Good morning. Today is Friday. We’ll take a look at how small businesses are standing tall as the city tries to come out of the pandemic. We’ll be kayaking with a hopeful congressman who is one of more than a dozen Democrats running in the August 23 primaries in just one county. And, speaking of main, today is the last day to register to vote in it.
Kymme Williams-Davis opened a coffee shop in Brooklyn called Bushwick Grind in 2015. She spent $200,000 renovating the space she rented and adding a kitchen. She specializes in coffee brewed from locally roasted beans.
Bushwick Grind did well until the pandemic hit and the store closed for nine months.
But as my colleague Lydia DePillis Written, Running a small business doesn’t get easier since Bushwick Grind reopened. Traffic hasn’t picked up yet. Williams-Davis’s costs for coffee and other ingredients have skyrocketed, in part because the upstate New York farmers she once depended on are saving on gas by driving to the city less often. more often.
And enough employees have left to add another hassle to the requirement of trying to operate at full capacity.
All of which has left her uncertain about Bushwick Grind’s future and chances of survival. “I feel like it’s like 50-50,” she said, “because if I don’t find a way to reduce the liability and keep the capital, I won’t be able to make it any longer.”
Williams-Davis’ concerns are universal. The nonprofit Small Business Majority, in a survey this month, found that nearly a third of small businesses cannot survive without additional capital or changing business conditions. That finding was echoed in a survey by Alignable, a social network for small business owners, that found 43% of small New York businesses were at risk of closing in the fall, 12 percentage points away. here for more than a year.
Alignable’s Chuck Casto blamed patchwork return-to-work policies for leaving many Manhattan offices vacant and nearby small businesses affected. About 41% of New York small businesses could not pay rent in full or on time in July, according to Alignable. This is up seven percentage points from the previous month. Only Massachusetts has a higher crime rate, and by just one percentage point.
During the shutdown, Williams-Davis covered rent by subleasing the space, and she contracted to deliver 400 meals a day to vaccination sites in the city when they reopened. The contract gave her loan-eligible cash flow so she could buy her own space.
But she still hasn’t finalized a deal. She has more than once been hit by investors with higher pockets.
New York’s 2022 election
As prominent Democratic officials sought to protect their records, Republicans saw an opportunity to infiltrate general election races.
This week, the city announced a $1.5 million commitment to continue a public and private small business outreach network that has been created during the pandemic. The idea is to provide legal and technical support, among other things.
“The hardest thing is the transition to this digital economy,” said Kathryn Wylde, president of New York City Partners, an influential business group that started the network. as these are mostly brick-and-mortar businesses that don’t have the ability to have an online presence or sophisticated marketing. “
Kat Lloyd had the same idea when she and a partner start a small business to do digital marketing for small businesses. Now, she said, “everyone else is having a hard time, so we’re having a hard time.”
“I can’t hire more people to do the work I need – I need to focus on the bottom line,” says Lloyd, who is like Williams-Davis of Bushwick. “Every day for several months, I wake up with this ball in my throat and a pain in my stomach about how I’m going to pay my landlord while I make sure my clients are taken care of.”
Weather
Forecast for a mild sunny day with high temperatures in the 80s, possibly thunderstorms in the afternoon. Showers are likely to continue into the evening, with temperatures dropping to as low as the 70s.
PARKING OUTSIDE
Valid until August 15 (Hang Thuan Festival).
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Elizabeth Holtzman smashed through the glass ceiling and voted to impeach Richard Nixon when she was a congresswoman in the 1970s. Now she’s running again, in a crowded main field in the Second Congressional District. 10 in Brooklyn and Manhattan. My colleague Nicholas Fandos not only interviewed her; he went kayaking with her. Here’s how he said it happened:
Years ago, someone Elizabeth Holtzman didn’t know died and left a modest legacy to her and two other pioneering congresswomen from New York, Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm.
Holtzman, who was once the youngest woman elected to Congress, spent money on a kayak, the dark blue Walden she uses in the summer to paddle around the Peconic River on the east side of Long Island, where she Usually weekends off.
So when I asked Holtzman for the first time this spring about her unusual decision to leave politics permanently and run for Congress at the age of 80, she suggested that perhaps we could into the water.
As a political reporter, I accompanied the candidates as they greeted voters outside supermarkets, in restaurants and at parades. I polished the Mississippi rib plate with a former executive secretary of the Deep South. I even spent an afternoon in northern Montana with Senator Jon Tester as he tried to repair a grain drill, a large farm equipment used to move his crops. But never has a politician asked me to go kayaking.
I’m no expert in kayaking, but of course I said yes to Holtzman.
We agreed to meet at Pier 2 in Brooklyn Bridge Park on a sweltering summer evening earlier this month. We rented kayaks, put on life jackets, and headed out to a protected body of water off the banks of the Brooklyn River. The Brooklyn Bridge hovered above us. The financial district’s skyline looms over the East River, and there’s a magical moment when the Statue of Liberty appears across the harbour.
Returning to dry land a little later, she talked about her decision to enter the race because she was furious when a draft Supreme Court decision was leaked to overturn Roe v. Wade. “I say to myself, you know, I don’t have to sit on the sidelines,” she told me.
If won, half a century after setting the first record, Holtzman would probably be the oldest non-incumbent ever elected to Congress. She’s no stranger to long-range shots and record-breaking campaigns: Her victory in 1972 over Emanuel Celler, a 50-year incumbent backed by the Brooklyn Democratic machine. She was then the first (and still only) woman elected as district attorney in Brooklyn and New York City. (She was pretty much New York’s first female senator, but lost to Alfonse D’Amato in 1980 in a close race.)
Before sailing back to Pier 2, we also talked about her family, Jewish immigrants who fled Russia and came to Ellis Island; about her work for Mayor John Lindsay; on improved conditions in the East River; and about good kayaking spots around New York.
Holtzman is acutely aware that, in a summer when Democrats are wondering about the age of President Biden and other Democratic leaders in Washington, there are concerns about her age. In the interview, she affirmed that she is still as strong as before. I asked her if she was tired – a term she used to describe Celler in her first campaign.
“You answer that question,” she said with a laugh, eventually adding, “I am not tired. I don’t feel tired at all.”
Dear Diary:
Me and a friend were walking along East 86th Street on a lovely spring afternoon. She was describing two outfits and asking for my opinion on which one to wear to a fancy corporate dinner that evening.
I was weighing her options when I heard a voice say, “Put on a velvet jacket and silk pants.”
Looking to the right, we see a young woman pushing a stroller. Since we couldn’t decide which option was best, my friend took her advice.
– Marilyn Hillman
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and Read more Metropolitan Diary here.
So glad we can get together here. See you on the second day. – JB
PS This is for today Small crosswords and Spell Bee. You can find all our quizzes here.
Walker Clermont and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
