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Manhattan is the hub of the city's arts and entertainment industry, home to a majority of its venues and jobs.

\"Every job and business in this previously booming sector needs to come back,\" Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said during Wednesday's livestream. \"It was lost. It needs to come back. Right now Times Square is vacant.\"

Brewer is concerned that people in the industry have left the city for good due to the lack of work. \"We can't lose their talent,\" she said.

The report \"puts the numbers behind the feeling that the arts and culture have been hit so hard, and that it is right now the least-recovered sector, despite much effort,\" she added.

\"PHOTO:
Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock, FILE
PHOTO: A security guard stands with an art installation in New York's Times Square, Feb. 16, 2021.
>

The comptroller pointed to a new federal relief package, which includes $15 billion nationally for shuttered arts organizations and designates over $284 billion to revive the Paycheck Protection Program of the CARES Act, as a potential industry salve.

While performing arts venues, including Broadway theaters, remain closed, some venues and cultural institutions have started to reopen in New York City with restrictions and mitigation measures in place.

Zoos and aquariums started welcoming guests back in July, followed by museums in August, with mask-wearing and social-distancing requirements, capacity limits and timed entries.

This week, Madison Square Garden and the Barclays Center held their first sporting events with fans in almost a year, with capacity limited to 10%. Movie theaters in New York City can reopen starting March 5 at 25% capacity.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo hasn't announced a timeline yet for performing arts venues, though he said on Feb. 8 that the \"overall effort is heading towards reopening with testing.\"

\"There are venues that we want to start to reopen with testing and capacity limitations,\" Cuomo said at a press conference. \"Theaters, arenas, why can't you do it with Broadway? You can.\"

The Broadway League, which represents theater owners and producers, had previously announced that Broadway performances will remain suspended through May 30 of this year.

To help promote arts and culture, the state recently launched a new performing arts program, NY PopsUp, which will feature over 300 free events statewide in 100 days.

Next month, New York City will start accepting applications for Open Culture NYC, a permitting program that would allow institutions to hold socially distanced performances on city streets. The city has also recently created Curtains Up NYC, a program to connect live performance venues to up to $10 million in federal grants.

As live venues have struggled to hold on for almost a year, some won't be reopening. Among the latest closures, the Peoples Improv Theater, a nearly 20-year-old comedy venue, announced last week that it was shuttering its main space in Manhattan.

\"It's been over 11 months that we have been shut down and eventually we have to surrender to survive,\" owner Ali Farahnakian said in a statement. \"So we are in the process of surrendering the space. ... Godspeed to a brighter future.\"

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