Shaheryar Manzar

In this project, I use a Web visualization to capture the effects of the pandemic lockdown on the food service industry in New York City. Since March 2020, when the COVID-19 lockdown began, the NYC restaurant business, which employs hundreds of thousands and attracts millions of visitors who spend around $46 billion annually, suffered the dual burden of having lost its customer flow while its labor was deemed “essential.” Most of the labor force that the industry relies upon is undocumented and therefore unprotected. This labor force is also predominantly made up of minority populations with lower average wages than those of other populations in the city. The food service industry has been disproportionately hurt during the pandemic. There is a need to understand and document the impact on the hospitality establishments because they simultaneously reflect and transform their streets and neighborhoods and, in doing so, transform the city as a whole. In this project, public data on restaurants, labor, and federal support and data collected from news sites are used to chart and map the significance of the industry to New York City, the damage done by the pandemic, and, finally, the attempted recovery efforts. shmanzar.github.io/adv-gis