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.