New York's state of mind…
Such was the impact of the attacks on the World Trade Center that a "regular air crash" seems like relatively good news to a city struggling to get back to normal. David Harris reports from New York.
An edgy New York had just begun to relax at the beginning of this month when its nerves were jolted once more as American Airlines flight 587 crashed on take-off from JFK airport. In Wall Street, outside the same Regent Hotel where manager Christopher Knable had watched the destruction of the World Trade Center from his roof on 11 September, pedestrians were again nervous, eyes anxiously glued to the sky every time a plane passed.
Knable's immediate reaction - to hope that the latest crash was mechanical failure - was echoed across Manhattan. The last thing this commercially-minded city needs now is frightened travellers. Unpleasant though it may sound, a "regular air crash" is relatively good news.
Until last week, the remarkable thing about New York, even given its reputation for commercial muscularity, was not just that it had begun to recover, but that so many were openly saying that the 11 September attacks contained some things which might have done the city's hotels and restaurants a favour by speeding up a recession that was inevitable anyway.
At the International Hotel and Motel Conference, held in the city's Javit's conference centre on 10-13 November, several speakers were explicit about this.
"What was true on 10 September was just as true on 12 September," says consultant Michael Whiteman. "The future is just appearing at a faster rate. It may even mean that we go through recession more quickly, which could work to our advantage. The economic downturn doesn't have anything to do with 11 September, other than the fact that it threw everything under a big magnifying glass."
Whiteman argued that there were other advantages of a recession to the city's restaurateurs as well, one of which was it would be harder to borrow money so there would be fewer restaurant openings. This is bad news for aspiring restaurateurs, but better for established ones, who may earn more dollars for each restaurant seat they own.
"There were too many restaurants and that is now being rectified," Whiteman says. "But the number of diners is not going to fall. Americans gave up cooking a long time ago and they have no intention of taking it up again."
The American inclination for stressing the good news even stretches to those restaurateurs operating within bomb damage distance of the twin towers.
Drew Nieporent is one of New York's best-known independent restaurant owners and runs the Tribeca Grill, which was closed for several days after the 11 September attacks because it was in the cordoned-off area. Unlike some restaurateurs, Nieporent didn't lay off any staff (unusual, given that there is virtually no job protection in the USA), but instead used them to help feed the rescue workers.
If ever there was an instance of good deeds rewarded, this was it. The Tribeca's efforts were highlighted in the New York Times and grateful New Yorkers have returned to it with redoubled enthusiasm.
"The article had an unbelievable effect," Nieporent says.
Another indication that 11 September just accelerated the downturn rather than causing it comes with the $20 lunches and $30 dinners that about 80 restaurants introduced at the end of October to get diners out again.
Ostensibly a week-long promotion to combat the effects of 11 September, many of the restaurants that took part - including Conran's Guastavino's on East 59th Street - have continued the special deals because it made economic sense in any case.
Chris Malm, who manages Guastavino's, says: "With a $30 menu the average check may be a little lower, but it has got people back in. It makes a lot of sense."
Other measures which some observers take to be directly caused by 11 September also turn out to be more complicated. Daniel, rated New York's best restaurant by the Zagat guide, stopped doing lunch in mid-October, but chef-proprietor Daniel Boulud admits he had wanted to cut lunch for some time. He has other restaurants, notably Café Boulud, which have increased lunch business, while the 280 covers served on recent Saturday evenings in Daniel itself are a little higher than last year. Evening diners spend more than lunchers, so his takings go up while his wage bill for his kitchen brigade goes down because he needs to run it for fewer hours.
Hoteliers agree with restaurateurs that much of the downturn in business was happening anyway, although the effect of 11 September on hotels has probably been greater. Largely this is because while New Yorkers eat out in their own restaurants, they don't stay in their own hotels to the same extent.
Every hotel in the city took little but cancellations in the fortnight after 11 September. Many managers - Knable at the Regent included - say occupancy, which had dropped to below 10% in the worst cases, then climbed at the rate of about 10% a week.
The result was that on the weekend of 9 and 10 November, the day before the latest crash, a lot of hotels were fully booked for the first time since the terrorist attacks.
Raymond Bickson, general manager at the Mark, was one who had no spare bedrooms that weekend.
Bickson admits that last week's air crash will "spook a lot of people", but he still expects to maintain occupancies of more than 90% in the crucial shopping weekends between Thanksgiving (22 November) and Christmas.
He says: "Even in November we are expecting overall occupancy figures to be somewhere in the 70s, but there are a couple of things you must remember. The first is that between 15 September and 15 December we normally make half our annual profits - we are used to 90-95% occupancy for the whole time - and the second is that any comparisons have to reflect the fact that last year was the best ever."
The 180-bedroom Mark is now targeting what Bickson calls "rubber-tyre business". In other words, anybody that can drive to the hotel rather than fly. Restaurants are targeting neighbourhood diners, hotels concentrating on regional guests.
Elsewhere in the city's business and luxury hotel market, the evidence of American determination to be positive is equally apparent.
The Four Seasons, on 57th Street, has only 300 of its 368 bedrooms in use at the moment, because the top three floors are being refurbished. The city-wide occupancy drop means it was an excellent time to do the work.
The hotel's occupancies have recovered, too, and although there were a few cancellations last week, these were mostly because of the closure of JFK airport, not because of fears of more disasters. Like the Mark, the Four Seasons has been full on several nights recently.
The same pattern has been visible in smaller hotels, too. At the 12-bedroom Inn at Irving Place, manager Shawn Rettstatt describes exactly the same pattern of business as the city's bigger hotels. Last year was the best ever, then occupancy and turnover both started to fall at the beginning of this year, with 11 September resulting in immediate and heavy cancellations, followed by steady recovery. This townhouse hotel recognises that it is not going to run on the 85% average occupancy or room rates of $325 a night that it enjoyed last year - occupancy is down in the 70s and rates $100 lower - but the truth is that things could be a lot worse.
Diners seek reassurance in comfort food
The idea that New York's diners are seeking traditional American comfort food to help settle their souls and stomachs after 11 September is a popular one among the city's restaurateurs.
Greg Sherry, owner of the Old Homestead restaurant, is one of those reaping the benefits of the trend at his long-established steak house, described fondly by Zagat's guide as "clogging arteries for 130 years".
Sherry is straightforward about the commercial advantage he is now enjoying: "Sometimes being old is good, sometimes being old is bad. In this case it's good. People have become afraid of change. They have changed now, in one day, more than they have ever changed in their whole lives. They are looking for certainties."
The demand for the familiar has even stretched to the decor of the city's old restaurants. During a recent refurbishment, which some passers-by took to be a closure, Sherry was besieged with offers to buy the large model cow which stands outside the building.
But not all the traditions Americans are comforting themselves with are so obvious, either in food or furnishings. New York restaurant consultant Clark Wolf says: "It's not necessarily about meat loaf and apple pie. One person I know in Dallas is eating nothing but sushi - that has become their comfort food. The children of another acquaintance keep asking for mozzarella and tomato salad - it's what they are used to eating with their family. That's what matters."
Contract caterers
Contract caterers in New York were hard hit on 11 September because many of them had contracts in or around the twin towers.
Restaurant Associates, the American contract caterer now owned by Compass, ran the in-house restaurants for American Express in a building alongside the towers which is now closed. Amex moved its staff to other offices in New Jersey and Stamford, but the Compass contract and most of the staff moved with them.
Elsewhere in the city, Compass has found that contracts for company catering have seen turnover hold up well, but outside businesses have been affected quite badly.
Nick Valenti, chief executive of Restaurant Associates, says: "It's a mixed picture. Some contracts, such as one we have at the Museum of Natural History, have seen business down. This is partly because of the 20-25% fall-off in the number of visitors to New York, but also because major buildings such as this might be seen as a possible target and parents are keeping their children away."
David Emil: the survivor's story
Everybody in New York's hospitality business was affected in some way in the aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks, but not everybody was affected like restaurateur David Emil.
Emil lost 72 staff in his Windows on the World restaurant, which operated at the top of one of the twin towers, and he still struggles to come to terms with the loss.
"Two months on we are still trying to sort the pieces," he says. "I don't have a clear sense of direction here. We've had long enough to work out who owes what to whom, but that's about it," he says.
Emil owns two other restaurants, one in New York and one in Stamford, Connecticut, but his company, Night Sky Restaurants, was clearly hit hard by the attacks.
Emil, however, is not about to let commercial concerns override the human loss.
"It was obviously bad for us in business terms. The lease on the restaurant had 22 years to run. But I'm alive. Seventy-two people were killed in the restaurant. If it had been in the middle of the day it would have been hundreds more, both employees and diners," he says.
The death toll might also have included Emil, although he doesn't mention this until pressed. He lives half an hour away from the site of the twin towers. On the day of the attack he had just left his home when the first plane struck.
