>"After a year of tragedy and uncertainty, New Yorkers are revisiting old haunts—and sharing them with new faces." "The reopening, promoted by falling COVID case numbers and rising vaccination rates, seemed to have happened over a similar weekend, in May. But it felt less like an iris closing and more like a flower blooming in time-lapse photography. The same time span felt faster, like an explosion rather than like a declension. Emergence may or may not be a stronger natural force than entropy, but we favor it emotionally. We mourn for the thing coming down, and root for the one going up."