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Where New Yorkers Moved to Escape Coronavirus

Seattle-Tacoma

Top 50 metropolitan destinations

outside New York City

Portland

Boston

Albany

Minneapolis-St. Paul

Detroit

Cleveland

Chicago

Philadelphia

Baltimore

San Francisco-

Oakland

Washington

Denver

Nashville

Charlotte

Los Angeles

San Diego

Phoenix

Atlanta

Dallas-Fort Worth

Austin

Houston

Orlando

Tampa Bay

Sarasota

Miami-

Fort Lauderdale-

West Palm Beach

Top 50 metropolitan destinations

outside New York City

Seattle-Tacoma

Boston

Minneapolis-St. Paul

Detroit

Chicago

San Francisco-

Oakland

Denver

Washington

Nashville

Los Angeles

San Diego

Phoenix

Atlanta

Dallas-Fort Worth

Austin

Houston

Tampa Bay

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-

West Palm Beach

Top 50 metropolitan destinations

outside New York City

Seattle-Tacoma

Boston

Chicago

San Francisco-

Oakland

Washington

Los Angeles

Phoenix

Atlanta

Dallas-Fort Worth

Houston

Tampa Bay

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-

West Palm Beach

Top 50 metropolitan destinations

outside New York City

Seattle-Tacoma

Portland

Boston

Albany

Minneapolis-St. Paul

Detroit

Cleveland

Chicago

Philadelphia

Baltimore

San Francisco-

Oakland

Washington

Denver

Nashville

Los Angeles

Charlotte

San Diego

Phoenix

Atlanta

Dallas-Fort Worth

Austin

Houston

Orlando

Tampa Bay

Sarasota

Miami-

Fort Lauderdale-

West Palm Beach

By The New York Times·Arrows are sized by the proportion of requests for that destination.

New York City has long been a cheek-to-jowl town with cramped apartments and determined strivers. But starting in March, as the coronavirus outbreak here began, parts of the city emptied out, with many leaving from New York's wealthiest neighborhoods. Mail-forwarding requests show where a number of them went. Some abandoned the Upper West Side for sunny Miami. Others left Gramercy Park for New Jersey. Some left Brooklyn apartments for California.

In March, the United States Post Office received 56,000 mail-forwarding requests from New York City, more than double the monthly average. In April, the number of requests went up to 81,000, twice the number from a year earlier. Sixty percent of those new requests were for destinations outside the city.

Mail-forwarding requests from New York City, by month

80,000

60,000

40,000

20,000

Jan.

2019

April

July

Oct.

Jan.

2020

April

80,000

60,000

40,000

20,000

Jan.

2019

April

July

Oct.

Jan.

2020

April

80,000

60,000

40,000

20,000

Jan.

2019

April

July

Oct.

Jan.

2020

April

By The New York Times·Source: U.S. Postal Service

The empty feeling is the most pronounced in Manhattan. In April, a little more than half of those requests for destinations outside New York City originated in Manhattan, led by neighborhoods on the Upper West and Upper East Sides.

The data from neighborhoods that saw the most requests mirrors cell phone data showing that the city's wealthiest areas saw the most movement.

“Right after Covid hit, everyone just blasted out of here,” Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal said of the Upper West Side. “You could walk just in the middle of Columbus Avenue. And I often did.”

Miles of normally cramped streets are empty, and garbage collection is lower in those neighborhoods than in recent years. In Times Square, you can practically hear the hum of electronic signs glowing above empty sidewalks.

Many New Yorkers who fled their homes in the city moved to nearby areas in Long Island, New Jersey and upstate New York.

Top destinations in the New York region

Schenectady

Albany

NEW YORK

MASSACHUSETTS

Hudson

Hillsdale

Great Barrington

Saugerties

Woodstock

Rhinebeck

Kingston

Sharon

Accord

West Hartford

New Paltz

Poughkeepsie

CONNECTICUT

Beacon

Middletown

Carmel

Danbury

New Haven

Ridgefield

Wilton

Fairfield

Chappaqua

New Canaan

New City

Westport

Shelter Island

Stamford

White Plains

Montauk

Greenwich

Sag Harbor

Scarsdale

East Hampton

Yonkers

Sagaponack

New Rochelle

NEW JERSEY

Southampton

Port

Washington

Hampton Bays

Huntington

Fort Lee

Montclair

Huntington Station

Westhampton Beach

Great Neck

Plainview

West Orange

Westbury

Jersey City

The Hamptons are a summer

home destination for many

New York City residents.

Elmont

Newark

Valley Stream

Long Beach

Edison

Princeton

Schenectady

Albany

NEW YORK

MASSACHUSETTS

Hudson

Hillsdale

Great Barrington

Saugerties

Woodstock

Rhinebeck

Sharon

Accord

West Hartford

New Paltz

Poughkeepsie

CONNECTICUT

Beacon

Middletown

Carmel

Danbury

New Haven

Ridgefield

Fairfield

Chappaqua

New City

Westport

Stamford

White Plains

Montauk

Sag Harbor

Greenwich

Scarsdale

East Hampton

Yonkers

Sagaponack

New Rochelle

NEW JERSEY

Southampton

Huntington

Fort Lee

Montclair

Huntington Station

Great Neck

Westhampton Beach

Westbury

Jersey City

Elmont

Newark

The Hamptons are a summer

home destination for many

New York City residents.

Valley Stream

Long Beach

Schenectady

Albany

NEW YORK

MASSACHUSETTS

Hudson

Great Barrington

Saugerties

Woodstock

Rhinebeck

Sharon

Accord

West Hartford

New Paltz

Poughkeepsie

CONNECTICUT

Beacon

Carmel

Danbury

New Haven

Chappaqua

Fairfield

New City

Stamford

White Plains

Montauk

Sag Harbor

Greenwich

East Hampton

Yonkers

New Rochelle

Southampton

Montclair

Great Neck

Jersey City

The Hamptons are a summer

home destination for many

New York City residents.

Newark

Valley Stream

Long Beach

By The New York Times·Source: U.S. Postal Service

In most locations, the United States Postal Service allows individuals and families who normally get mail at a given location to temporarily forward their mail somewhere new, for up to a year.

Now, mail that used to go to Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan is going to Maine and Connecticut. Lower East Side letters are being rerouted to Florida and Pennsylvania. Packages meant for Park Slope, Brooklyn, are going to Texas and Rhode Island.

Destinations for mail-forwarding requests across the country

Circles are sized by the proportion of requests for that destination.

Seattle-

Tacoma

Portland

Minneapolis-

St. Paul

Boston

Detroit

Chicago

Philadelphia

San Francisco-

Oakland

Washington

Denver

New York City

region excluding

the city

32% of requests

St. Louis

Nashville

Los Angeles

Phoenix

Atlanta

Dallas-Fort Worth

Austin

Orlando

Houston

Tampa Bay

Miami-

Fort Lauderdale-

West Palm Beach

Puerto Rico

Seattle-

Tacoma

Minneapolis-

St. Paul

Boston

Chicago

Philadelphia

San Francisco-

Oakland

Washington

N.Y.C. region

excluding

the city

32% of

requests

Nashville

Los Angeles

Atlanta

Dallas-

Fort Worth

Miami-

Ft. Lauderdale-

W. Palm Beach

Houston

Puerto Rico

N.Y.C. region

outside the city

Chicago

Washington

Los Angeles

Atlanta

Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-

West Palm Beach

Seattle-

Tacoma

Portland

Minneapolis-

St. Paul

Boston

Detroit

Chicago

Philadelphia

San Francisco-

Oakland

Washington

Denver

New York City

region excluding

the city

32% of requests

St. Louis

Nashville

Los Angeles

Phoenix

Atlanta

Dallas-Fort Worth

Austin

Orlando

Houston

Tampa Bay

Miami-

Fort Lauderdale-

West Palm Beach

Puerto Rico

By The New York Times·Source: U.S. Postal Service

After being laid off from his job as a theater stage hand, Kurt Gardner, his wife and their young daughter left their crowded two-bedroom apartment in the Windsor Terrace section of Brooklyn for the family’s three-bedroom summer home in eastern Suffolk County, on Long Island.

Mr. Gardner, 50, said he hears about friends in the city who “have to wait outside an hour for Trader Joe’s.” The Gardners now live near a well-stocked supermarket with practically no lines. They’re surrounded by open space, and their daughter “doesn’t have to worry about socially distancing at Prospect Park,” he said.

As for their mail, it comes “maybe once a week,” Mr. Gardner said. He and his wife filed mail-forwarding requests in mid-March, but he said much of his mail from March never arrived.

Brooklyn had the second-highest number of mail-forwarding requests, which were concentrated in neighborhoods like Dumbo and Brooklyn Heights.

BRONX

MANHATTAN

Mail-forwarding requests

by ZIP code in April

QUEENS

1,500

500

100

BROOKLYN

STATEN ISLAND

Mail-forwarding

requests by ZIP

code in April

1,500

500

100

By The New York Times·Source: U.S. Postal Service

Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, including many areas where essential workers live, tended to have far fewer mail-forwarding requests. Roman Suarez works for a union in New York City and travels on weekends doing stand-up comedy. He was in Texas when his boss in New York called to say things were shutting down. “I immediately rushed home,” said Mr. Suarez, 42, who lives in the Bronx. He picks up medication and groceries for about three dozen family members who live nearby. “I just stayed and made myself available for my family,” he said.

His neighbors, many of whom work for the city, or in health care, stayed too, he said. His neighborhood, just east of the Bronx Zoo, had fewer than a quarter as many mail-forwarding requests as the Upper East or Upper West Sides.

“My father was a cab driver. My mom was a hairdresser, so I understood service to your community,” Mr. Suarez said. He recalled living through other challenging times in the city, from Hurricane Gloria in 1985 to the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001. “Whenever New York goes through stuff, the best thing to do is just be there.”

Top 20 destinations

Metropolitan area

Mail-forwarding requests

New York-Newark-Jersey City

16,041

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach

1,830

Philadelphia

1,456

Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, Conn.

1,456

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria

1,298

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim

1,131

Boston-Cambridge-Newton

1,092

Kingston, N.Y.

963

Atlanta

710

Torrington, Conn.

644

Chicago

573

Hudson, N.Y.

545

Albany, N.Y.

527

Providence-Warwick, R.I.-Mass.

469

Hartford, Conn.

448

Baltimore

447

Orlando, Fla.

436

San Francisco-Oakland

434

Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla.

418

New Haven-Milford, Conn.

414

Source: U.S. Postal Service