Shopkeepers struggle to stay afloat after flooding

Cheick Conde, owner of Masidi’s Urban African Store on Broadway near West 232nd Street, is hoping the city will help pay for the damage to his inventory. Photo by Karsten Moran

Merchants up and down Broadway are casting about for ways to cope with thousands of dollars worth of damage from last week’s water main break.

By Kevin Deutsch

The floodwater is gone. The massive hole in Broadway is patched up. But economic fallout from the June 14 water main break that flooded four city blocks is still being felt at dozens of businesses along Broadway.

Cheick Conde, owner of African Masidi, said he’s in desperate need of help from the city. In the week since the main broke, he says he’s found an additional $30,000 in damaged inventory, bringing his total losses to about $60,000.

His 12-year-old shop has long been a passport to a seemingly faraway world, full of mysterious masks scowling down from the walls and finely carved, ancient crafts handmade in Africa.

The place may seem more Congo than Kingsbridge, its drum music drawing in shoppers hungry for a taste of a distant continent. But now Mr. Conde has lost scores of one-ofa- kind items. Handmade rugs from the Congo are moldy and wet. Statues and musical instruments are soaked through. African artifacts, some of them hundreds of years old, had to be trashed.

“With the city, things can take forever,” said Mr. Conde, who fears he may have lost too many of his exotic marvels to stay open, and has no flood insurance. “We’re still waiting for them to answer us. In the meantime, we’re just throwing things out all the time. I’ve almost lost everything.”

You don’t have to walk far down Broadway to find another merchant with the same concerns.

“Things have been rough,” said Isaac Kassab, owner of Jackie’s children’s clothing store, which suffered more than $100,000 in damage, including massive inventory loss and a ruined, water-soaked ceiling on its lower level.

The impact from the flooding was brought into sharper focus this week when the city’s Department of Small Business Services released their initial findings about the disaster. They say 52 small businesses felt the impact of the massive water main rupture that sent millions of gallons of water gushing along Broadway. Shops experienced power and water outages. The most severely affected businesses, according to the department, were Jackie’s, which needs a cleaning company to remove mildew caused by flooding, and Riverdale Parking Garage, where 26 privately owned vehicles were ruined. The garage, which is over 30 years old, is not insured at all, according to the department.

This week, the department says it will hold a business recovery meeting where anxious shopkeepers can get free legal and insurance advice; help obtaining permits lost to flooding, and answers to questions about financial help and employment issues. Various state agencies, including the departments of labor and insurance, will have representatives on hand.

Whether damaged businesses are eligible to receive money from the city or state remains to be seen. The department did not provide any information about what government funding, if any, the affected shops may be entitled to.

“I hope they help us,” Mr. Kassab said.

Shop owners echoed that sentiment across the affected area, known as the Kingsbridge Business Improvement District. Damaged stores, already plagued by years of slow business, feel the city should help pay for damages, since it appears to be decayed infrastructure that led to the flooding.

The 20-inch main that ruptured at Broadway and West 231st Street was constructed in 1965. The break may have been caused, in part, by 44 years of vibrations caused by both cars and the elevated No. 1 trains, said Acting DEP Commissioner Steven Lawitts.

Mohammad Yaghoubi, owner of Riverdale Parking Garage, said he’s spent the past week dealing with angry customers whose cars were flooded.

“Everybody’s jumping on my head,” said Mr. Yaghoubi, who is anxious to attend the meeting and find out what his options are. “It’s hard to satisfy the customers. Many of them don’t have the insurance to cover this. I explain that I’m waiting for the city to help.”

Impacted businesses that haven’t contacted the city are asked to call 311 and ask for the Department of Small Business Service Emergency Response Unit.

This is part of the June 25, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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