For New York’s 16th annual “Reasons to Love New York” issue, the magazine presents a tribute to 500 of the places that have closed since the pandemic began, including China Chalet, Clover Delicatessen, Frank’s Cocktail Lounge, Gem Spa, Lucky Strike, Snowdays, and more. The package features send-offs from Allison P. Davis, Emma Straub, Jiayang Fan, Mark Harris, Padma Lakshmi, Rumaan Alam, Wyatt Cenac, and many more, celebrating the places we ate, danced, shopped, got sweaty, and lived our New York City lives.

The cover features illustrations from French visual artist Jeanne Verdoux, who has lived in New York City for 20 years. “It is shocking to see places I went to are disappearing. To me they ARE New York,” says Verdoux. Many of the businesses captured in her drawings are places Verdoux herself is mourning, such as B Bar, Century 21, Carroll Gardens Diner, and Jeffrey New York, among others. She captured 38 businesses in just one week for the purposes of this cover. “I went inside a drawing tunnel with my ink brush and became a drawing machine,” she says of her process. “The drawings are a gestural expression of what I see. Very spontaneous. Little to no edits to the first impression.”

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• Design editor Wendy Goodman tours an 1880 artist’s cottage in the Rockaways that feels like a ship.

• Lowbrow brilliant: Pandemic silver lining: SantaCon is off this year. View this issue’s Approval Matrix, our deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on our taste hierarchies.

• Writer Chris Crowley reviews a new Mexican deli in Bushwick with real-deal Birria.

• 22 across: Classic 1957 courtroom drama about guys who skipped lunch?. Play this week’s Crossword Puzzle.

• Check out nymag.com all week for more, including the Look Book’s (final) visit to MeMe’s Diner, Stella Bugbee on the year that Instagram couldn’t handle, and our cultural critics’ 2020 top 10 lists.

• Our November 23–December 6 issue documented the underground New York party scene that has emerged in the wake of the pandemic.

• Senior art critic Jerry Saltz was on the SXSW Sessions podcast, giving advice for creatives in all walks of life, and explaining how he thinks the creative process can still thrive during challenging times.

• Host of The Cut podcast Avery Trufelman joins the latest episode of Slate’s Dear Prudence.