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 hair cut at Astor 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 Yorkers hair for decades, including mine and Mayor Bill

de Blasios. Mike says the mayor was here two weeks ago. His hair caught 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 in, 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 a 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-shoe thermometer and a yellow legal pad for contact tracing.

And a walkie-talkie to communicate with the inside of the shop.

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

First day was last Monday. It was crazy. We had like 30, 40 people out here waiting the whole time.

Second day was busy. Then it slowed down after that. We're probably one-fourth of our capacity right now

for this week. Astra Hare, like many businesses in New York, has the green light to open. But without

one key part of their clientele, Manhattan office workers, it's been hard to get back up to

speed. Well, that's the main reason why we're slow.

I mean, we have a lot of customers that work in the office buildings,

a lot of people from Wall Street.

We have a lot of customers from Midtown that work in offices that would come.

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