Bring It On

Despite all the objections about the 9/11 trials there is one group that has no complaints: Residence and business owners who live near the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan where the preceding will take place. They are not fazed. They don’t care if all the security and traffic issues disrupt their daily lives. They say bring it on.

“I mean, come on, you have all around here the FBI, homeland security and local police stations, that really I cannot be worried,” said Hugh O’Reilly, 32, who lives at 111 Worth Tribeca, a luxury apartment building a couple hundred yards from the steps of the federal courthouse.

The pending trial has been the talk of the neighborhood since the U.S. government’s Nov. 13 announcement that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be tried at 500 Pearl St. Last Saturday, more than 1,000 people protested the trials on Foley Square, across the street from the courthouse. While the trials may bring loads of security concerns and inconveniences to some in the area most are not bothered by the news.

Steven Macada, 39, is a computer programmer who lives in Chinatown’s Chatham Towers co-op apartments located on Park Row, just a block from the federal courthouse. Macada believes people who are worried are over-reacting. “I know a lot of people around here who complain but come on you live in Manhattan, right next to the federal courthouse where it is always a circus,” said Macada.

Even people who are personally not in favor of the tribunal are not scared.
Joe Pak,29, works at the Equitable Building in the financial district and lives at 170 Park Row. He lost his uncle in the World Trade Center on 9/11. While he is uneasy about the suspects being tried in New York City he is not afraid. “ I am not sure what the purpose of them being here is,” said Pak. “ But I am not scared because I know that security will do a good job. They are here to protect us and as a result we just have to deal with the inconvenience.”

Local business might be affected around the courthouse, considering the amount of security, road blocks, and press people that will be infiltrating the area, halting local customers and foot traffic.

According to Alan Siege, a New York University professor who teaches a class called, “ Starting your Own Small Business” local businesses near the trials can lose about 10 percent income on a given day. “Especially in these times any money you take away from business owners will make them nervous,” said Siege.

But Ramon Paniagua, the manager of Albella Restorante and Bar, a high-end bar and restaurant across the street from the courthouse on the corner of Elk and Reade St. said he does not care about losing customers. He believes integrity takes precedence over money. “Yes it will affect my business but I understand it is one of those things that has to happen,” said Paniagua. “. “The crime was committed here and it should be here.”

Needless to say, not everyone is happy with the news. Around the corner from Albella Restorante, on Lafayette and Duane Streets, Faro Costanc, the manager of Corte Café, was working when the planes hit the towers. He is pissed. “It’s bad for business, bad for this area and it is going to bring back bad memories of that painful day,” said Costanc, 50.

At least one woman who lives at 111 Worth Tribeca is not thrilled.” Ya, I am a little scared because you just never know,” said the woman who wanted to remain anonymous. “ I won’t even be able to walk my dog.”

The 9/11 Never Forget Coalition organized the protest on Saturday, which was composed mainly of family members and firefighters who lost loved ones on 9/11. The founder, Tim Sumner, said locals have reasons to worry because security will halt day to day life. “The whole area will be a frozen zone,” said Sumner.

Steven Brams, a Professor of Politics at NYU, disagrees that the security will be an issue. “ I do not think the security will be unduly high,” said Brams. “ That is the cost of the judicial system. They are going to cause inconveniences but overall it will not be a major issue.”

“ This is the most secure place in the world,” said Arlene Ancona, 63, an artist who also lives at 111 Worth Tribeca. Ancona said that previous big name trials with high volumes of security have not been an issue. She is confident that with the 9/11 trial the result will be the same. “ I know I won’t even feel it,” said Ancona.

Community Board 3 includes ChinaTown and Park Row. According to Susan Stetzer, the District Manager at CB3, there have been no complaints so far.

Ro Sheffe, chairman-of-the-board at Community Board One, also said there have been no calls. But he is getting ready for objections once the date is set. For now, he is in favor of the trials but is hesitant to see how much it will impede on people’s way of life. “ Justice should be served where injustice was done,” said Sheffe. “ But if it disrupts residence and businesses than I and probably many others at the board would be opposed to the trials.”

Small Businesses Hanging on By a Thread.

Small businesses in Lower Manhattan are getting slaughtered. Last year there were 320 businesses in the downtown district that closed and 240 were in the financial district. But despite hard times on Wall Street, many small businesses in the financial district are finding ways to adapt. Some are setting up new websites for take-out while others are finding better prices for their customers.

“During these times it’s not fair to let me customers down,” said Mouhamad Shami, owner of Alfanoose’s Middle Eastern Cuisine, located on Maiden Street in New York City’s financial district

Shami runs around his restaurant frantically every day. One second he serves his Middle Eastern food behind the counter, the next second he package orders he receives from his restaurants website which he installed in September.

Times are tough for 54-year-old Shami, a husband and father of two boys and one girl. Still, he is doing whatever he can to make ends meet and stay loyal to his cliental.

Shami use to make a good living but is now getting killed, as income is down about 50 percent. Factors such as the recession and reconstruction projects blocking foot traffic have contributed to the decline in revenue. But the mom and pop business that are staying open are doing so because they are catering to loyal customers they consider family.

Shami, who was born in Lebanon, moved and opened Alfanoose in 2004. So far, Shami said the website has helped revenue about 10 percent.

In a few months, Shami will be serving middle-eastern breakfast consisting of meat pies and chick pea dishes, something his long time customers have requested.
Meanwhile, Shami also started putting advertisements for his restaurant on Yelp, a search engine for restaurants.

Most importantly, Shami maintains his loyal customers by treating them like family.
“Many of my customers keep coming back because they know my kids, we becomes part of their family and they become part of ours,” said Shami.
Phil Yeni, who is 29-years old, works as a financial investor in midtown, said he comes to Alfanoose for the family feel.

“I moved here from Lebanon, so to me this place hits home,” said Yeni.
Currently, small businesses in the financial district are moving over for big time corporate chains.

To help matters, The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation two years ago installed a federal loan program to aid small businesses downtown. In the last four months, Community Board 1 has successfully pushed for almost $2 million of the $5 million dollars promised to be allocated. Last week, Shami finally got his share of the fund, and paid off his landlord.

All around Maiden Street, small businesses are honing in on their loyal cliental.

At Chameleon Comics and Cards, 45-year old Jimmy Wu is also altering. Wu actively is on eBay each day trying to find his customers the cheapest prices on specialized sports memorabilia. “I have to give customers what they want so they keep coming back,” said Wu.

But can small businesses, like Alfanoose, still survive?

“Yes, because he (Shami) has done some good analysis,” said Alan Siege, who teaches a class at New York University called “Starting your own small business. “ Not everyone can do what Alfanoose does because most people don’t know how to solve their needs. When things get tough you have to really adjust and distinguish yourself,” said Siege.

However, Ro Sheffe, chairmen of district board one, believes many small businesses in the financial district will have to close up shop, mainly because not enough money can be guaranteed by the LMDC.
“Simply put, these guys are hanging on by their fingernails,” said Sheffe.

But the LMDC is doing the best they can.

“Two weeks ago we included funds to more than 200 blocks of small businesses that have been hurt,” said John Delibero, media liaison at LMDC.

If business does not continue to improve by the end of the year, Shami will either move to a smaller location or share his large space with another business.
Yet, Shami still believes. “As long as you see a light at the end of the tunnel you can still hope,” said Shami.

An inspiring encounter with THE newspaper man

Former editor and columnist of the New York Post, Pete Hamill, recently presented himself to NYU’s “Reporting Downtown” beat class. The class just finished reading one of his memoirs, “Downtown: My Manhattan.” Simply put, Hamill was there to inspire.

At 74-years old, Hamill still may be the most interesting man in the world. Not only does he look like the guy from those Dos Equis beer commercials; he also shares his aura…the world traveler, newspaperman and author who has accomplished more as a writer than the Pope has as a Christian.

During his 90-minute visit on Oct. 13, he took questions from the 15 undergraduate journalism majors in the class that covered everything from sports and political writing to his thoughts on marriage. In terms of advice, Hamill left nothing out the door. He encouraged the students to never have an agenda before writing. “The worst thing you can do as a journalist is have an ideology,” Hamill said as he mentioned how he approached covering the Vietnam War.

Hamill also noted the importance of truth and morality when it came to reporting, urging the class to never hurt anyone that can’t hurt you back. And, that with great reporting “ the facts always come first.”

When it came to love, Hamill had advice too: “You fall in love with the people you meet; you don’t pursue them like quarry.” As an example, he explained that he met his second wife, a Japanese journalist, in Tokyo while she was interviewing him. They have now been married for 25 years.

“She knows that when I am looking out the window that I am working, “ said Hamill as he explained the benefits of being married to someone who understands what writers are like.

Hamill has also written novels and a memoir with vivid sex scenes. In preparation for his visit, the class had read an excerpt from “Loving Women.” When questions about this fictional work arose during his visit, Hamill said that he writes about sex because “writers like Jane Austin never took you into the bathroom. As for “Loving Women,’ it was “ a work of the imagination” Hamill said with a wink, refusing to admit whether the love scenes were actually about himself.

But in discussing fiction, Hamill admitted that every writer’s work could be entitled, “ Guilty with An Explanation.”

When writing columns, Hamill says he sticks with the facts and goes to the scene.

When writing about himself, which Hamill loves to do, he says the biggest challenge is to “ not give yourself the best lines.”

In addition to authoring more than 20 books, Hamill has also written for many newspapers and magazines. But he feels like he is not done yet. “ I try to live my life without finishing,” Hamill said.

In the late spring, Hamill has a new book coming out. It’s features a crime and a mystery that take place during this latest recession.But his approach to writing about this difficult financial period will not be filled with business and economics. “If I had to write about Goldman Sachs I would cut my wrist," Hamill said.

Reliving History

For the last 100 years the Frances Tavern Museum has acted as a reminder to the Revolutionary War. Today, I visited the museum in New York City’s financial district and for the next month it is showing one of only four hand-written documents of the Magna Carta. Overall, I really enjoyed how the paintings, artifacts and documents showed me history as opposed to me reading it in some boring textbook.

At the museum, I met up with 29-year-old Jennifer Patton, the Director of Education there. She told me how the Museum was purchased in 1904 by the “ Sons of the Revolution” which are actually sons of fathers who fought in the Revolutionary War, who purchased documents, weapons and paintings that depicted colonial America.

“ We want this place to be the starting point of conversation,” said Patton. “ There is a lot more to it than George Washington.”

During my hour at the museum, Patton showed me the fascinating Magna Carta exhibit, paintings of the war by John Ward, a room containing pistols and muskets from the war, and the Long Room where George Washington actually said farewell to his officers of the continental army. Can you imagine, the actual room?

If you are as patriotic as me, or even if you want to impress a date, check out Frances Tavern and relive your countries history. Plus, there is a quaint Frances Tavern restaurant next door that looks like a scene out of the 1700s.

Kind of a bug out.



Information:
Website: http://www.frauncestavernmuseum.org/
Phone: 212-968-1776
Price: $10.00
Hours: 12p.m-5p.m., closed on Sunday.
address: 59 Pearl St.

Yankee Game

Game five of the 2001 World Series between the New York Yankees and Arizona Diamondbacks was one of the best moments of my mother’s life. My mom, who is from Los Angeles, was born in Brooklyn and grew up a die-hard Yankees fan and she took me and my family to that amazing game. She loved Yankee Stadium’s energy, its winning tradition and most of all the excitement from the fans. In an effort to relive that wonderful experience she took me again to see the New York Yankees take on the Philadelphia Phillies in the 2009 World Series. However, this time the series did not live up to the hype my mother and I expected.

For starters, the new Yankee Stadium did not share the same energy that the old Yankee Stadium did.

The fans were more reserved, most of them were sitting for good portions of the games and many were spending more time in the concession stands eating hot dogs and buying memorabilia.

The Yankees also got blown out, 6-1. They were in the game for a few innings until the Phillies blew the door open.

One Yankee fan, on the subway ride home, tried justifying to me why the New York fans were so “weak” this time. “When you are getting killed it kind of takes the fight out of you,” he said.

But even after game two, when the Yankees beat the Phillies to even the series, Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies said he was surprised that Yankee fans were so quite. Phillies fans were much more energetic according to Rollins.


The reason why the fans sucked can be summed up in three words; high ticket prices.
Rich people are typically the only ones who could attend a game with the kind of prices being asked for, especially a World Series game in the new Yankee Stadium. In the old park, it was still plausible for a middle class worker to save up for a few weeks, bite the bullet and pay for a ticket. But now-a-days that same person would probably have to give up eating for a month to afford a seat.

For some reason, being rich is synonymous with being a lousy fan. I see it in Los Angeles all the time; poorer fans who are the most energetic in the cheaper seats during the season, only to be replaced by wealthier ones during the post season and championship games. I don't know why rich fans cannot be as crazy as poorer ones but maybe because money blinds them to being passionate about their sports teams.

Whatever the case, maybe one day a seat to a championship game will be measured on a fanatic’s passion not their paycheck. Hopefully for a city like New York, whose pride themselves on being the best fans in the world, the rich people don’t ruin it for everyone else. Especially not for my mother and I again.

Rally

Oil companies in New York City are planning on drilling for gas near an upstate watershed in New York City. The shed is the source of New York City’s unfiltered drinking water. In response, New York City’s financial district will be the host of the “ Kill the Drill” campaign in an effort to halt the companies from potentially ruining the water source. The protest will be held Nov. 10.

Apparently, Chesapeake Energy Corporation Oil decided on October 27th not to do any drilling on the watershed but other oil companies are still free to drill if they wish.

The gas is trapped in shale rock and extracting it would require certain chemicals to be shot in. Possibly, those chemicals could seep into the water.

“We are very concerned about the whole chemical process, and while it would help for drilling it would be extremely worse off for us,” said Michael Levin, Director of Land use and planning at Community Board 1.

The rally will be held at 5 p.m. outside Stuyvesant High School, 345 Chambers Street, between the West Side Highway and Hudson River Park. Levin explained that the financial district is a main area of concern due to the amount of restaurants that rely on clean water to make food.

An E-mail from the Manhattan board president was sent to community boards all over Manhattan, urging board members to let out the word to as many people as possible about the rally. “This is an issue of grave concern,” read the e-mail. “At stake is the quality of the water we drink, our public health, and billions of taxpayer dollars that would be needed to build and operate a filtration system if this decision is mishandled.”

According to an editorial from the New York Times, New York State officials said the drilling would help New York’s economic woes. The city has insisted that the rules are strict enough to prevent chemical accidents.

World Trade Center Tour

My last visit to the site of the World Trade Center was three weeks after the towers had gone down. I remember being able to see parts of the buildings still standing and smell dead bodies. The visit, however, helped my family and I with a personal lose. Today I visited the World Trade Center Tour with my journalism beat class. After the tour we listened to a woman named Tracy Gazani tell how she lost her son in the WTC on 9/11. She said the people of New York City helped her cope. Funny, my family and I had the same experience.

Three weeks after the World Trade Center collapsed, my grandmother passed away. My family, crushed over the tragedy in the last month, decided to go to see to see the remains of the WTC. Meanwhile, my parents were born and raised in New York and grew up die hard Yankee fans. During our visit my mom thought it would be therapeutic if she got to see the Yankees play in the World Series. So she bought tickets and we went.

The Yankees won the game in heroic fashion. I nearly cried when a flag that was pulled out of the 9/11 wreckage was revealed during the rendition of God Bless America. The moment, the game, and the sense of togetherness that surrounded the stadium allowed New Yorkers, as well as my family, to cope with their losses.


Although it was a wet morning, the rain set the tone for the somber day. First our class walked around the center, watched a video of the construction of the WTC and then saw some of the remains from the site; An American Flag, a NYC fireman’s uniform and fliers of missing people that were put up shortly after the tragedy, killing 2,749 people.

Shortly after, we went on an audio tour through the World Financial Center, which peered out over the area where the WTC once stood. The audio tour featured interviews from mourners, firemen and first-hand accounts of what happened step by step. The whole time I continued to think of how that area looked the last time I saw it.

After the tour, we had an interview with Gazzani, whose 24-year-old son, Terry, died working in the 104th floor of the WTC. Gazzani, who lives in Brooklyn, retired as a teacher last year to volunteer at the center so her experiences could help other people. She told of how she said goodbye to her son after feeding him special K, almost choking up as she said it. I kept thinking of how much she reminded me of my mother, a strong, independent woman who loved her family more than life itself.

Gazzani told us stories about Terry that she heard from friends and family after he was killed. But most importantly, Gazzani said she felt, “fortunate,” mainly because of all the support she got from friends and family. “It was a wonderful time for everyone in this city to come together,” Gazzani explained.

Gazzani left us by admitting that her distress does not get better but gets “different.” My mother, in one way or another, has said the same to me when talking about her mom. My father, a patriotic man in his own right, always tells reminds me of that painful day, and how he will never fully get over it.

I surely will never forget that day and have always felt the way Gazzani does. I always felt fortunate that as terrible a day as 9/11 was that nothing came close to how strongly my family came together. For both my family and Gazzani the people of New York City made us realize the things that were most important; each other.