LOCAL NEWS OP-ED
New York’s Latino
small biz need help
now more than ever
BY ALFREDO ANGUEIRA
According to Eater
New York, more than
1,000 NYC restaurants
have shut their doors
for good since March 2020,
and the list keeps growing.
Every day, more restaurants
and other beloved
local businesses are forced
to close due to the relentless
COVID-19 pandemic.
In the Latino community,
we’ve seen worse economic
downturn than the national
average. Research from Small
Business Majority earlier this
year discovered that Latino
small businesses were more
likely to temporarily close or
consider permanently closing
their businessesthan their
white counterparts. Many
were forced to take drastic
actions like laying off employees,
cutting employee hours,
or reducing wages.
It’s clear that Congress
needs to focus on helping our
small businesses out of this
crisis, which is why I was glad
to see that President Biden included
special aid provisions
for minority businessesin the
American Rescue Plan. Other
included programs like the
Paycheck Protection Program
and the Restaurant Revitalization
Program are the types
of progressive policies I hope
to see more of.
Yet while some in Washington
are doing the work
to help us, others have chosen
instead to cater to big
corporations. In the coming
months, massive retailers
like Amazon and Walmart
are trying to push through
harmful fi nancial proposals
that will alter our credit market
and shift $40 to $50 billion
annually from consumers
Construction workers lift a piece of the 10-ton steel beams known as head knockers as MTA
chief Janno Lieber (second from right) and Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin (right)
watch from the side.
Making headway
MTA axes ‘head knocker’ beams from Penn
rushing through the
passageway between 7th and
8th avenues.
Their removal is part of a
larger almost four-year revamp
to widen and heighten the concourse,
following the opening
of a new entrance at its
eastern end.
MTA had to fi rst put in a new
support structure for the streets
and stadium above before removing
the load-bearing beams,
said the agency’s head of construction
and development.
“We had to remove the previous
structural roof and replace
it with a secondary structure
that supported not only the
street, but also Madison Square
Garden — all without shutting
down 7th Avenue, and all by operating
the busiest train station
in North America,” remarked
Jamie Torres-Springer. “This
was a very complicated feat
of engineering.”
There are seven head knockers
total and the MTA took
PHOTO BY KEVIN DUGGAN
out the fi rst one last week, the
second one Tuesday, and will
start lifting out the others this
weekend, Torres-Springer said.
The agency started the project
in June 2019 to overhaul
the corridor, beginning with a
grand new entrance with escalators,
which opened at the end
of 2020.
Construction contractor
Skanska is working to raise the
ceilings to a uniform 18 feet
and widen the walkway from
30 feet to almost double at 57
feet, along with new entrances,
stairwells, and elevators to
the tracks.
Developer Vornado will be in
charge of the new retailers that
will line the corridor and the
renovation is slated to wrap in
March 2023.
Its scope makes up about one
fi fth of Penn Station and Governor
Kathy Hochul and the MTA
plan to soon roll out a facelift
for remainder of the maze-like
transit hub.
The Villager, Villager Express, Chelsea Now, Downtown Express and Manhattan Express
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and small businesses to
big retailers.
Even worse, big retailers
may have fared well but small
businesses like mine suffered.
When banks lost billions of
dollars in interchange fees,
they took drastic measures
to regain their lost funds
like charging the full interchange
fee cap on every single
transaction that retailers processed,
no matter how small.
For big retailers that sell tons
of goods in large quantities,
this was great. But for local
New York businesses that
rely on small transactions,
many saw their small-ticket
debit fees double or triple
from what they paid before
Congress acted on this issue
previously.
If we let these giant retailers
push their policies onto
our credit market too, banks
will charge the full interchange
fee cap on all our
credit transactions and make
the small purchases that businesses
like mine rely on an
expensive cost.
It’ll be even worse this
time, since our country’s
credit market is so much bigger
than our debit market. We
need to protect the 2 million
Latino business owners in
our country who rely on credit
and debit cards as a crucial
part of their business.
During a pandemic that
wreaked havoc on New
York’s Latino small businesses,
we absolutely cannot afford
to increase our business
costs just so big corporations
can have another payday.
Senator Schumer and Senator
Gillibrand should say no to
these changes.
Alfredo Angueira is the
Co-Founder of The Hoodspitality
Member of the National
Newspaper Association
Group.
Member of the
New York Press Association
Member of the Minority
Women Business Enterprise
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Knock, knock, knocking
your head no more!
Construction workers
started removing massive lowhanging
steel beams known as
“head knockers” from Penn Station’s
33rd Street concourse this
week as part of the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority’s
$559 million renovation of the
notoriously cramped corridor.
“Everyone who uses the Long
Island Rail Road concourse
knows them and hates them,
because they prevent us from
having any human-sized head
height,” said MTA Chairperson
and CEO Janno Lieber during
a press conference inside a construction
site in the station Tuesday.
“These are the main culprit
in making Penn feel so dungeonlike,
among other culprits.”
The 10-ton beams are original
to the old Penn Station, but
hang as low as 6 feet, making
them a hazard for taller commuters
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