Anticipation and fear: how Wall Street is coming back to life after the pandemic

The clock is 7:45 am. Wednesday. John Corzine leaves his Upper East Side home, but is stopped by his wife, Sharon.

"Don't forget the mask," she reminds the former HEAD of US bank Goldman Sachs, which now runs hedge fund JDC-JSC. Corzine takes the elevator down and out onto Fifth Avenue to reach the midtown Manhattan office where he spent nine months alone. But now everything is changing. He was joined in March by a trader, and soon Korzin will have his first face-to-face meeting since covid-19 hit New York more than a year ago.

The pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 32 thousand New Yorkers. For Wall Street, it turned out to be an unexpectedly huge profit. Government support also played a role. Much of the work was done from home or in empty offices. But now New York is lifting CORONAVIRUS restrictions and JPMorgan Chase is reopening its office buildings to all workers. The country's largest bank wants US employees back to work by early July, and Goldman Sachs managers have told staff to be ready for in-person work from June 14. Already 37% of the city's residents have been vaccinated, and employees of the financial sector have begun to slowly fill the offices in Manhattan.