Midtown Has Been Empty, but Other Retail Zones Have Bounced Back Shopping locally has helped foot traffic in some commercial districts across the city return almost to prepandemic levels. Main Street, the heart of Flushing’s Chinatown, is busy but many businesses have closed.Credit...Tom Sibley for The New York Times April 13, 2021 All eyes are on Midtown Manhattan as everyone anxiously waits to see if and when office workers and tourists will return to what have been eerily empty streets and whether the businesses that line them will regain customers lost during the pandemic. But other retail corridors across New York are also important barometers of the city’s economy, as well as key to its recovery; a survey of five of them, one in each borough, showed signs of resilience.