For Upper East Side residents, 2nd Avenue is the warzone in their backyard. Sidewalks diminished or closed altogether, chain link fences block storefront views, and of course the incessant drilling and humming of construction work. For several years now, 2nd Avenue has played host to the MTA, as the final stages of work on the 2nd Avenue Subway line progress. The work is expected to be finished by 2016, but it will be too late for the dozens of businesses who have lost their customer base, moved, or shut down altogether simply because passersby could not find their store amid the maze-like confusion of orange cones and temporary sidewalks.

Walking down 2nd Avenue, we found 19 stores that were shuttered or emptied, from 76th to 90th Street. Comparatively, only nine empty stores were found on 3rd Avenue between along that same 14-block span. Some of the stores and restaurants had been gone for years, like Tini’s Restaurant at 81st and 2nd, which shut its doors six years ago. But one bar, at 2nd Avenue and 83rd Street, had only shut down last week.

Stores that are still managing to stay afloat are sending out a message: “We’re still here!” One bar, Merion Square, even has “Shop Local” spray painted in large letters on the side of its building. And the stores that have not shut down are still feeling the effects of construction taking over their block. Kyund Min, who owns a deli and convenience store on 2nd Ave and 84th Street, said that she might have to close her store soon after 18 years of operation.

“Look around; there are no customers in here,” said Min. “How can I pay the rent when people buy from the deli on the other side of the street because they don’t have construction blocking them?”

Most store and restaurant owners interviewed said that they have struggled immensely in the past few years, and that it all comes down to foot traffic. Even if they have built up a customer base, people rarely walk by these stores anymore because the sidewalks are too difficult to navigate, and the construction makes 2nd Avenue unpleasant, according to many shop owners.

“Foot traffic is virtually nonexistent; people just turn the corner go their destination, you don’t see anyone walking up and down the block,” said Bob Schwartz,the owner of Eneslow Shoes between 78th and 79th Streets. “As far as business is concerned the biggest negative is these days, the area is a barren wasteland.

Caryn Klausner, who owns Promises Fulfilled, a small toy and craft store on 2nd Avenue and 83rd Street, says that she has a reliable customer base, but many of her customers drive in from out of town to pick up their gift items. Nobody wants to come she said, because there’s no place to park. Instead her employees will have to deliver packages to cars parked a couple of blocks away.

“Places open up nearby all the time, but I don’t know why you’d want to open a business around here,” said Klausner. “People around here have given up.”

In fact, a strained relationship with the MTA is one of the top problems that businesses on 2nd Avenue claim. Nick Petrou, a manager at Nick’s Pizza at 2nd and 94th Street, points to his cracked front door and damaged bar that the MTA never helped to fix. Andrea Zeugi, a bartender at Merion Square Bar at 95th Street, claims that the MTA accidentally filled the basement of their pub with cement and never fixed it. She said that the owners had to pay a hefty sum to have the cement removed.

“The MTA doesn’t care about us,” said Zeugi. “We used to have two bartenders and waiters during the day, and now it’s just me. Luckily we’ve been around for 10 years.”

During the peak years of frustration, there were after-business hours meetings organized by people like Caryn Klausner, who would talk about ways to increase business. But lately, said Klausner, people don’t come to the meetings anymore. Joe Pecora, owner of Delizia Pizza on 2nd and 92nd, started a 2nd Avenue Business Association, but Delizia claims that he has not been as involved anymore. It seems that despite the once-steady stream of letters and complaints to the MTA, many businesses have accepted the situation.

But 2nd Avenue is not rolling over and playing dead yet. In fact, Shop 2nd Ave., an organization run by the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, and endorsed by the MTA, has been doing little things to keep business alive, like promoting Small Business Saturday, or putting up signs at the construction sites that read: “We’re Open!” and list nearby stores for casual passersby.

This year, 2nd Avenue will be holding its first annual 2nd Avenue Street Festival (held on 3rd Avenue for convenience) in June, with vendors promoting their goods to visitors. In addition, there will be another 2nd Avenue Restaurant Week from June 1st-8th. The MTA will also soon be opening up a 2nd Avenue subway community center on 2nd and 84th, where residents and businesses can have their questions answered.

“We are trying to do is to take a more positive approach and not highlight the empty stores,” said Nancy Ploeger, the president of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. “What tends to happen to small unsuccesful businesses, is they are not able to change their business model to adapt to the climate. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, go in and wonder why there’s no customers.”

Ploeger says that the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce sees this string of closed stores and quick turn-over as a borough-wide problem, and not necessarily just on 2nd Avenue. She claims that 1st and 3rd Avenues have had almost the same percentage of vacant stores as 2nd Avenue.

By our count, however, between 76th and 90th Streets, there were only 9 vacant stores, as compared with the 19 on 2nd Avenue. But can all of the store closings be attributed to the construction?

“It’s hard to separate reasonings, but businesses are closing because profits are down 30 percent, whether that’s due to the economy or the construction,” said Bob Schwartz. “The MTA is doing the best they can to help. I certainly don’t envy them.”

ICONIC SECOND AVENUE BUSINESSES STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL WITH SUBWAY CONSTRUCTION

The polished floors, brand new tables, restored 90-year-old paintings and modern updates to the historic Heidelberg restaurant seem to indicate a run-of-the-mill renovation, something that happens in the normal course of operating a business. But if you look closely at the gleaming hardwood and peek around the corners of the restored bar, you can see that these measures are the elements of an eleventh-hour effort to save the embattled German institution. The Heidelberg is playing against the Second Avenue subway construction, and this is their Hail Mary pass.

“Business is so slow in the summertime, and with all the construction and the blasting, we decided it was time to give it a little bit of a facelift,” said Eva Matischak, the owner of the Heidelberg, on Second Avenue between East 85th and 86th streets. Her family bought the place in 1964, but it’s been a German restaurant since 1902, back when Yorkville was home to thousands of German immigrants.

Now, only a few of the Old World establishments remain, and the subway construction is threatening to shutter one of the last standing family-owned German eateries on the Upper East Side.

It’s not just a few jackhammers and some orange fencing that’s cut the Heidelberg’s business by roughly 30 percent. Since it’s near one of the future entrances of the Second Avenue line, the entire east side of the block lies in the shadow of massive storage containers. They obscure all of the businesses, creating an imposing barrier that only those with a specific destination in mind would be likely to traverse.

“It hurts because a lot of people driving or walking by might come in,” Matischak said, if they could see the place. “It’s been kind of hard to keep the expenses and the income at a level where we’re not losing money.”

A few months ago, Matischak was contemplating closing the restaurant and selling it, but her regular customers convinced her to give it another go. She took out a $100,000 loan from Chase bank, shut down for about a month, and is putting her last hope into a financial turnaround. They’ve installed new flooring and kitchen equipment, torn down an old dividing wall (a holdover from the cigarette-smoke-filled pre-Bloomberg days separating the dining area from the bar) to make the room more open, and given the place a modern polish while still retaining its charm and authenticity.

To keep above the red, Matischak will have to reduce her staff of 33 to about 15. She will probably close one day a week and stop serving lunch. She can’t continue the catering portion of the business because there is nowhere close by to park a van, and she won’t be offering delivery anymore because the construction makes it too slow. She switched to wooden tables so that she wouldn’t have to use linen tablecloths, saving about $3,000 a month on laundering costs. The restaurant will probably switch to all-cash, since accepting credit cards is more costly and time-consuming. They’ve also installed energy-efficient lighting in an attempt to cut the $4,000 monthly electric bill.

“We really almost closed. It’s making it too hard, to fight everybody all the time,” Matischak said. “Hopefully that will help us to survive, all those little changes.”

The “everybody” that Matischak is fighting includes the myriad city agencies that all small businesses must navigate, but it also includes a few conundrums courtesy of the MTA construction. For one thing, they normally bring in a lot of revenue during the summer months with their sidewalk café, for which they have a permit with the State Liquor Authority. They can’t operate the café now, but they’ve had to continue paying fees in order to ensure the permit doesn’t lapse. Matischak said that she’s had to pour $8,000 into keeping the permit active.

“Obviously [the Heidelberg], as well as a lot of businesses along Second Avenue, has been challenged by the construction, especially the restaurants have all been dealing with mainly café license issues because they have to be cut back,” said Nancy Ploeger, the president of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. She has worked with many of the affected businesses to alleviate some of the burdens that the construction has placed on them, acting as a liaison to the city’s agencies and pleading a case for leniency on some of the restrictions that could mean the difference between staying open and shutting the doors for many small businesses.

Ploeger and the Chamber have convinced the city to change a few small things that they hope will make a big difference. For example, restaurants normally have to resubmit an architectural plan for their outdoor café area if it changes in size. Restaurants on Second Avenue that are forced to shrink their sidewalk space due to construction have to abide by that rule, but the expense of hiring an architect to draw up new plans is a difficult one on top of the lost revenue from the outdoor tables that need to be cut.

“It’s not their fault that they’re being cut back,” Ploeger said. “They have to spend a lot of money to hire a an architect to make these drawings.” The city has agreed to allow those businesses to draw up and submit estimated plans themselves, without the seal of approval from an architect. Matischak also said that Ploeger is helping her negotiate with the State Liquor Authority to allow her to keep her sidewalk café license active without having to pay the fees.

Ploeger said that one of the biggest hurdles facing these businesses is the time associated with figuring out all the required steps to stay within the law when things change, and that the city should be more flexible in helping businesses navigate a problem that they didn’t create.

The Chamber instituted Second Avenue Restaurant Week, which ran in June this year, and tries to promote the businesses there and encourage them to offer special deals and promotions to get customers in the door. City Council Member Jessica Lappin conducted a survey recently of local residents, asking them what would persuade them to shop and dine along the areas of Second Avenue plagued by construction. While 86 percent of respondents said that specials and discount coupons would be the best way to get them in the door, business owners say that won’t make up for what they’re losing in foot traffic.

“There’s not too much that would help,” said Ralph Schaller, the owner of the Schaller & Weber butcher shop a few doors down from the Heidelberg. “Coupons? I don’t know. Either you come here or not. Tax breaks would help, that would be nice.”

Schaller, who works behind the counter at the German shop that he inherited from his father, said that he still gets a steady stream of regulars who buy the specialty meats and German import grocery items, but that his business is down significantly since the construction began.

“It’s bad. We’re 20 percent off [from normal business],” Schaller said. “We used to get a lot of people from out of town, but they don’t come anymore because there’s nowhere to park.” He said that the $115 tickets customers have gotten for double parking keep them away for good.

Schaller & Weber has been in business for 75 years, and Schaller said that the only reason he’s able to keep the shop open is that they own the building it sits in as well as a factory in Astoria that produces the meat products they sell in the store and elsewhere.

The furniture store next to the Heidelberg has also suffered. Ari Zaharopoulos, the owner of Gotham Cabinet Craft, said that their business is bolstered by their other locations (five total in Manhattan and 30 citywide) as well as repeat customers, but that their Second Avenue location has still taken a hit.

“It definitely has affected our sales because there is less visibility from the street,” Zaharopoulos said. “That location specifically caters to a lot of custom work. The potential buyers are not able to see our display. The traffic is diverted to the other side of the street.”

One of Zaharopoulos’ biggest concerns is what will happen when the city gets a major snowfall, a worry that Schaller echoed as well.

“If we have a hard winter, that’s going to be problem because if the snow piles up in that small space between the door and the equipment, no one will be walking by,” Zaharopoulos said.
He said that his biggest frustration is that the storage containers blocking the store seem to be there for the convenience of the MTA, rather than out of absolute necessity, and that they’re aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. The locals have been told that the containers will be in place for at least another two years.

Matischak is hoping that her cost-saving measures and general spruce-up will be enough to last that long. It was her regular customers who convinced her to stay in business, and she’s counting on them to keep coming back for plates of homemade schnitzel and glass boots (the restaurant’s signature) filled with frosty beer. The next few months will be telling, she said, as business gets back under way and she can determine whether her last-ditch efforts will pay off.

“There’s really no other places in Yorkville to give it character,” Matischak said. “People say we can’t leave the neighborhood, because if we go, there is no neighborhood.”

Dr. Horodniceanu answers reporters' questions about Upper East Side explosion

“What happened yesterday was completely unacceptable and should not have occurred,” said Dr. Michael Horodniceanu, the president of MTA Capital Construction, the subsidiary agency in charge of the Second Avenue Subway construction project. “I’m really upset and angry that whatever happened put the residents in the area in [this] situation. We are continuing our investigation into exactly what happened.”

Horodniceanu said that preliminary findings show that the blast, which was designed to create an elevator shaft, got out of control because the 1,800 pound, 6-foot by 10-foot steel plate covering the tunnel above the explosives was not properly secured at its edges.

“The holes that were drilled in the rock outcrop that was blasted were diagonal. Normally we will do it in a vertical fashion,” he said, although the MTA has used this diagonal drilling at several other sites. “When you drill vertically, the energy that is created would go laterally. In this case it went vertically and actually aimed directly to the deck, to the southeast corner of the 72nd Street deck. The decking lifted and allowed rock to actually spread into the street.”

Aside from a few broken windows at an art gallery, there was no structural damage to the street or nearby buildings, and no one was injured at the site.

The MTA plans to take a number of steps to insure that this won’t happen again, Horodniceanu said. They will be adding protective rubber matting on top of underground blasts to further prevent the spread of debris, he said, and will also be expanding the areas from they ban pedestrians surrounding a blast site. They are also hiring an independent safety consultant and will be employing a blasting consultant more frequently, he said. None of these measures are expected to greatly increase the cost of the project or delay its December 2016 completion date, according to Horodniceanu.

“I truly would like to apologize to the residents of the area that have been exposed to numerous problems throughout the construction of this project, and I pledge to them that we’ll do our best for something like this not to occur again,” Horodniceanu said.

By Amanda Woods

Following the recent report of a young woman who was stabbed in broad daylight on East 86th Street near Second Avenue, some Upper East Side residents and business owners are concerned that the ongoing subway construction makes the avenue more dangerous and prone to violent outbreaks.

Crime within the 19th Precinct, which covers the neighborhood, has climbed 16.22 percent from this time last year and 7.72 percent over the past two years, according to the most recent CompStat report. But Nick Viest, president of the 19th Precinct Community Council, said that crime has actually decreased 40 percent on Second Avenue between 80th and 91st streets, compared to this time last year.

These stats don’t prevent concerns from pouring in. Viest noted that residents at 19th Precinct Community Council meetings have pointed out that the construction area could be a breeding ground for crime.

Those concerns carry over from the meeting room into the neighborhood’s streets. Some blame the scaffolding and fencing surrounding the construction—in some spots covered with green tarps—for tightening up and darkening the sidewalks, potentially hindering the police’s view of the goings-on along the Avenue.

“What do you see when you look outside?” asked Dimitrios Kontakos, the manager of Viand Coffee Shop on the corner of Second Avenue and 86th Street, whose storefront is completely hidden on one side by the construction’s fencing. “Can you see anything? They put a jail over here.”

Kontakos suggested that some of the scaffolding and fencing should be removed at night, when construction is not going on, because a wide-open view of the sidewalk may deter criminals. “Thugs and thieves and criminals don’t like to be exposed,” he said.

The recent stabbing, which occurred in broad daylight, led Kontakos to worry about what could happen in the middle of the night when people are not around to help.

“This is the first time I’ve seen somebody at 10:30 in the morning outside of the store doing this,” Kontakos said. “Imagine if nobody was around and the store was closed. [The woman] wouldn’t be alive.”

Frank Giambanco, owner of Midnight Blue, an Italian restaurant on Second Avenue between 85th and 86th streets, shares the same concerns.

“It’s pretty dark here because of the closure,” Giambanco said. “It’s pretty unsafe for women.”

Vincent Naval, manager of Ivory Cleaners Too, between 84th and 85th streets on the Avenue, also thinks the construction is inviting for criminals.

“Two people can’t pass at the same time,” Naval said. “It’s easy for them to do these kinds of things,” he added, making a stabbing motion with his hand.

Saxs Sexigs, who has lived on the Upper East Side for over 30 years, said that although the subway construction isn’t completely to blame for crime in the area, it holds some of the responsibility.

“There wasn’t that high a crime rate before they started,” Sexigs said.  “These streets are so narrow and all these people have to walk on one side.”

Some residents are concerned that the Avenue is becoming a haven for the homeless, who camp out in enclosed areas on the street, shielded by scaffolding. Many of them don’t appear to be threatening, including one who calmly sits with his dog and a newspaper, Sexigs said. But Naval said that two or three homeless people sleep in front of his store every night, and he called the police on one of them a few months ago, a man who repeatedly cut his wrist and threatened passersby. Naval said he hasn’t seen the man since his call.

Bob, an Upper East Sider who declined to give his last name, said he doesn’t think the subway construction has any relationship to crime in the area, and that other factors are to blame.

“I think the neighborhood changed since they brought in Best Buy and bigger chain stores,” he said. “More people bring the crime element as well.”

Viest said that the significant decrease in crime along the stretch of the Avenue affected by the construction indicates that crime in the area is probably not related to the project.

Of greatest concern in the 19th Precinct is the increase in grand larcenies—property crimes, including iPhone thefts—which have climbed 22.4 percent in the precinct over the past year, Viest said.

“When those numbers move, that tends to be the most significant in affecting the overall crime,” Viest said. “It’s the largest number. We’ve seen an [increase], but it’s also the most difficult crime to police because it’s a crime of opportunity. There tend to be gangs and groups that coordinate and do these things.”

Police are urging locals not to hold their phones in public, but other than that, the crimes are hard to prevent, Viest said.

Julia Csiki, a waitress at André’s Cafe, located on Second Avenue between 84th and 85th streets, and Mary Charlotin, who also works in the area, said they feel relatively safe and have seen more police patrolling the area since the subway construction began.

But Anima Golder, a Second Avenue fruit stand operator, said that she doesn’t see the neighborhood, once known for its relative safety, the same way anymore.

“There’s more crime,” she said. “This area is bad now.”