By Francesco Abbruzzino

 

 

We need to make 2021 a year of hope, because right now there is more economic suffering in America than we have seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  More than 100,000 businesses have permanently closed down since the pandemic began, many of our most iconic chains have filed for bankruptcy over the past 12 months, and tent cities are popping up in major cities all across the country.  Coming into this year, the suicide rate in the U.S. was already at an all-time record high, and a Gallup survey recently discovered that the mental health of Americans is at an all-time low.  If we can’t find a way to give people hope, multitudes of Americans will decide that life is no longer worth living just like Anthony Quinn Warner did.  The explosion in Nashville should be a wake up call for all of us, because there are countless others out there that are feeling the hopelessness that Warner did.

 

In 2020, we saw retail stores close their doors at a pace that we have never seen before.  According to the New York Post, NYC lost more than 1,000 chain stores all by itself…

 

The Big Apple saw almost one in seven nationally recognized chain-store branches close their doors as the pandemic sent consumers scurrying for cover, according to a new report.

 

A record high 1,057 chain stores — including 70 Duane Reades, 49 Starbucks and 22 Papyruses — have waved the white flag over the past 12 months, according to the Center for an Urban Future’s annual “State of the Chains” report, set to be ­released Wednesday.

 

If you go back to 2018, 0.3 percent of all chain stores in the city shut down permanently.

 

This year, that figure has skyrocketed to 13.3 percent…

 

The 13.3 percent decline shatters all previous records reported by the nonprofit agency since it began tracking the data 13 years ago. Last year, just 3.7 percent of all chain outlets closed, up from 0.3 percent in 2018.

 

Of course the same thing is happening all over the nation.  Empty retail buildings now litter the landscape, and it is only going to get worse.

 

But it is hard to imagine that the next 12 months could actually be worse than the past 12 months.  In an article published earlier this month, CNN listed 30 major chains that have filed for bankruptcy in 2020…

 

Papyrus

 

Bar Louie

 

Krystal

 

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