Four months ago, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) began the first stage of a building a new two-track rail line. The line will hopefully ease congestion on the heavily traveled “Lexington Lines”. All was well for business owners until a tunnel boring machine started below Second Avenue close to 95th Street and a construction site appeared that blocked both of the lanes on the west side of the Avenue for five blocks.
Second Avenue is lined by businesses, most of which are owned by locals, and the restricted access and lack of street front space is having a detrimental effect on them. Ask most local business owners in the area and they will agree that the new train and its stations will bring good money making opportunities in the future… if they can survive the construction project.
“We are like David and they are like Goliath, Mayor Bloomberg is out of touch with the Davids but not the Goliath,” said Guisseppe Pecora, owner of Delizia, a popular Italian restaurant that has been in operation since 1983.
Pecora expressed concern about missing out on the businesses usual 7 per cent growth factor. Delizia is across Second Avenue from the worst parts of the construction, but he’s still been affected. “I used to have a big sidewalk and lots of foot traffic,” Pecora said, “I’m not getting business from the taxi drivers like I used to.”
“I had my electricity interrupted during business hours when they severed the cable with a backhoe and it wasn’t fixed for nine hours,” Pecora said. “When it got fixed, it was done wrong and the polarity was reversed so my kitchen hood was blowing smoke into the restaurant. Later somebody tripped over the temporary electrical cable that had been installed after the first incident and this blew the air conditioner and a computer module.
“I had to pay for a hood vent motor, a used air conditioner unit, and a computer” said Pecora, “Add food that spoiled and labor costs and it cost me around $19,000.”
Businesses on Second Avenue between 91st and 96th Streets are experiencing a drop in regular business and growth due to the large construction site. The sidewalks on the west side of the street have lost a few feet of width and the street crossings are torn up.
Frank Durso owns Key Food, a full size grocery store on the northwest corner of 92nd Street and Second Avenue. Durso has lost 10 per cent of his sales since the project started. “You can’t walk across the street if you’re old, if you use a walker or a cane. It’s all torn up. At night they’re scared to cross and just go to the closest store instead,” Durso said. “I’m not allowed a loading area so we have to unload trucks at the rear of the store” (about 30 yards up 92nd street) “and lug the merchandise all the way around front.”
“All the stores in this area are the first to have to deal with the construction project and it’s hardest for us because nobody knows the logistics of how to deal with a situation like this,” said Durso. “The local businesses are the ones being hurt the most here, and this is a union store so I can’t lay anybody off.”
