and a little bit of coaxing.' 

So far, though, reaction from employers has been tepid, even though current state coronavirus guidelines allow for offices to resume operations at up to 50 percent of maximum capacity.

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A man walks past the 'Vessel' at the Hudson Yards pedestrian plaza on August 14. Landlords in Manhattan are pleading with companies to bring workers back into their offices

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Downtown Manhattan is seen on July 31. Businesses that depend on foot traffic in office districts are in danger of going under, and property managers warn of a vicious spiral

Property managers fear that if the businesses that support office workers in normal times begin to fold, it could create a vicious cycle, in which returning to offices becomes even less desirable and more businesses fold.

In addition to the financial industry, many major law firms and tech companies in New York still have most of their employees working remotely.

After months when New York City was the world epicenter of the pandemic, and hundreds died ever day, the virus has been wrestled largely under control there. 

However, many in the city, including office workers, fear a second wave when temperatures drop in the fall, and remain wary of commutes on public transit.

It has led to a historic mass exodus from the city, though whether the departures are largely temporary or permanent remains to be seen.

Detailed numbers are hard to come by, but by some estimates 420,000 people left the city between March 1 and May 1 -- and moving companies say that the pace of departures has only sped up since then.

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Commercial building with vacant real estate in the Flatiron neighborhood July 29, 2020

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Movers are seen on August 13 in New York City. Moving companies are increasingly trying to keep up with higher demand as an uptick of people are choosing to move from New York City

According to FlatRate Moving, the number of moves it has done has increased more than 46 percent between March 15 and August 15, compared with the same period last year, the New York Times reported.

The number of those moving outside of New York City is up 50 percent, the company said.

'It felt like move-out day on a college campus,' Bobby DelGreco, who recently left Manhattan after nine years and is now living in Los Angeles, told the Times. 'All the doors were propped open, and there were moving trucks and furniture everywhere.' 

Matt Jahn, who owns the Brooklyn-based Metropolis Moving, told the newspaper that he has been inundated with more moving requests than he can handle, and has had to turn customers away.

For fleeing New Yorkers, the common complaints include soaring crime and pandemic restrictions. Last month, the number of vacant apartments for rent in New York City reached highest level on record.

In July, there were more than 67,300 unoccupied rental units available across the city, the most apartments available in any month since StreetEasy started tracking rental inventory in 2010.

The surge in vacancies has driven rental prices down some 10 percent across the city, as desperate landlords try to entice new tenants with discounts and sweeteners such as one free month, according to the New York Times.

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In July, there were more than 67,300 unoccupied rental units available across the city, this StreetEasy data shows

Crime and COVID force NYC rent prices to record lows

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Still, rents in New York remain among the highest in the nation, with the median rental price at $3,167 in July, a 10 percent drop from July 2019. 

Increasingly, New Yorkers are divided on whether leaving the city is a prudent move in a time of crisis, or a betrayal of their beloved city. 

Some argue that the city has faced crisis before, such as the attacks of September 11, 2001, but has always bounced back stronger than ever.

Fred Wilson, the co-founder of Union Square Ventures, argued in a blog post on Wednesday that the crisis would make the city a better place to live. 

'It is certainly the case that many talented people are leaving NYC right now. It is also the case that the city is suffering from rising crime, filth, etc,' he wrote.  

A StreetEasy map shows the areas with highest vacancy

'NYC is not going out of business. It will need a turnaround. It will need new leadership, which it will get. The pandemic will end. Restaurants, museums, broadway, nightclubs, etc, etc, etc will re-open.

'It won't be the same NYC that existed pre-pandemic. But that is a good thing. NYC has sucked for the last decade or more,' he added. 

In one bright spot, Amazon announced plans to add 2,000 new employees and build a flagship office in New York, bucking the trend of companies and residents fleeing urban centers. 

The company said on Tuesday that it will open a new office in Manhattan's Lord & Taylor Fifth Avenue building. The office is expected to be complete in 2023, and the company told DailyMail.com that the new employees could take several years to hire.

Others are convinced that the city's best days are behind it. They include James Altucher, who co-owns a comedy club in the city and also describes himself as an angel investor and author. 

He and his family fled to Miami after the June riots and looting made them fear for their lives and their children's safety, when people tried to break into his apartment building.

'Even in the 1970s, and through the '80s, when NYC was going bankrupt, even when it was the crime capital of the U.S. or close to it, it was still the capital of the business world (meaning, it was the primary place young people would go to build wealth and find opportunity,' he wrote in his blog.

'NYC has never been locked down for five months. Not in any pandemic, war, financial crisis, never.  

'In the middle of the polio epidemic, when little kids (including my mother) were becoming paralyzed or dying (my mother ended up with a bad leg), NYC didn't go through this,' he wrote. 

'There's a before and after. BEFORE: No remote work. AFTER: Everyone can work remotely. The difference: bandwidth got faster. And that's basically it. People have left New York City and have moved completely into virtual worlds. 

'The Time-Life Building doesn't need to fill up again. Wall Street can now stretch across every street instead of just being one building in Manhattan.'