![]() "People would say that if you see a line in the post office, all you have to do is cough, and you'll be first in line," she said. Lii recalled a bit of black humor from that time that summed up the effect that SARS had on the community. "For some businesses, it had even more impact than 9/11. "It was a double whammy for Chinatown," Kui said. That rumor was false, but the damage had been done. The link between SARS and China made New Yorkers skittish about visiting the neighborhood, especially after a rumor circulated on the Internet that someone in Chinatown had died of the respiratory ailment. Then, early last year, as Chinatown was emerging from the doldrums, the SARS outbreak in China dealt another blow. One year after the attacks, 65 garment factories in Chinatown had closed, and a study by the Asian American Federation of New York estimated that the attacks cost the industry $500 million in revenue. The damage to the garment industry was profound. "Basically, it put the whole economy into a freeze," said Christopher Kui, executive director of Asian Americans for Equality, a community development group that has helped small businesses in the neighborhood obtain low-interest loans. The garment industry in Chinatown, which depends on frequent deliveries and pickups, came to a virtual standstill.Īn estimated 25,000 people, or 75 percent of Chinatown's workforce, were out of work in the two weeks after Sept. Business at Chinatown's 500 restaurants plummeted by as much as 70 percent. With Lower Manhattan, including Chinatown, declared off-limits to nonresidents, the twin pillars of the neighborhood's economy collapsed. "You had to wear a mask for several days." ![]() "The whole sky was very smoky," recalled Lii, who had to wait three days before police allowed her past security barriers to check on her shop, which she feared would burn down because an electric cooking pot had been left on. The scene from the days that followed, as fires raged underground at Ground Zero, remains a vivid memory for Ellen Lii, co-owner of the Ten Ren Tea and Ginseng Co. They don't think it's safe."Ĭhinatown, only a few blocks from the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan, was flooded with evacuating office workers the morning of Sept. "Business has not come back yet to where it was," said Andy Liu, owner of a large gift and souvenir shop on Mott Street, Chinatown's main shopping and dining street. ![]() Then last year's outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, spread fear here, though the disease originated thousands of miles away in China. 11, 2001, which paralyzed local business and led to a steep decline in tourism. First came the terrorist attacks of Sept. This neighborhood, which bills itself as the most populous Chinatown in the Western Hemisphere, still is struggling to regain its footing after suffering a combination punch that cost it thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions in revenue. Boarded-up or shuttered storefronts testify to the lingering hard times in one of New York's best-known and most exotic enclaves. The narrow streets of the neighborhood, home to an Asian population of 56,000, are crowded once again on sunny weekends, but the visitors are not spending much money. The streets were so crowded people were bumping into each other." ![]() "Things are bad in Chinatown since 9/11," said Yee, 49, ringing up a rare sale - a can of soda. Soon Yee, the co-owner of this Chinatown fixture for the past 20 years, has all but made up his mind to go out of business. The shelves of the Wah Kue hobby shop are almost empty, and the boys who cluster in the back of the barren store are there to show off their collections of Japanese trading cards, not to buy anything.
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