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CNN Live At Daybreak

New York Marks End of Recovery and Cleanup Work at Ground Zero

Aired May 31, 2002 - 05:17   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: A ceremony without words, that's how New York marked the end of recovery and cleanup work at ground zero. As you can hear, a fire bell rang to honor the 343 fallen firefighters. An empty flag-draped stretcher symbolizing the more than 1,700 people who were never found was also on the scene. And the last steel girder was transported up the ramp to symbolize the last debris cleared from the site.

Yesterday's ceremony began at 10:29 in the morning, Eastern Time. That's the moment when the second World Trade Center tower collapsed; 2,823 people were killed on September 11.

And eight and a half months after the attacks, many businesses near ground zero are still suffering financially.

CNN's Fred Katayama visited a small restaurant to look at the financial fallout.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRED KATAYAMA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): September 11 turned this deli into a dustbin of debris. Owner Jerry Liberatos considered shutting it down. He scrubbed for four days. Three weeks later, he was back in operation. But today, business is still suffering.

JERRY LIBERATOS, OWNER, KOYZINA KAFE: It's awful. Catering went down. Deliveries, the delivery business went down. I've had delivery boys, I had six delivery boys. Three of them are fired. I cannot pay them anymore.

KATAYAMA: That's because many financial titans have abandoned the Wall Street area. Among them, Bank of America, securities firms Lehman Brothers and Cantor Fitzgerald, and insurance brokerage Marsh & McLennan. Many large companies no longer want to concentrate their employees in one area for security reasons.

KATHRYN WYLDE, PRESIDENT & CEO, NEW YORK CITY PARTNERSHIP: We're going to have to see a deconcentration, a spreading out of those businesses as they look to having adequate recovery sites and backup systems and geographic diversity.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His number is 47-5. KATAYAMA: Financial jobs pay well and each job generates two others in support services. Lower Manhattan, the third largest business district in the U.S., has lost 60,000 jobs.

(on camera): The city has made some progress. Nineteen companies ranging from investment bank Brown Brothers Harriman to retailer Century 21 have accepted a total of $63 million in federal grants to stay.

(voice-over): But the commercial vacancy rate has risen sharply, leaving 15 million square feet vacant, enough to fill the entire World Trade Center complex.

CARL WEISBROD, PRESIDENT, DOWNTOWN ALLIANCE: They may go slightly higher, but then they'll start to come down as, again, as the transportation restorations take effect. We're already seeing damaged buildings restored and being reoccupied.

KATAYAMA: But transportation won't be fully restored until next year and the cost of insurance and security has skyrocketed.

Back at the Kafe, financial success for Jerry and many of the 3,400 other small businesses nearby depends on getting big businesses back to the area.

Fred Katayama, CNN Financial News, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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