Sounding the alarm: Chinatown merchants,
pols seek effort to save businesses
BY TEQUILA MINSKY
Last week, small business owners,
community leaders, and local
elected offi cials met in Chinatown
calling for immediate relief measures to
save Chinatown businesses including the
need to expand the Open Streets program.
In early August, some restaurants reopened
with outdoor seating on platforms
in the streets. Leaders asked that more
streets be closed to traffi c, particularly on
Friday through Sunday evenings, and that
gift shops be allowed to sell wares from
the sidewalk.
“Summer is over in a couple weeks and
the most we can have this helpful setup
is through October, if we’re lucky,” said
District Leader Jenny Low. “So we need the
help. We can’t afford for our community to
be closed forever.”
Local business advocates understand
the dire need to increase economic activity.
They were frustrated when Mayor Bill de
Blasio visited a few weeks earlier, enjoyed
ice cream and a late lunch with some local
leaders, but didn’t directly engage merchants
on their specifi c issues.
For example, citing how small many
shops are, merchants who sell souvenirs report
that it is diffi cult to conduct business
while adhering to social distancing. They
want the city’s Open Streets plan to include
An introduction to the stores in Chinatown on Aug. 19, 2020.
them.
Council Member Mark Levine underscored
how bringing back jobs is a life-anddeath
struggle.
“Every single day that we delay, we
are risking losing more of these precious
businesses,” Levine said. “We have got to
listen to business owners who know their
business better than we know, who know
their community, who know these streets
and sidewalks better than we do.”
This sentiment was repeated by many
PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
speakers who emphasized that city leaders
should listen to local advocates throughout
the recovery process.
Chinatown was the fi rst neighborhood
impacted by COVID-19, long before
other areas of the city were affected. The
major yearly economic event — Chinese
New Year, this year in late January — was
tamped down signifi cantly by reports of
the outbreak, which began last December
in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
New York didn’t get its fi rst confi rmed
COVID-19 case until March 1, but fears
about the virus kept visitors away from
Chinatown for weeks prior — stalling economic
activity long before the fi rst pause
orders took effect.
Though Chinatown is open for business,
merchants says they still need to bring more
people back.
“We’ve lost 50% of our business,” says
Patrick Mock, whose bakery is at 46 Mott
St.
Across Mott Street, the owner of the
restaurant Cha Chan Tang showed a stack
of tickets citing violations he’s received
as his outdoor street seating arrangement
is buffeted from one side of the street to
another.
One community activist said the City
and State bureaucracies must work together
and streamline procedures to help
merchants get back to business.
Among the many elected offi cials in
attendance, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez
and Assemblymember Yuh-Line
Niou also spoke on behalf of the needs of
the community.
State Senators John Liu and Brian Kavanagh,
Council Members Antonio Reynoso
and Mark Levine and Manhattan Borough
President Gale Brewer joined the community
and business leaders on a walk through
the neighborhood to speak with merchants
about their challenges and problems.
TriBeCa residents protest Postal Service cuts
At Cooper Station, East Village. To chants of “save our post
office” a lively bunch from the East Village stood on the sidewalk,
spilling onto 4th ave. at 11th St. as part of Saturday’s
support demonstrations, countrywide for the U.S. Postal Service.
The fact that Cooper Station is hidden by scaffolding and
netting did not stop spirited demonstrators who encouraged
passing cars to honk their horns, which they did, in support.
Scores of TriBeCa residents
gathered outside the Canal
Street Station of the U.S.
Postal Service on Aug. 22 calling
for an end to cuts made across the
country.
As reported, the USPS, under
the direction of Postmaster
General Louis DeJoy, recently
removed mailboxes and sorting
machines from facilities across
America, purportedly as a costcutting
measure, slowing mail
service to a crawl.
Democratic lawmakers fear
this will slow the count of mail-in
ballots in the upcoming presidential
election, and some opponents
of President Trump see the reductions
as a method to undermine
the vote.
Carrying signs that read
“Stamp out fascism,” protesters
at the Canal Street Station urged
federal lawmakers to stop the
cuts at the USPS and provide
new funding for the organization.
Later that day, the House of
Representatives approved a $25
billion emergency funding bill for
the USPS, but there’s no word as
to whether the Republican-led
Senate will consider the measure.
PHOTOS BY TEQUILA MINSKY
Canal Steet Station drew a
number of Soho and Tribeca
residents to protest goverment
shenanigans regarding
lack of support to the post
office and its services.
10 August 27, 2020 Schneps Media