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It’s Tuesday. On this day 40 years ago, John Lennon was killed outside his apartment building on the Upper West Side.
Weather: Chilly and breezy, with clouds clearing off in the afternoon. High about 40.
Alternate-side parking: Suspended today for Immaculate Conception.
For weeks, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had been warning New Yorkers about a rise in coronavirus cases and the dangers of gathering with friends and family during the holidays.
As hospitalizations increase, the governor on Monday announced new criteria to roll back reopening and restrict indoor dining.
“If you’re going to overwhelm the hospital system, then we have no choice but to go to close down,” Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference.
[ A revived ban on indoor dining would threaten many New York City restaurants.]
Here’s what you need to know about the state’s new plan:
Table Of Contents
The details
The plan includes limits on indoor dining in any region where hospitalization rates do not stabilize for five days.
The model could stop indoor dining in New York City as early as next Monday, Mr. Cuomo said. Other regions would have to decrease indoor dining capacity from 50 percent to 25 percent if their hospitalization rates do not stabilize. Mr. Cuomo did not provide a specific measure of what stabilization would look like.
Regions will be forced to shut down completely if they are projected to hit 90 percent of their total hospital capacity in the next three weeks. That means nonessential businesses would close, restaurants would be restricted to takeout or delivery, and nearly all gatherings would be prohibited.
A stop to indoor dining would be another blow to struggling restaurants as the weather gets colder and customers are less likely to want to eat outdoors.
The context
More than 4,600 people were hospitalized statewide, after a steady increase from about 1,000 in late October, Mr. Cuomo said on Monday.
In New York City, the seven-day rolling average rate of positive test results was 4.98 percent, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey said at a news conference on Monday that the state was not planning to shut down indoor dining, which is capped at 25 percent capacity. Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut recently rolled back indoor dining capacity from 75 percent to 50 percent, according to Patch.
The precedent
When the city locked down in March, restaurants were confined to delivery and takeout, and they struggled to stay afloat.
What we’re reading
A 12-year-old boy from Queens took the family car for a drive and ended up near Delaware. [Daily News]
A FedEx driver was shot in the back while delivering packages in Brooklyn. [PIX 11]
A driver crashed into a Christmas tree display at a Harlem garden center and pointed a gun at workers while fleeing, the police and witnesses said. [New York Post]
And finally: ‘Prima Ballerina’ in ink
The Times’s Melissa Guerrero writes:
For years, Bearclaw Price had submitted stories to Metropolitan Diary, a collection of short tales about life in New York City that runs in The Times each Sunday. When one of her pieces, “Prima Ballerina,” was printed late last month, she was thrilled and bought six copies of the newspaper.
“For that moment, I felt infinite,” Ms. Price, 34, said. “I was over the moon. I couldn’t even handle it. I was so, so happy.”
She then decided that she wanted to celebrate her Times debut in a permanent way: with a tattoo. Miko Su, an artist at Red Baron Ink in Manhattan, recreated the sketch of a ballerina by Agnes Lee that accompanied Ms. Price’s submission. It now adorns Ms. Price’s left forearm.
[What Metropolitan Diary taught its illustrator about New York.]
Ms. Price, of Brooklyn, said she had been focusing on her writing since being furloughed from her restaurant job in March, and enjoyed crafting the kind of happenstance stories that are popular among Metropolitan Diary’s avid readers.
A tattoo, of course, cannot be shared, and six paper copies of “Prime Ballerina” weren’t enough for all her family members and friends. So, she put gloves on and walked up and down her block on paper recycling day.
“I went through my neighbors’ recyclings,” she said, “and I found 30 more copies that were in pristine condition.”
Read her Metropolitan Diary entry here. To submit your own entry, email diary@nytimes.com.
It’s Tuesday — make an impression.
Metropolitan Diary: Pie for dessert
Dear Diary:
It must have been about 1957. I was 15 and my younger brother 7. It was Christmas vacation, and we took the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan and enjoyed the usual holiday sights.
When it was lunchtime, we headed to the Automat to get a bite to eat. In those days, kids like us were fascinated by the automatic self-serve cubicles. We both grabbed trays, and together we picked out one serving of macaroni and cheese and another of franks and beans.
I wanted pie for dessert, and my brother wanted to show me how grown up he was by going to get it all by himself.
“Whatever you do, get me no mince pie,” I said.
A few minutes later, he came back with a slice of mince pie.
“Didn’t you hear and understand me?” I said.
“I looked at all the pies and couldn’t find no mince pie,” he said. “So I got mince pie. Figured it was close enough.”
— Bill Goldman
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