Posted on 01/05/2006 11:21:18 AM PST by dead
NEW YORK - The surviving employees of Windows on the World, the 107th-floor restaurant obliterated in the World Trade Center attacks, have something to celebrate after more than four painful years: a new upscale eatery, just a walk from ground zero.
Colors, to open Thursday in Greenwich Village, is owned by the workers and offers a menu sprinkled with food from the staff's 22 native nations.
It's long-awaited good news for a group who lost 73 of their friends and co-workers Sept. 11, 2001. Only those who weren't working at the time of the attacks survived.
The survivors' livelihoods were crushed. Many have since been unemployed, struggling with odd jobs. Others battled depression and illness.
"After 9/11, the only thing that keeps us going is belief in each other," said Fekkak Mamdouh, 45, a Morrocan-born former Windows waiter. "We can't fail."
At first, the grieving workers considered making their restaurant a sort of tribute to 9/11, including memorabilia. But a survey they commissioned concluded that customers want to enjoy fine food and atmosphere, not be reminded of terror and death.
So they decided on a restaurant with dishes that include favorite family recipes contributed by the workers, whose native lands include Haiti, Jamaica, Italy, Mexico, Thailand, Colombia, Egypt, Bangladesh, China and the U.S.
The eclectic menu will change with the seasons and aims to satisfy both traditional and exotic tastes with fare ranging from organic chicken with cranberries and New York aged ribeye steak to bartender Silverio Moog's Philippine lobster and minted sweet potato spring rolls.
"This is the new American food. It's cooked in a kitchen where everyone is equal, no yelling, no screaming. And you actually own the dishes you're washing," said executive chef Raymond Mohan, born in a village in Guyana.
Among Colors' staff of more than 50, Mohan is one of about a dozen who didn't work at the World Trade Center, but in other restaurants whose business suffered after the attacks.
The Colors waiters, busboys, bartenders, chefs and dishwashers all have a stake in the venture, financed with about $2.2 million. The consortium Good Italian Food offered $500,000 as an equity investment, and the Nonprofit Finance Fund put up $1.2 million for the project from 15 smaller lenders. Modest funds came from Roman Catholic nuns in California, Michigan and Ohio.
"We got nowhere with the big banks," said Bruce G. Herman, a workers rights advocate who represents the Italian consortium. "And who stepped forward? The religious community, a nonprofit fund, a foreign cooperative."
Each Colors staffer also spent at least 100 hours working for the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC-NY), a Manhattan cooperative organization that raised another half-million dollars. Its members are teaching other restaurant employees how to build a worker-owned restaurant — an innovative model for the international food industry.
Everyone, even dishwashers, will make at least $13.50 an hour — double the minimum wage and far more than average New York restaurant pay. The workers' 20 percent initial share of the business will increase if they return the investments in the venture.
"Nobody thought we could pull it off on our own as immigrants, as people of color — even the consultants we hired," said attorney Saru Jayaraman, ROC's executive director. "This is not about money. It's about creating an economic model of a restaurant that does well — but not just for the owners, on the backs of the workers."
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On the Net:
ROC-NY: http://www.rocny.org
Sounds good. Wish them luck.
Bravo!
Good for them.
I never ate at Windows, but I attended a few events there (including Bill Gates' roll out of Windows NT in an event called "Windows on Wall Street" - sat next to the IT director for the CIA!). I've followed the stories of some of the survivors and have been impressed with just who the people working there were. It was apparently a very interesting mix of people. I wish them well.
If banks wouldn't touch it, there's a good reason.
From someone who worked in a restaurant for seven years, I think this is a great idea. From kitchen, to wait, to bar staff, there are always very capable, knowledgeable people. Some people live and breathe the business, could do it with their eyes closed.
This is a great tribute to the lives lost perhaps a reconciliation of the dreams that died with others that day.
Banks hate to fund small and start-up business. Without private investors, many of today's successful entrepenuerships wouldn't exist.
If it wasn't for private money, you'd never see a new restaurant and there'd be a terrible shortage of folks to clean the floors and windows . . .
I love the idea, and I hope they do well! God bless them for pursuing their American dream, and for trying to bring soemthing positive out of horror.
I'll make sure I visit them on my next trip to NYC (which may be a while since I was just there a week ago). Maybe hubby can take some associates there when he's in NJ next month.
Bull. It's about money ... they want some, they're willing to work for it, and they managed to round up some folks to help with capital. Good on 'em ... I wish them success. But can the anticapitalist blather.
I wish them well.
4 Years in NYC?? and you haven't been able to do anything but odd jobs?? I'm sorry, but, if that's all you can find in that city in 4 years.. you just aren't looking.
The banks were busy giving out loans to massage parlors in Las Vegas to actually help NYers with legitimate losses.
I don't quite understand why they wouldn't be able to find jobs in other retaurants in NYC. Sure the recession deepened after 9-11, but that was four years ago. The economy has been growing quite well.
This article has an address for the restaurant on Lafayette St.
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:a-h9dNtI50oJ:www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/19/wtc.restaurant.ap/+colors+restaurant&hl=en&client=firefox-a
This article made me wonder what happened to Windows on the World (and TV Food Network) chef Michael Lomonaco, who escaped death on 9/11 because he was picking up a new pair of eyeglasses. He's gone to a restaurant called Guastavinos on E. 59th. http://www.guastavinos.com/chef.asp
The cooperative is paying $21,500 a month for the space at 417 Lafayette St., about a 20-minute walk from the trade center site.
I give them all the credit and wishes for success.
We could all use a reminder that life could change unalterably is the beat of a heart.
Banks aren't charities. That's why we have banks, and, well, charities.
Sure you can fail.
Quite. See my post.
As for the rest, your post is nonresponsive nonsense based on false assumptions. Try reading what I wrote, and reading what I responded to.
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