NEW YORK, 11 September 2004 — The two airliners that converted the twin towers into Ground Zero also crushed a neighborhood where well-heeled Financial Center customers have been replaced by tourists.
The Sept. 11, 2001 attacks left Manhattan in a $54-billion hole, with a loss of 100,000 jobs and more than a million square meters (15 million square feet) of commercial space, according to the city’s chamber of commerce.
“The tourists come, they go to that block, they look at that hole, maybe they buy some of the stuff on the street, and they leave,” said Renee Rosales-Kopel, director of sales for William Barthman, a jeweler known in the Financial Center since 1884.
The jeweler is one business that has suffered the changes in Lower Manhattan and the absence of the large financial companies once located in the World Trade Center, but which moved to other parts of the city or New Jersey.
“We have to start all over,” she said.
The neighborhood, once the turf of high-salaried employees, is now the terrain of tourists who haggle over Manhattan’s sky-high prices.
Three million persons visited Ground Zero in 2003, according to the Downtown Alliance, which did little to improve what Rosales-Kopel called “a very, very bad year.”
She said that in the aftermath of the attacks, things were better. New Yorkers have since forgotten their early commitment to shop downtown as a show of patriotism.
“It’s over,” she said.
However, area restaurants have benefited from the walk-in crowds.
“Definitely, things have returned to normal,” said Marisa Brown, manager of Les Halles restaurant on John Street, near Ground Zero.
“Since Sept. 11, our sales have risen solidly,” she said, adding that 2003 sales were up about $10,000.
“People see that the area is flourishing and growing.”
Even The World of Golf has come back, said Steve Winograd, who has managed the golf shop since 1999.
“Business is better, probably more than even pre-Sept. 11 right now,” he said.
Architect Daniel Libeskind, who drew plans for construction on Ground Zero, told reporters “There is a move. People are coming back, offices, buildings are being transformed into lofts and apartments, people want to be there and be part of the rebuilding process.”
He spoke at a press conference Tuesday, four days before a commemoration of the third anniversary of the attacks, in which more than 2,700 people died in New York.
However, a group of businessmen wrote a letter to President George W. Bush, asking for federal aid for a new passenger rail line for the area.
“Despite major growth in the residential sector, the pace of employment recovery has been slow and the area continues to suffer economically.
“As downtown business leaders, we have particularly noted two constraints to Lower Manhattan’s growth: The area is not well connected to labor pools in the suburbs and is not readily accessible to the national and international business community,” said the July 21 letter.
