The pandemic continues, but some of its episodes are already becoming pages of history. Leo Jacob, Director of Sales and Marketing at Bower Hotel, contributed to this process. When the city began to close in March 2020 and shut down business in all directions, Jacob decided to capture for the future what was happening at his hotel and its surroundings on the Lower East Side.
“I started by just taking pictures in real time,” he told the Daily News reporter. – I wanted to inform other people that contrary to what was often said then, many businesses continued to work and fight for existence. And then it all began to grow and rolled like a snowball. “
Jacob began to contact the owners of restaurants and shops, celebrities who visited them, interviewed and filmed them, posted fragments of these materials on Instagram and soon came up with the idea of creating a book, or rather a photo album with comments.
“That was my answer to those who claimed New York was dead,” recalls Leo Jacob. “Their statements were damaging to tourism, the industry I work in.”
Leica has equipped it with its latest cameras, which ensured high image quality. Now the book is titled New York Dead? Long live New York! ” completed. It will be out of print in mid-December. It includes stories from more than 40 restaurants and shops, photos and texts about how these businesses survived the pandemic, interviews with famous actors such as Jason Momoa and Zoe Kravets.
Newspaper headline:
“Is New York dead? Long live New York! “
.