Famed Stores Along Fifth Avenue Showing Signs Of Life Following Shutdown, Violence
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Saks, Tiffany's, Louis Vuitton ... some luxury shops along Fifth Avenue have opened up and are hoping shoppers who can will open their wallets again.
The doors have been closed for months and most recently the iconic store windows were boarded up after vandals struck and broke several. Glass wasn't the only thing shattered. So, too, was the image of the famous avenue for many.
"It was another city. It was like a movie, literally like a movie," one person told CBS2's Alice Gainer on Thursday.
"It looked like a boarded up sort of isolated place," another said.
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But now, there are signs that the stores are slowly peeking out from the plywood.
"You can see the stores bringing back inventory," said Jerome Barth, president of the Fifth Avenue Association.
Foot traffic is still very light, though, and tourists who normally crowd the sidewalks and fill the shops are still missing.
"I think this is going to be a great opportunity for New Yorkers, for residents of the Tri State Area ... to rediscover Fifth Avenue in a different context, and I think that's going to be the focus of businesses at first is how do you bring back in all the people that are close by."
While some stores have reopened, not everyone is there yet, Gainer reported.
There is only curbside retail pickup. People cannot go inside the stores.
For many, for now, that's good enough.
"I went to work. It was my first day working," one store employee said.
"It's really refreshing that everything is coming back to life again," another person said.
After what the city went through during the pandemic, to be able to go outside and just window shop right now feels like a luxury.
