This is one of the most iconic places in Manhattan, I would have to say.

We've been here for so many years.

Anybody who's anybody got their haircut and asked the place.

This is Mike Saviello, known to all as Big Mike.

He's the manager at Astor Hair, a boisterous basement barbershop that has been cutting New

Yorker's hair for decades, including mine and Mayor Bill de Blasios.

Mike says the mayor was here two weeks ago.

His haircut cost 20 bucks.

I've been here 40 years and since we've been here, I met people who were nobody and

that became stars.

I mean like David Bowie got his first haircut here when he was, you know, Andy Warhol got

his first haircut here and then there was new kids on a block used to come here.

I came to talk to Big Mike because I wanted to peek at how New York City, once the country's

COVID-19 epicenter, was reopening.

He had set up a desk on the sidewalk.

He had a point and shoot thermometer and a yellow legal pad for contact tracing and a

walkie talkie to communicate with the inside of the shop.

Coming down.

Inside, the place is quieter than usual and not just because clients are waiting upstairs.

Ah, first day was last Monday.

It was crazy.

We were, we had like 30, 40 people out here waiting the whole time.

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