New York City restaurants can begin indoor dining with limited capacity on Friday, two days earlier than planned, and a program to provide live arts programming will begin later this month, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday.
The moves came as both Mr. Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio expressed optimism for the months ahead, saying that arts and culture are key to the state’s reopening and return to normalcy.
Mr. Cuomo said testing would be crucial to reopening Broadway, noting the success of a recent Buffalo Bills game where 7,000 fans were tested beforehand for Covid-19 and allowed to watch in-person at Bills stadium.
“You can open a Broadway stage with a set percentage of occupants, where people have tested prior to walking in,” said Mr. Cuomo. “Would I go see a play and sit in a playhouse with 150 people? If the 150 people were tested, and all negative, yes, I would do that.”
The state’s new arts initiative is a baby step toward restarting live performances, with 300 free pop-up performances across the state that will begin on Feb. 20 and run through summer. The idea is to have lots of performances all over the state with small audiences, the governor’s office said.
