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

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

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