Employees at Brookyn’s New Lab could choose to wear a “proximity sensor” that buzzes whenever other colleagues get closer than 6 feet. Wearing a sensor is optional. Photo by Joanna Lin Su

Brooklyn’s New Lab employees can wear a proximity sensor, which is locked into a chest harness. It gives out a vibration feedback if participants get too close to each other. This could be escalated to auditory alerts if two people are walking within six feet of each other. Photo by Joanna Lin Su

At the front desk of New Lab in Brooklyn, the proximity sensors are separated into “clean” and “used”. Movement data is collected and analyzed by the company for future prevention. Photo by Joanna Lin Su

At New Lab in Brooklyn, face covering is required in common areas. Signs are set up for keeping people bearing “social distancing” in mind. Photo by Joanna Lin Su

New Lab, the Brooklyn-based tech hub also changes its bathroom capacity by only allowing three people entering at one time. Photo by Joanna Lin Su

Foodcellar, a local grocery store at Long Island City, requires cloth face coverings or masks for entry. Photo by Joanna Lin Su

Hygiene stations are set up in the common area at an apartment building called “Watermark” in Long Island City. Photo by Joanna Lin Su

A person sanitizes their hands at the hygiene station at the Watermark building in Long Island City. July 7. Photo by Joanna Lin Su

Long Island City’s Watermark apartment building posts social distancing guidelines. Photo by Joanna Lin Su

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A wave of corporate bankruptcies has  claimed 3,604 businesses  in the first half the year, up from 2,855 from the same period last year, according to Epiq Global, a firm that tracks data from US bankruptcy courts. With no vaccine for the virus yet, the coronavirus is still holding back the US economy, and bankruptcy filings are likely to accelerate, experts say.

“Companies in sectors like energy, retail and hospitality will continue to be under substantial pressure and see a lot of bankruptcy filings,” said Peter Friedman, a leading bankruptcy and restructuring litigator at law firm O’Melveny.

A pullback in consumer spending has hit retail stores hard, which were already facing tough competition from e-commerce giants like Amazon. Energy companies have also been hurt as the crisis sapped the demand for oil after travel and economic activity came to a screeching halt.

Under the Paycheck Protection Program, an aid program for small and mid-sized businesses, the government has issued 4.9 million loans totaling $521 billion as of June 30.  The program was set to expire on June 30, but Congress has extended it to Aug. 8.

Experts aid can help sustain businesses, but this model can’t be the panacea.

Despite receiving PPP loans, many companies are still going bust. Toojay’s, a popular Florida-based deli chain that had received $6.4 million in stimulus funds, is one of them. Almost one out of every 12 companies that have gone bankrupt since early April got PPP loans, according to a research firm bankruptcydata.com.

“PPP obviously can be helpful, but fundamentally if there is a loss in revenue or too much leverage on the business, it’s a different picture,” said Friedman.

Many debt-saddled firms could begin to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 if the economy doesn’t rebound.

Chapter 11 of the US bankruptcy code allows a troubled company to restructure its debt while continuing to operate. If the company fails to pay its creditors, its assets are liquidated under Chapter 7. June was a particularly bad month for companies this year. Commercial Chapter 11 filings were up 43% over June of last year, with 609 new filings, Epiq Global said. A total of 1,0121 companies were liquidated under Chapter 7 filings this year so far.

One of the biggest corporate casualties under Chapter 11 was Hertz, after stay-at-home orders   whacked its business. Already sitting on $17 billion in debt, the company gave in.

Household retailer J.C. Penney also filed for bankruptcy, after it struggled to service $4 billion in debt. The company has announced to close its 250 stores by the end of summer 2021.

“Going into recession with a heavy amount of debt is almost a recipe for bankruptcy,” Anthony Karydakis, Adjunct Professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said.

Karaydakis said companies that managed to survive the intense lockdown period, “are still not out of the woods yet.”

The piling up of debt and falling revenue has left companies teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.  Victoria’s Secret and Best Buy are among many that are on the edge.

US companies have piled on more than $11 trillion in debt over a decade, fueled in part by low interest rates from the Federal Reserve. For companies looking to raise funds, low interest rates make debt attractive because they lower borrowing cost. Cheap debt drives firms to take more debt at low interests from their creditors. But accumulating too much debt can be dangerous, especially when the economy slows.  Experts say many companies are likely to default on their debt payments now that the pandemic has hurt sales.

“Taking debt when the economy is doing ok is relatively manageable, but debt starts becoming a threat to the existence of certain companies when the economy slows down,” Karydakis said.

“Companies can’t hang around without making payments on their debt.”

Karydakis also says as more companies go bankrupt in the coming months there will be more job losses in the US. At 11.1%, unemployment still remains higher than at any point during the Great Recession. Karydakis noted it’s possible bankruptcies could keep unemployment elevated for months to come.

“Companies are going to lay off as more bankruptcies pile up. This will slow the pace of recovering the job market. This is a story that is not going away,” he added.

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The elegant dinner party was hosted by John Houghtaling, a partner at Gauthier, Murphy and Houghtaling, who had built a name for himself by representing property owners against insurers following Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, securing hundreds of millions of dollars for the victims of those crises.

That afternoon, a Texas-based attorney passed along a memo to Houghtaling describing how some insurance companies planned to reject claims filed by restaurants and other businesses that would be forced to close to stop the spread of the virus. When the chefs arrived, he had to break the bad news. While many of them had insurance policies designed to protect them from unexpected interruptions in their operations,   they shouldn’t expect to see a payout.

The memo outraged Houghtaling, who realized that thousands of small business owners, particularly restaurant owners, would be hit hard by the pandemic and see no relief from insurers. He decided right then that he would take action, and the party quickly became a strategy session.

“Every day I get calls about the restaurant industry failing, so we need a quick solution,”  Houghtaling said.

“They need it,’’ he said of the insurance payouts.  “It’s critical. If they do not get it, they will fail.”

On March 17, Houghtaling filed a lawsuit on behalf of New Orleans Restaurant Oceana Grill against its insurer, demanding payment of the restaurant’s business interruption insurance during the coronavirus pandemic, the first suit of its kind in the nation. The lawsuit highlights a legal strategy embraced by lawyers and restaurant owners hoping to salvage an industry that is reeling from the effects of coronavirus shutdowns.

About 30 percent of small businesses hold business interruption insurance policies, but many have learned that their insurer will not cover shutdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Many business interruption policies have explicit virus exclusions, clauses that bar business interruption coverage caused by viruses, a common addition since the mid-2000s.

In other cases, business owners have learned that they do not technically qualify for coverage without physical damage to their property. Because Oceana Grill does not have a virus exclusion, Houghtaling’s lawsuit argues that the infectious virus does qualify as physical loss.

A handful of similar lawsuits have cropped up across the country, and eight state governments have proposed bills that would force insurers to pay. Notably, the Chikasee and Choctaw nations have filed suits against their insurers, and Houghtaling himself filed another suit on behalf of celebrity chef Thomas Keller.

But while the stakes are high for attorneys like Houghtaling, small business owners are fighting for their lives against a ticking clock.

Twenty eight states have mandated that restaurants suspend dine-in services, and many more are impacted by shelter in place orders. By the end of March, the National Restaurant Association estimated that roughly 30,000 of the more than 1 million restaurants in the U.S. had to close permanently as a result, and projected another 110,000 more would shutter in April.

Many restaurant owners fear that legal settlements and new legislation may come too late. Many are already running out of cash and nearly out of time, barely holding on financially as these legal and political squabbles play out around them.

“I’ve been through 9/11, 2008, 10-foot snowstorms, a lot of this stuff,” said Andy Husbands, a Boston restaurateur who has been told that his insurer is unlikely to pay out his business interruption insurance policy.

“We knew we would get past it, we just had to work hard,’’ Husbands said of previous crises. “We knew the snow would melt. We don’t know what the future holds now.”

The insurance industry argues that its reserves, about $820 billion, cannot cover all of the business interruption claims arising as a result of the pandemic. Many insurers are calling for more government relief.

“There are certain issues that just cannot be 100 percent supported by the insurance industry,” said Tyler Bartosh, Vice President of Sales at Top o’ Michigan Insurance Solutions.

Bartosh suggested the creation of a partnership in which the federal government would share risk with the insurers. Without such collaboration, he warned, the insurance industry could be overwhelmed by the business interruption claims.

“I definitely think there’s a position for the industry and federal government to work together to figure out how we can protect against any future pandemic,”he said.

In the meantime, the lawsuits filed by Houghtaling and others are winding their way through the courts. For the insurance industry, this boils down to simple contract law and interpretation.

Generally speaking, for an interruption policy to kick in, some form of physical damage or the threat of it must be the cause of the business shutdown. Despite the fact that the coronavirus can contaminate surfaces and create unsafe environments, it may not qualify as physical damage.

“The key issues will be whether coronavirus constitutes physical loss or damage under the policy, because those are the triggering words,” said Steven Badger, a Texas-based attorney who represents a number of insurers, and shared the memo with Houghtaling that night in March.

Recognizing the importance of the restaurant industry, and how quickly it could collapse, Houghtaling began working quickly to turn up the heat on insurers and get relief to restaurants.

What followed was a flurry of legal and political actions. Houghtaling and seven celebrity chefs founded the Business Interruption Group, a non-profit organization designed to pressure insurers and get information to the public and Washington. Although the results remain to be seen, Houghtaling, whose firm played a leading role in the $246 billion class action suit against tobacco companies in 1998, said that this legal fight would “dwarf tobacco in terms of its significance.”

“We are demanding the insurance industry pay the policies they owe,” Houghtaling said. “Certain [business interruption insurance] policies have exclusions for viruses, but many do not. They need to pay the ones that do not.”

Houghtaling dismissed concerns raised by insurers who argue that their reserves can’t cover all of the payouts sought by shuttered businesses.

“My argument is, when the Titanic was sinking, and they didn’t have enough lifeboats for everyone, the captain didn’t say ‘well, we don’t have enough so we aren’t going to lower any,’ he lowered the ones that he had,” Houghtaling said. “We need to lower the lifeboats that we have and that we paid for, and then we need a solution to save the rest.”

James Duffy is an NYU undergraduate journalism student in Prof. Rachel Swarns’ Advanced Reporting: Law & Order

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But every four years, when the primary campaigns come to New Hampshire, that economic activity spikes even more. This is especially true for the small businesses in Manchester and nearby Nashua that are taking advantage of the hordes of people coming to the state by turning their stores into venues for political events and discussion.

One such place is the Bookery in downtown Manchester. The bookstore has been in business for nearly two years, and Benjamin Pasley, it’s manager, said it has undergone a major overhaul in that time.

“It was completely different than what it is now. It was a little bit more bare-bones,’’ said Pasley “It was still buzzing because it was brand new, but it wasn’t as busy or as popular as it is now.’’

One big change, he said, was in the mix of customers coming to the Bookery. He said he’s been able to attract newer and younger readers to his store. “The longer we’ve been open, we’ve seen a lot more newcomers as opposed to regulars. We still have those regulars, but we’ve seen a huge influx of different faces as opposed to just regulars all the time,” said Pasley.

Many of these new visitors to the Bookery are eager to engage in political discussions, especially those in their early twenties and who may be casting their first ballots this year.

“We’ve had candidates; we’ve had staffers, we’ve had the younger generation, Gen Z; it’s so cool to see that they’re so involved in politics,” said Pasley. The Bookery stayed open until midnight on the Friday night of the Democratic debate, livestreaming the event for a crowd of about one hundred people. This primary activity has resulted in a doubling of traffic to the store, he added.

Across the street from the Bookery, Café la Reine, a coffee shop, is going through its second election cycle in the seven years it has been in business. Alex Horton, its owner, said she “has definitely embraced” the political punditry this time around.  For instance, the café has capitalized on the political fervor by hosting trivia nights based on political history.

The café itself sees “a really good mix of people,” said Horton. This mix includes people who work in the nearby city hall, people who work for tech companies, and students from area colleges such as Southern New Hampshire University and Saint Anselm College.

“I really wanted to create a community space where everyone was welcome, and I feel like people have embraced that,” said Horton. This mix of customers at the café broadens during New Hampshire primary to include news media and even candidates themselves. In 2016 Republican candidates John Kasich, Carly Fiorina and Chris Christie visited. And, just as he has in years past, the ever-colorful local political activist and performance artist who goes by the name of Vermin Supreme made a recent appearance. This year, Horton said that the Café la Reine has seen a 25 to 50 percent increase in traffic on many days.

“It’s an exciting time to be downtown in Manchester,” she said.

Toadstool Bookshop in nearby Nashua relocated from neighboring Milford in the fall of 2019 and also operates two other stores in the state. The change of location to Nashua has brought in an influx of new customers said Mike Joachim, the manager.  He said about 80 percent of the customers at the old Milford location were regular customers and only around 20 percent were newcomers and first-time buyers.  By comparison, customers at the new Nashua location seem to be evenly divided between regular customers and new ones. He said he is also seeing an increase in African-American and Hispanic customers along with other ethnic groups new to the state.

The primary has boosted his business in two ways, said Joachim.  For starters, there are more customers when the once-every-four-years primary takes place. This year, Joachim said his business is up by around 15 percent. The other effect is that most of the candidates have a book to sell and most of those books tend to be fairly popular. For instance, he said that the Buttigieg book, “Shortest Way Home.”  “has been selling pretty well.”

Down the road in Nashua, Riverwalk Café has expanded far beyond its origins as a coffee roasting business in the ten years since Steve Ruddock bought. It now has expanded to include a music venue and full bar.

Until last November, the café had been booking live music acts four nights a week in genres ranging from bluegrass to blues, from country to funk. Now, he is adding other activities such as salsa dancing, which “is getting a lot of folks in there that didn’t know much about us,” according to Ruddock.

But it is politics that can really draw a crowd. Riverwalk Café has seen all the Democratic candidates come to his café, along with their campaign teams. said Ruddock.  He has taken advantage of this political interest by hosting events on Thursday nights where the campaign teams will come in and answer questions from the public for an hour or two.  Just last week, a team from the Bernie Sanders’s campaign was the featured group.

Ruddock said that the events have “been good” because the teams “drink a lot of coffee.’’  He said the Democratic primary has increased business by 10 percent during the week and by as much as 15 percent on busy weekends.

Last week, he said, even some Trump supporters attended the Sanders event.  In the end, the two sides managed to have a cordial conversation over pizza and beer.

“It blew me away—that experience alone said there’s some potential for some communication here; it doesn’t have to be all nasty,” said Ruddock.  Riverwalk Café even has a turkey melt sandwich named after Bernie Sanders, who ordered it repeatedly when he visited the café during the 2016 Democratic primary.

Sam Del Rowe is a graduate student in the Business and Economic Reporting Program

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According to the National Weather Service, this is the warmest winter of the last 40 years in New York and 47 other states. Last year, on this same date, the average temperature in the city was 13 degrees.

Samuel Dee, 66, has run the County Pharmacy on Nostrand Avenue for more than 25 years. For Dee, warm winter weather  means change in his clients’ needs. 

“The temperature is a big determinant of what people can catch,” Dee said. Approximately 50 clients come in every day during winter, and between 60 and 65 visit him daily during spring to treat their allergies.

“This year, we have sold a lot less of the most commonly used antibiotics to treat colds and much more cough medicine and injections, which people need to treat the flu,” said Dee. “Temperatures below 20 degrees are too cold for flu to spread. That is when you see a significant increase in colds. In [this year´s] temperature, you see either both or more severe cases of flu.”

The pharmacist explained sales of facemasks are rising. His customers are worried about the Coronavirus. The city has seen its third suspected case of the rapidly spreading virus. 

According to  the World Meteorological Organization  global warming has caused an increase of 33 degrees in the world’s temperature in the last five years. Still, there is no direct link between long-term global trends and short-term variations we experience from day to day. Wind speed, humidity, atmospheric pressure, and the soil’s absorption of sun rays determine the weather.

Alysta Garvey, 70, the owner of Garvey’s Hardware, has done plumbing work in Brooklyn since 1980. He said winter is typically peak time for his business—but not this year. 

“Since this winter has not been that cold, the stress on the pipes around here has been less than usual, he said. “We haven’t gotten calls about burst or frozen pipes, and I don’t remember any other winter when this had happened. Luckily, we still get a lot of calls about radiators and heaters.” 

Alysta Garvey, owner of Garvey’s Hardware in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said warm winters  has kept pipes from bursting.  Photo by Ximena Del Cerro

But the winter is far from ending. The Climate Data Organization forecasts the next snowfall for Wednesday  even though the temperature will not drop below 32 degrees.

Business in the winter is always slow for Shelley Marshawn, the owner of Island Pops, an ice cream store in Crown Heights Brooklyn.

For Shelley Marshawn, 34, winter always means a drop in business. She is the owner of Island Pops, an ice cream store on the corner of Nostrand  Avenue and St. Marks Avenue  and from October to March, her work mostly consists of making coffee. 

“It is not very cold outside, but people are still in a winter mindset, and they don’t buy much ice cream during these months,” said Marshawn. “With the exception of a couple of weekends during January, when we sold a few cones and pints, this winter is no different for the business.”

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Getting paid to go on vacation might seem like a win-win situation. But in New York City, a new policy proposal by Mayor Bill de Blasio has sparked a conversation about who loses out when paid time off becomes a requirement.

New York City could soon be the first place in the 50 states to require private businesses to grant their employees paid vacation. Mayor De Blasio is preparing to officially introduce a bill that would require businesses with more than five employees to give their employees 10 days of paid time off per year. While government employees already enjoy this benefit, only about 75 percent of private-sector workers are given paid time off, according to statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Currently, around 500,000 full and part-time employees in New York City receive zero paid time off from their employers.

“Workers across the nation have been working too hard without enough time to rest and recharge or enough time for family and important life events,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio in the city’s official announcement. “Every other major nation recognizes the necessity of Paid Personal Time. We as a country must get there, and New York City will lead the way.”

De Blasio is hoping that this measure will help New York become the “fairest big city in America,” piggybacking off of recent increase of New York’s minimum wage to $15, which went into effect at the beginning of 2019. With New York City’s unemployment at the lowest it’s been in decades, and the city’s economy booming, this is the perfect time for such legislation, said city officials. But for small businesses, the new policy could create a major economic burden.

For businesses that pay their employees minimum wage the vacation plan would cost $1,200 annually per employee, assuming that shifts are eight hours. For small businesses, those costs can add up fast, particularly if they are currently paying above the minimum wage. This could restrict a business owner’s ability to offer other employee benefits, and creates a risk of decreased wages and other cut-backs.

“Paid time off would be viewed [by classical economics] as an increase in the price of the labor,” said Thad Calabrese, associate professor and economic expert at New York University. “So if employers have to pay more for an input, they’ll demand less of it.”

But for employees already earning minimum wage without benefits, the mayor’s plan has significant potential benefits.

“My assumption is the folks that don’t have this right now are people in retail, hospitality, restaurants, and fast food, those types of jobs,” said Calabrese. “On the one hand if they’re paid at the low end of the spectrum, this could be a way of increasing their compensation.”

Having the option to take paid vacation would be a major win for workers who do not receive the benefit, including the 180,000 in professional services, 90,000 in retail, and 200,000 in hospitality and food services. Happy workers equal a more productive workforce, proponents of the vacation plan argue.

“Here in United States, we have fewer days off than anywhere else in the world—time that increases productivity and improves mental and physical health,” said Department of Consumer Affairs Commissioner Lorelei Salas in the city’s written announcement.

According to research conducted by Project: Time Off, a research group funded by the U.S. Travel Association, there is clear data that supports the hypothesis that vacation boosts productivity. It not only contributes to a worker’s overall health and wellbeing, but it can also decrease turnover rates among the workforce. The United States is far behind much of the rest of the western world in terms of mandatory paid vacation, and data from Europe demonstrates the potential benefits of updating U.S. policy.

Jason Lee, founder and CEO of Daily Pay, a New York City-based startup, offers his employees unlimited paid vacation days. Ensuring the physical and mental wellness of employees is a key to a company’s success, he said. He also believes that government regulation is not the only method through which this can be achieved, and that a free-market approach might allow companies to offer other important benefits.

“In general, I’m more of a fan of free markets in the sense that if this really is something that employers need to offer because employees want it that badly, then employers to respond to that competitive hiring demand and will  wind up offering it themselves,” said Lee. “This one proposal needs to be sort of evaluated in the context of an overall portfolio of different ideas.”

Veronica George has worked in restaurants in New York City for almost a decade, and would love to see other benefits, such as health care, offered before something like paid vacation. Though she supports the new plan’s intentions, she is unsure if it will be enough to meaningfully improve the lives of all employees in the industry.

While the debate continues over the potential benefits and drawbacks of government-mandated paid time off, Mayor de Blasio has forged ahead with his proposal, gaining the support of several local politicians and council members. The future of paid vacation for the half a million workers who are currently without the benefit will soon be officially determined by a city council vote on the plan, though a date has yet to be set.

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For Williamsburg, The L train has long been the lifeline to the hipsters who live and visit its chic boutiques, artsy cafes, trendy restaurants and cutting edge nightclubs. But a looming April shutdown may put a chokehold on area businesses and hurl them into an uncertain future.

“I’m at the mercy of whatever happens with the subway,” said Fabio Roberti, the owner of Earwax Records. “I’m hoping that people will be able to get here by shuttle buses or shuttle ferries, but whether that works or not remains to be seen.”

Roberti has been doing business in Williamsburg for 22 years. He said there is little he can do to prepare his business for the loss of the subway line.

The 15 month repair project is expected to make it significantly more difficult for commuters to make the trek there. In 2012, the line was damaged during Hurricane Sandy and the L has been plagued with delays ever since. These repairs should fix that damage, but could change Williamsburg.

Mohammed Aldairi, the owner of tech repair shop, iTech Doc, said it will force neighbors to stay in the area.

“It’s good for business when there is more walking traffic,” he said.

Aldairi said that the current delays already makes commuting difficult.

“I’m excited for them to fix it,” he said. “We suffer from delays on the L every day and it makes it very hard for tourists to visit.”

To alleviate commuting issues for the 225,000 daily riders, the MTA plans to increase service along the J,M,Z, and G subway lines and add busses. They will also be a dedicated bus lane over the Williamsburg Bridge and a new ferry route between North Williamsburg and Stuyvesant Cove.

Aldiari has faith in these solutions.

“I think it will work if they increase the ferries,”he said. “We live so close to the river, and that will mean less traffic on the other trains.

Wendy Chun is the owner of Think Closet, a small boutique on Bedford Avenue. She is hopeful that the MTA’s solution will be enough to keep people coming into Williamsburg.

“I think a lot of people will take advantage of those buses and trains,” said Chun. “I don’t think it will stop tourists from coming to shop in Williamsburg. If they want to come, they will come.”

Williamsburg has been growing rapidly since the mid 2000’s, and has become one of New York’s most expensive neighborhoods. Some business owners are hoping to see a rent drop as a result of the shutdown.

“We are hoping for a rent drop,” said Chun.

In spite of the threat of the shutdown, Aldairi doesnt think that the economic power of Williamsburg is going anywhere anytime soon.

“This is Williamsburg,” he said. “In Williamsburg, business is always booming.”

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The eve of the 15th anniversary of 9/11 was a festive day in Chinatown.

Visitors and residents ate free Chinese food and watched traditional Chinese performances at the 3rd Mid-Autumn Moon Festival in Chinatown. Local Business owners showcased they work in booths. Even five years ago this activity would be unheard of in this immigrant neighborhood, just east of ground zero.

“It is a long journey to recover from what we have experienced over the past 15 years, but we are trying,” said Wellington Z. Chen, the executive director for Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation, who helped organize the festival

He said the festival was developed to raise public awareness about the business and culture within Chinatown.

Following the 9/11 attacks, Chinatown suffered an economic depression. Census data of 2012 indicated a 9% loss of population in and local businesses experienced a 50% – 70% loss in monthly revenue in the three-month after the attacks.

Today, 15 years later, Chinatown business leaders remembered what happened on that day and the impact it had on their livelihood.

“It was a tragedy,” said Hua Li, 60, the president of United Fujianese of American. His wife, who used to work in the 1 World Trade Center, is a 9/11 survivor.

“She should have been there working on the 93rd floor, but luckily, when the flight crashed into the building she was on the ground,” Li said. “Many of her colleagues and a close friend of ours passed away. It’s very hard for all of us to remember that day.”

Following the attacks, Chinatown was hit by martial law aimed at keeping neighbors safe, but the cost was steep for businesses.

Dust and smoke were in the air. No trucks were allowed on Canal Street, their major business corridor. Chinatown residents had to show identification to get into their neighborhood. Parking was taken over by law enforcement. Businesses could not get delivers and there were no customers in sight. People moved away, businesses shut down, tourist buses and tourists stopped going into the area. According to data from Chinatown Partnership website, by 2002, up to 100 garment factories closed, which resulted in the loss of 8000 jobs lost.

“No one came to the store at that time,” said Tea Fu Zi, owner of Good Tea Water, a tea shop in Chinatown for over 20 years. “If I got $5 in a day, that would be my big day.”

Life changed not only for Hua Li and Tea Fu Zi, but for many Chinatown residents. This led members in the community take proactive measures.

In 2006, Chen formed the Chinatown Partnership. His goal was to rebuild Chinatown into a business improvement district that brings residents, business owners, and community groups together to promote a special destination to live, work, and visit. They also want to preserve their neighborhood and culture.

“It needs a process,” Chen said. “Unlike other BIDs, we use our money directly to repair the environment that 9/11 left for us.”

In the last three years, the Chinatown Partnership has worked with the Chinatown Business Improvement District and the Clean Streets projects. They brought in guidepost, cultural lanterns decoration projects, and store rental projects.

Ten years later, there are more than 4,000 stores, markets and big malls in Chinatown. Every year the officers from Chinatown Partnership conduct market research to determine growth and needs of local businesses.

Jason Kwan, the vice president of A-image Company, sold his self-designed Chinese T-shirt at the festival. This is his third year participating.

“It is a good way to help others see the beauty of Chinese culture and history,” Kwan said.

Chen said this is only the beginning.

“After the 9/11 attacks, everything changed, but did not change indeed,” Chen said. Chinatown has more than 100 years history, it is our duty to protect it and pass it to our younger generation as what it was before the attacks.”

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