for COVID-19 shutdown
Workers turn to fundraisers
for fi nancial help
Some industry employees have turned to online fundraising to make
ends-meet. Photo by Craig Hubert
As movie theaters close
throughout the city because
of the coronavirus outbreak,
a new source of help has
emerged for these hourly
workers.
The Cinema Worker Solidarity
Fund, created by the
teams behind Greenpointbased
Light Industry and
the movie website/newsletter
Screen Slate, along with
others, will make the money
accessible to cinema workers
whose hours have been
stripped because of necessary
precautions to shut
Since their fundraiser began,
they have raised nearly
“We’re focusing specifi
cally on New York City
movie theater employees so
that we can provide quick, if
modest, relief to those in our
community, but encourage
others to consider the needs
of their own networks,” they
write on their GoFundMe
page.
For every $3,000 donated,
the organization says they
can to support fi ve people
with the equivalent of 40
hours a week at $15 an hour.
A second page, targeted
specifi cally to workers at
Brooklyn’s Alamo Drafthouse,
has also been created
after employees, who were
temporarily laid off, learned
that the theater would be
stopping their health insurance
on March 31.
Since the fundraiser
launched, Alamo has said
they are “committed to paying
the administration cost
and employer portion of the
COBRA insurance in the
month of April so that employees
on furlough should
pay the same for their health
coverage that they’ve always
paid.”
COURIER LIFE, MARCH 20-26, 2020 3
tavern said that bars not
serving food will be hardest
hit, especially given the
recently-cancelled St. Patrick’s
day festivities and because
they can’t fall back deliveries.
“It’s tough when you sell
beer and spirits,” said Matt
Hogan of Fourth Avenue’s
Irish Haven. “The timing of
it couldn’t be worse with St.
Patrick’s Day.”
The pub owner cancelled
all of their events for the
Emerald Isle-themed celebrations,
which usually
is essential to keeping the
business afloat, according to
Hogan.
“We’ve managed to operate
on razor thin margins
and we have put up a safety
net against things, but it’s
going to hurt for sure,” he
said. “But we realize the social
responsibility for not
spreading the virus.”
In Prospect Heights, the
owner of the local staple
diner Tom’s is gearing up
to reduce his operations to a
skeleton staff that will dish
up their comfort foods for
deliveries and take out only,
at a time when business usually
starts picking up after a
winter lull.
“Spring is when people
start getting some money
in their pockets, it’s when
things come a little more
to life for us,” said Jimmy
Kokotas, the third-generation
restaurant owner.
The spread of the virus
also halted the long-awaited
reopening of the historic restaurant
Gage and Tollner on
Fulton Street scheduled for
March 15, but owners were
optimistic the ancient business
would withstand this
crisis, too.
“Gage and Tollner has already
survived two World
Wars, the Great Depression,
the Spanish flu epidemic,
and Prohibition — it will
survive this as well,” the
owners said in an emailed
statement. “We will re-open
Gage & Tollner as soon as we
feel it’s the responsible thing
to do — and when we do,
what a magnificently grand
re-opening it will be.”
Meanwhile, the owners
of one Williamsburg board
game store said they saw
an uptick in sales during
the weekend, due to Brooklynites
stocking up on activities
to keep them busy while
quarantined indoors.
“There was a lot of people
this weekend who knew
they were going to be indoors
for the foreseeable future
and looking for things
to do to keep them sane
and occupied,” said Louis
Chato, one of the owners
of Twenty-Sided Store on
Grand Street.
Entertainment outside
of the home came to
a standstill, however, and
one Coney Island playwright
worried that freelancing
artists would
struggle to pay bills.
“I think everybody’s
priority is real life, but
performers are generally
freelancers or have a parttime
job in the service
industry and people are
freaking out about loosing
their gigs,” said Dick
Zigun, who had to call off
a years-in-the-works rock
opera due to the outbreak.
Zigun cancelled the
show he co-wrote about
a brain-eating jukebox
and said he and his fellow
artists were scrambling
to figure out how to not
have all their work be for
naught.
“It’s devastating because
for an Off-Off-
Broadway theater company,
you can’t just pause
a show and bring it back
two three months later,”
he said.
Kokotas, the owner
of Tom’s, hoped that the
spread of the virus will
be contained soon if New
Yorkers band together and
self-quarantine as much
as possible.
“If everybody’s responsible
and self-quarantines,
I think we can put
the worst of this behind
us, it’s gotta be a group
effort,” the restaurateur
said.
down movie theaters.
$50,000.
Matt Hogan, the owner of Irish Haven, worries about the effect of the closures on his livelihood.
Photo by Paulo Basseto