By Joyce M. Rosenberg
NEW YORK — Five years after the destruction of the World Trade Center, Evelyn Robb still worries about the future of her candy shop. The business, a block from where the twin towers stood, hasn’t recovered completely from the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
| The company managed to survive by helping clients |
“It’s not going to change for many, many years,” said Robb, owner of Evelyn’s Chocolates. “The people are not back.”
Many Lower Manhattan businesses like Robb’s that depend on customers who work in or visit the area continue to struggle.
Companies with a more far-flung clientele have done better, simply because their fortunes aren’t tied to this still-struggling part of New York.
CapitalIQ was a 2-year-old high-tech provider of financial information across the street from the towers in 2001. After the first plane hit, the company evacuated its employees. When the buildings collapsed, CapitalIQ’s offices were inundated with two feet of debris.
Executive Vice President William Okun said the company, which he described as “just starting to get good momentum,” was able to function because its services were Web-based and because the staff was able to keep in touch via telephone and handheld computers. In two weeks, it had office space.
The company’s recovery was difficult, however, because “many of our clients were in chaotic situations themselves,” Okun said. He described CapitalIQ as suffering from lost opportunities in the months after the attacks. It downsized by about a third.
But by late 2002, Okun said, the company was growing again, and in September 2004 it was bought by Standard & Poor’s Corp. Okun said his company’s reach beyond Lower Manhattan was key to its success over the past five years.
Carl Mazzanti and Jennifer Shine, owners of computer networking company eMazzanti, were on their way to see clients and were in the train station below the trade center when the first plane hit. They made their way to safety despite falling debris.
The company was weeks old on 9/11 with a handful of clients, all in Lower Manhattan. All the clients lost telephone service and thus couldn’t use the company’s networking services.
Shine said the company survived by helping clients. For example, it helped them communicate by using its own Internet access in its offices in Hoboken, N.J., just across the Hudson River.
Those efforts paid off. Although eMazzanti struggled, it eventually won more customers, referrals from its original clients.
But Shine said it wasn’t until the spring or summer of 2002 that she and Carl Mazzanti started to feel secure.
One reason for the company’s success — it has 200 clients — is it adapted to meet the changing demands of other businesses. Its core business now includes disaster recovery services.
North of the trade center, restaurants in Little Italy still aren’t as busy as five years ago.
“We never recovered,” said John Ciarcia, owner of a cafe called Cha Cha’s. “I’m still 40 to 50 percent off of pre-9/11.”
Business has certainly picked up from the weeks following Sept. 11, 2001, when smoke from the trade center’s ruins still drifted for blocks and relatively few people visited Little Italy despite its popularity among tourists. But like many other Lower Manhattan restaurateurs, Ciarcia said he modified his business to stay open, cutting business hours and letting some employees go.
Meanwhile, at her candy shop, Robb is not sure she will make it. Her problem is that many office buildings have been turned into apartments as companies left Lower Manhattan. And families are more likely to stop in for candy for the kids rather than the more expensive gifts that office workers sought.
“It’s not like it used to be at all,” Robb said.
