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‘Times Square is Rising Up:’ How a Restaurant Row Bar Persevered Through the Pandemic
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Traffic has returned to the Crossroads of the World, giving a significant bump to businesses that have weathered the pandemic storm.
“Ninth Avenue is now the old parking lot that it used to be, which is a tell-tale sign of people coming back,” said Shane Hathaway, co-owner of Hold Fast Kitchen and Spirits, on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank.
Hathaway told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso both foot and vehicle traffic has steadily increased this spring as many COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted.
“Times Square is rising up,” he said, adding, “It seems like there’s a vibrancy that obviously was not there last year.”
“It’s going to be interesting to see the difference between last summer and this summer,” he said.
The restaurateur is hopeful New York City’s $30 million tourism campaign and Broadway’s reopening this fall will guide people past his establishment on Restaurant Row, which has stayed afloat because of outdoor dining.
“You’re supposed to be outside of your building and we were able to extend to the next building by the wonderful graciousness of Judy the landlord who has allowed us to use the frontage of her space to expand ours – effectively doubling our space,” Hathaway said.
He returned that act of kindness with a cocktail named “Judy’s a Beauty.”
“It’s strategically placed right under ‘Hold Fast Our Dreams,’ which is our namesake, because she’s helping hold us up,” Hathaway said.
The gritty owner explained on the Small Business Spotlight that “Hold Fast” is a military motto that means to “stand your ground” and “bear down to weather the storm.” Sailors would tattoo “H-O-L-D F-A-S-T” across their eight knuckles so their fists would spell out “Hold Fast” when holding the line upon rough waters on-board their ship. Hathaway told Connolly and Carousso he has lived by that motto through the pandemic and told his staff to believe in themselves.
He hired “12-14 people” through the pandemic, filling vacant and new food delivery positions even though he has not been profitable the last 14 months. Now, Hold Fast is hiring again.
“We’re looking for bartenders, we’re looking for servers, we’re looking for front of the house people for support staff, we’re looking for kitchen staff, because now with the expanded hours, you can only push people so much,” Hathaway said. “We’re burning out and everyone’s only human and you can only be there so long before it starts to have an impact on your mentality and your social life and that’s not healthy for anybody.”
He described hiring people as a “special feeling,” especially during an economic crisis when job opportunities are helping families make ends meet.
Meet this determined owner and see Times Square’s re-emergence on the Small Business Spotlight video above.
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WCBS 880 Weekly Rewind: NYC Mayoral Candidates Yang and Adams on Solving Crime Surge
By Lynda Lopez, WCBS Newsradio 880
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Candidates for New York City mayor have been hitting the campaign trail hard this week as the city approaches the June primary that will likely decide the November election.
Among the top contenders for mayor as former New York City Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
This week, a poll put Garcia ahead of the others, but that didn’t stop Yang from picking up another key endorsement from State Senator Jon Liu this week.
The former presidential candidate has also amassed support from the Asian American community throughout the city, including Queens Congresswoman Grace Meng.
WCBS 880’s Lynda Lopez spoke with Yang this week about his campaign, and specifically about the rise in gun violence and crime in New York City, which he recently labeled a “mental health crisis.”
He told Lopez that as mayor, he hopes to get the crime surge under control.
“Public safety is the number one issue,” he said. “And the fact is, nothing is going to work if people aren’t safe walking our own neighborhoods, taking the subway, so we need to attack this as a public health emergency and crisis. I have proposed a new anti-violence and community safety unit, that would be focused on reducing gun violence starting in the communities that have been the hardest hit. And we would use something called ‘Focused Deterrence,’ which is when you have community leaders and people in the neighborhoods identify folks that they think our trouble.”
He said once those people have been identified, law officials and community leaders can “sit down with them and say, ‘Look if something happens in this community, we’re gonna come to you first.’”
“This has been shown to reduce levels of gun violence. I believe that having police officers in these communities working hand-in-hand with the folks who live there, who know the community best, is the way that we can get the guns out and the violence down,” Yang said.
Even with his plans, as more New Yorkers start paying attention to the mayor’s race, it seems as though the candidates with more government experience are gaining momentum and support.
Yang, a tech entrepreneur who garnered national name recognition during his failed 2020 presidential run, has been towards the top of the polls throughout the campaign, but new surveys show his support slipping.
Lopez asked Yang what he would say to voters who may be indicating they want a mayor with more experience to lead the city, to which he responded that he has plenty of executive experience from his tech career.
“What I’d say to them is that I’ve run a business here in New York City that grew to become very significant and if you’ve interacted with a small business here in New York, you know there are no excuses, you have to deliver results, people don’t care about politics, and that’s what we want from our government right now. We want someone who’s just going to deliver, who doesn’t people favors going back 10, 12 years – because they’ve been planning this run for decades. We just want our city to work better for us, whether that’s cleaner streets, safer streets, businesses that are open, schools that are serving our kids. We can do better and that’s why there’s so much excitement around this campaign… This is a campaign for the people and supported by the people and not the special interests who’ve been running our government – and our city, unfortunately – into the ground for far too long,” Yang said.
Q&A with Brooklyn Borough President and Mayoral Candidate Eric Adams
Lopez also spoke with Adams for The 880 Weekly Rewind about a variety of topics regarding his campaign and life in New York City on Tuesday, which also was the one year anniversary of George Floyd’s death.
Q: Today, as you know is the one-year anniversary of the police killing of George Floyd. So, what are your thoughts on this day?
A: You know, there are mixed emotions because as a young person who was arrested and beat badly by police officers, only to go into the police department and fight for reform for so many years, every time I hear about these incidents, it doesn’t matter if it is Floyd or Abner Louima or [Amadou] Diallo – I relive what I experienced. And it’s just recommits me to how important it is that we can have safety and justice and you can’t have one without the other. And I’m going to continue this 35-year fight to reach that point.
Q: This whole year has heard calls for change. Has there been meaningful enough reform in the wake of the death of George Floyd, or does there need to be more, particularly when it comes to the NYPD?
A: Well, there needs to be more and we should always be in a state of evolution. I believe we’re at a pivotal moment where we must redefine the ecosystem of public safety. We have in this country, and in the city, when we define public safety, we have only defined it as police and it’s not. We should clearly define the role of police, but look at the other components, such as mental health professionals, youth organization, crisis management team. How do we become more proactive, and not just reactive? And I think once we get to that point, we’re going to rebuild the trust between police and the public that they are sworn to protect. And we’re not there yet.
Q: I saw a recent poll that said, surprisingly to me, COVID is no longer the top issue for New Yorkers, especially when they’re looking to how to choose their mayoral candidate. It’s housing, affordable housing and homelessness, but also the crime levels in the city. We know over this past weekend, there were more than 30 shootings in the five boroughs. What specific plans do you have around bringing down gun violence and making New Yorkers feel safe?
A: I’m glad you said that, because you didn’t merely state crime, you zeroed in on what is the real problem. The problem in this city is around gun violence. There are too many guns in our community. There’s a high proliferation of guns throughout all of this city. And when you see 3-year-olds being shot in Times Square, when you see 8-year-olds being shot in St. Albans, Queens, it’s a real reflection that we can’t go backwards.
So, number one, we have to stop the flow of guns. We need to use the same coordination that we used to stop terrorism in the city – a joint task force made up of federal, state and city lawmakers and law enforcement personnel to stop the flow. There are two checkpoints at our Port Authorities, [we should] make sure that you can’t have an easily flow of guns in the city.
Number two, we have to deal with the guns that are here. We should focus on a plainclothes unit that will zero in on guns and gangs and collaborate across the city with a gun suppression unit and a special prosecutor for guns and gangs. So we can no longer do it in an isolated way and we can zero in on these violent individuals in our city.
And lastly, we must be proactive.
We have to prevent crime by giving greater opportunities to our inner city, particularly young people and really end some of the inequalities that feed the criminal justice process.
Something as simple as a dyslexia screening in every school.
But you would say, ‘Well, why is that?’ Because 30% of the men and women at Rikers Island have dyslexia. So, the real crime is also taking place in our failure to educate young people in the city and put them on a pathway of crime.Q: I wanted to ask about something else you mentioned in one of the debates, because the topic of stop-and-frisk came up. And I think on this anniversary of George Floyd’s death, people are focused on police overuse of force. You mentioned that there is a right way to use stop-and-frisk. What is the right way?
A: That’s so important to highlight that because there’s some that’s trying to distort the unprecedented record I have in stopping the abuse of stop-and-frisk. I testified in federal court in Floyd vs. The New York City Police Department – a different Floyd of course – and the judge mentioned my advocacy in her ruling against the police department.
I also testified on federal, state and city levels and passed legislation to stop the database of innocent people. I know how to use a stop-and-frisk correctly. And first, we need to break down what it is. It is stop, it is question, and then if there’s a need to frisk, you do so.
That is not what we would do in the city. We were automatically searching and illegally stopping innocent people. That was wrong.
How you are supposed to use it is: If you were to call someone, a police officer. and stated, ‘Someone is hiding themselves in my backyard at 4:00 a.m. in the morning.’ That police officer has the authority to respond to your call to service… stop [the suspect], ask them a question of what are they doing there, if they have a legitimate reason, then that’s the end of this.
If they don’t have a legitimate reason and that police officer believes that a bulge is a weapon, they could touch that area to see if it’s not a cell phone or if it’s a gun and take appropriate action.
That is how we’re supposed to be done. We abused that and we would just stop everyone in this city based on the geographical location and ethnicity. That’s illegal and we can’t allow that to happen, and I fought against that.
Q: Well, I think that people would argue with the NYPD having that record with stop-and-frisk, do you believe there is a right way that they can do it? Can they do it the right way?
A: Yes. And they must do it the right way, because I would do a disservice to you if you were a citizen calling for the police to investigate a dangerous situation that was taking place with you and your family. And, if the police were to respond, ‘I can’t come and question that person, stop that person.’ I am leaving you in danger and we can’t have a law enforcement or a safe city if we don’t have the proper police practices and justice at the same time. So I owe it to you as a police officer and New Yorkers to keep you safe. We can do it right with the right monitoring. We should investigate all the cases of stop-and-frisk and make sure the officers are properly articulating why they stopped them in the first place. If they can’t articulate that correctly, backed up with the video cameras that all officers are carrying now, then we should look at that officer, start with retraining that officer and then, if necessary, bring them up or disciplinary charges if they fail to correctly use of the tool of stop-question-and-frisk.
Early voting in the New York City primaries begin Saturday, June 12.
New York City Mayoral Candidates Andrew Yang and Eric Adams were guests of The 880 Weekly Rewind with Lynda Lopez on Friday, May 28, along with City Council Speaker and Candidate for Comptroller Corey Johnson. Subscribe and download The 880 Weekly Rewind podcast for in-depth reporting and deeper analysis of the top stories of the week, produced by Neil A. Carousso for WCBS-AM New York.
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‘Shark Tank’ Star Barbara Corcoran’s Advice for Businesses Recovering from Pandemic
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — As the economy reopens this spring, businesses are increasingly struggling to fill open positions. Barbara Corcoran, investor on ABC’s hit show “Shark Tank” and founder of The Corcoran Group, says “competing for workers” is the number one priority for business owners right now.
“The workers are in charge now,” Corcoran told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank. “The (businesses) that are treating their workers like kings and queens, like they deserve to be treated, are retaining their workforce. And, those who aren’t, can’t do business because they’re cut off at the pants because they don’t have the workers to support it.”
She said some small and large businesses are offering to pay a chunk of tuition for part-time workers and other employers are offering signing bonuses to workers who commit to a term of employment.
“I never heard of that,” the entrepreneur said.
Corcoran noted some people are receiving higher unemployment benefits than wages offered, which is an unintended consequence of the enhanced federal unemployment benefits that were extended to September. There are now 23 states that are ending the $300 weekly federal bonus checks next month, including Florida, which announced Monday it would follow other conservative-majority states. It has been a key safety net for families whose children have studied remotely in the pandemic.
“Most businesses that are coming out of the pandemic are in debt,” she said. “They can’t squeeze their profit margins so what is actually happening instead is they pass along that additional cost to the consumer.”
Corcoran experienced that first-hand last week when she went to dinner at her favorite Italian restaurant in Manhattan. She noticed the service was unusually slow because they didn’t have enough workers in the kitchen, so the former New Jersey waitress lent the owner a hand and started serving dishes to customers. But, rather than earning tips, she was caught by surprise when she got the check.
“It felt like it was about 30 percent more expensive,” she said. “But, that’s the new norm.”
Restaurants are not the only businesses that Corcoran believes will be forced to raise prices this spring and summer to survive. The “Queen of New York Real Estate” still walks around Manhattan, surveying local businesses in her neighborhood, and befriending several owners who have closed their shops. The neighborhood is changing; blocks that she described as being “empty with no sign of life, no light” over the past 14 months are now bright with new faces.
“Over the past couple of weeks, I see constructions going on inside the storefronts and I see new signs out front, so we’re going to get a whole new breed of entrepreneurs who are starting businesses,” Corcoran said, adding, “The old guys won’t be back because they couldn’t take it; it was too long. But, new kids are taking their place. And, this is going around America.”
She sees a refreshing spirit among the new entrepreneurs who have found opportunities in the pandemic. In fact, she says about a third of her “Shark Tank” companies have grown somewhere between 50 percent and 200 percent. Another third are out of business and the remaining third, she said, are hanging by a thread.
“You need to learn how to try and that’s taught by the parents,” the mother of two said, telling Connolly and Carousso how she raised her children to have the courage to try and “get back up” after failures. Corcoran said “courage” is a quality successful entrepreneurs learn through great adversities.
She said she noticed a troubling pattern among some of the businesses she invested in on the show. Some of them were not effective in gaining repeat customers, which she said starts with organization.
“They were all over the place,” the “Shark Tank investor said. “I have to get them between their ears, squeeze their head in, get their ego back intact, and say, ‘Sit down, make a list of where all your businesses come from,’ and believe it or not, almost 80 percent, sometimes 90 percent, is coming from the same source. And, they don’t know it. They’re spending all their time on 80 percent of other stuff that’s not amounting to anything.”
Corcoran said that lack of focus can prevent businesses from upselling and finding new customers.
She told WCBS 880 digital tools assist in many areas and encouraged owners not to think of digital as a foreign language, but rather as something they need as part of their operations. An example she gave on the Small Business Spotlight is South Carolina-based Daisy Cakes, which she invested in on season two of “Shark Tank.” When their store closed due to COVID-19, owner Kim Nelson, once reliant on her Southern charm, made frantic calls to customers with ideas for cakes of the month.
“And then, she went online and started selling cakes through Goldbelly,” said Corcoran, adding Daisy Cakes sales tripled within a month. “What a wakeup call.”
The real estate mogul likes to use her social platforms to have fun, too, and said business owners should look at social media as a “free public relations vehicle accessible to all.” If you’ve been on Corcoran’s social media pages recently, you’ve seen the millionaire Shark dancing and “being silly” in TikTok videos.
“Does Facebook or TikTok or a stunt event of me bringing down my phone booth down to a park in New York City and reading tarot cards – all stunts, all ways to attract attention, all ways to entertain people – does it materialize in business?” she asked rhetorically. “I truly believe it does.”
“Each and every time you touch someone’s funny bone, get their eyeball on you, they’re predisposed to liking you. And, when people like you, they want to do business with you,” said Corcoran.
Watch Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso’s conversation with Barbara Corcoran on the Small Business Spotlight video above.
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Republican Mayoral Candidate Fernando Mateo Says Public Safety is Key to NYC’s Recovery
By Lynda Lopez, WCBS Newsradio 880
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — In one month, New York City residents will head to the polls to vote in the mayoral primaries.
It’s likely that the winner of the Democratic primary will be the next mayor of New York City, but there are two Republican candidates vying for the job: Fernando Mateo and Curtis Sliwa.
For this week’s 880 Weekly Rewind, anchor Lynda Lopez spoke with Mateo, a 63-year-old Dominican Republic-born entrepreneur and activist for taxi drivers and bodega workers.
As crime rates rise in New York and the city mounts a recovery from the pandemic that has devastated the local economy, disproportionately hurting those in Black and Latino communities, Lopez asked Mateo what his priority would be to get the city back on track.
“Well the first thing we need to do is make our city safe,” Mateo said. “Public safety is the most important thing because no one can afford to live in a city that’s not safe. Businesses will not thrive, people will not go out, people will be afraid to commute to and out of the city, we will not have tourism.”
He said his first order of business would be “refunding the police” followed by “reforming bail reform.”
“And then making sure we get our law enforcement agency to work very closely to engage our communities, to engage the people in the communities, to become part of New York City’s people,” Mateo said. “Let’s not forget, cops are human beings like we are. They just wear a uniform and they go out to work to serve and protect, but they’re just like you and I. They’re parents, they’re brothers, they’re sisters, they have mothers, they’ve got fathers, they are part of what the fabric of New York City is all about. So it’s about getting them more to engage.”
Mateo said the NYPD hasn’t had leadership in seven and a half years.
“They haven’t had a mayor that backed them, they haven’t had a police commissioner that backed them, they’ve had no support in seven and a half years. So we’ve destroyed the fabric of public safety in New York City and we’ve gotta bring it back and I am the person to do that,” Mateo said. “I was able to work with the NYPD through many situations, cabbies getting killed — two and three a week, bodega owners being killed and robbed — five, 10 a day, and we were able to create programs that united both industries and brought them together to make our city a better city, a safer city and the Democratic administration has destroyed that in seven and a half years.”
For weeks, the MTA has publicly criticized Mayor Bill de Blasio for stalling their request for more police officers in the subway to combat a rash of violent attacks on riders.
The mayor on Monday announced he would be adding 250 uniformed officers underground, on top of the 3,000 already deployed throughout the system.
Some of the Democratic candidates are saying police have not been deployed effectively in the subways.
Lopez asked Mateo how police should be used to tackle this problem in the transit system.
“Read my words, because I’ve been saying this for three and a half months since I declared my candidacy — I will have two police officers in every train station platform throughout New York City. I will make sure that every subway platform becomes a safe haven for anyone that’s seeking refuge, help, or running away from a crime or a criminal. I Will make sure that there are zero victims in the train stations. 24/7, seven days a week, you will see two men or women in blue protecting anyone that enters those subway stations. We need police resources, we need to make sure that people are safe and how dumb can you be to defund the only agency that keeps New Yorkers safe.”
On the Democratic side, former New York City Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia is gaining momentum, rising in the polls and receiving a wave of recent endorsements, namely the editorial boards of the New York Times and the Daily News, as well as the Four Freedoms Democratic Club.
Lopez asked her if she credits those media endorsements for her rise in the polls.
Kathryn Garcia, 2021 New York City Mayoral Candidate and former New York City Sanitation Commissioner. “Our strategy has always been that we wanted to be peaking in May when the electorate really is paying attention. The endorsements have been fabulous, we are super thrilled to have gotten both the New York Times and the Daily News because the city really needs someone who knows how to get things done and can deliver on the vision,” Garcia said.
Turning to the current situation with the crime in the subways, Lopez asked Garcia what needs to be done to address the violence, other than injecting more police into the system.
“Well, first and foremost, we need to listen when the MTA says we’ve got a problem because that’s the city’s job. We’re in charge of making sure the subways are safe. It’s also true that we need to embedding mental health professionals with police so that they can address people who may be a danger to themselves or others,” Garcia said. “It is real, we have seen an increase in subway crime, and it has to be stopped because the subways are our arteries, they’re our life blood. we need to be on them so that we can get to work and get to school.”
Last month, the NYPD’s transit chief accused the MTA of “fearmongering” and said police statistics show crime is down 53% in the system, year-to-date.
Listen to The 880 Weekly Rewind with Lynda Lopez for in-depth reporting and deeper analysis of the top stories of the week, produced by Neil A. Carousso for WCBS-AM New York.
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An ‘I Love NY’ Campaign for New Yorkers: Why NYC’s Recovery Will be a Team Effort
By Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — New York City is reopening, but the recovery will not be like turning on a light switch.
Despite large swaths of the economy given a green light to reopen, including sports, entertainment, culture and hospitality, there’s still much to learn about what the post-pandemic economy will look like.
The Center for an Urban Future, a non-partisan think tank that promotes local economic mobility, found technology jobs make up 40.1 percent of available positions in the city that pay more than $80,000 a year, doubling open jobs in New York’s financial industry.
“I fear the most for the lower wage workforce in New York City – many of whom are already disproportionately hurt because of the pandemic – people in restaurants, retail, nail salons, child care,” said Executive Director Jonathan Bowles on the WCBS Small Business Spotlight, sponsored by Dime Community Bank.
“A lot of them may be hurt by these structural issues like remote work,” he acknowledged.
Bowles also pointed out business travel may continue to suffer due to the convenience of remote meetings. That could hurt the hospitality sector as many businessmen and women patronize local establishments and attend Broadway shows when they’re in town.
That’s why he believes it will be up to New Yorkers to participate in their own city’s recovery by shopping local.
“New Yorkers have got to take on some of this responsibility,” Bowles told Joe Connolly and Neil A. Carousso.
He proposed an “I Love NY” campaign marketed towards New Yorkers rather than tourists to stir up Big Apple pride that has been a hallmark of the city’s resiliency and bravado through past crises.
“After 9/11, it almost felt like almost like a patriotic duty to go out and see a Broadway show. We got to make it like it’s a patriotic duty again to go out and support our small businesses more than before, because otherwise, a lot of them just aren’t going to hang on,” said Bowles.
The local business leader believes in New York’s recovery and sees the technology and healthcare industries growing as well as a variety of traditional hospitality businesses in the outer boroughs.
“We did a little analysis of new business formation in Brooklyn and found a significant increase,” he said. “Even compared to the months prior to the pandemic, new businesses are being formed and a lot of those are retail and restaurant businesses.”
Bowles calls that “encouraging” and believes foot traffic in those neighborhoods will remain elevated as a percentage of people will not return to city offices full-time. They’ll likely spend more money in their own communities.
That also means businesses will have to reinvent themselves and figure out ways to grow profit margins through parallel services.
See what it will take to get New York City moving again and the new types of businesses that are thriving on the 200th Small Business Spotlight episode above.
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