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On a recent afternoon, National Guard officer Hector Maisonet, who mans an entrance to the site on Church Street, showed visitors his emergency vest, signed by Tyra Banks and Jamie Lee Curtis. "People ask us if we get tired standing here all day," says Guardsman Miguel Latorre, 42. "I say, 'Yo, it's my job.'" With the last ruins of the Twin Towers removed for possible display in a future memorial, the dozens of camouflaged Guard members and police officers stationed there now serve as the attraction itself, like the guards at Buckingham Palace. Tourists take pictures with them, chat them up and say patriotic thank yous before hitting the souvenir tables.
Where Wall Street expense accounts once dictated the local economy, businesses are now reinventing themselves for the new downtown ruling class--the cops and the National Guard, the construction workers and the tourists. Like several other retailers, the family owners of Laotian restaurant Mangez Avec Moi supplement their diminished income by selling F.D.N.Y. T shirts and hats on weekends. Moran's, an Irish steak house on the opposite end of the district, replaced its upscale menu with mozzarella sticks, potato skins and chicken fingers. "We couldn't offer a stuffed sole for $35 or a porterhouse," says Abby Lydon, the restaurant's co-owner. "That business lunch is no longer here."
Lydon's daughter spray-painted directions to the restaurant on numerous construction planks that have sprouted in the cleanup zone, which other stores also use as free billboards. Apocalyptic signage was also erected by Andrew Menschel, 58, the owner of the Dakota Roadhouse, a bar just north of the Trade Center site. Back when the green police tarp shrouded the site, Menschel scrawled advertisements for his bar all over it: OSAMA MISSED US, WHY SHOULD YOU? Some locals have scolded Menschel for trying to "make profit out of death," but business is so slow he will try anything. On a wall in the bar he pasted a map of ground zero that shows the areas assigned to each construction company. "The cleanup is the only thing we've got," he says. "A lot of people come by and say, 'We don't want a drink, but we really liked your signs.'"
It's hard to persuade workers to buy your burgers or your shoes when they can get all they want for free. No one who works at ground zero--from cops to construction foremen making $90 an hour overtime--has to pay for anything there. Nonprofits never had much of a presence in Gordon Gecko Land, but with millions pouring in to anyone with "9/11" in his organization's name, they are now the dominant economic force in the Ground Zero District. And even when it comes to charity, the cold rules of New York City bureaucracy and capitalism apply, as the 30-member Gumbo Krewe from Louisiana found out.
For weeks, the Krewe had been serving thousands of free bowls of steaming hot gumbo and spicy jambalaya to rescuers and cleanup workers. Then, on Dec. 7, even though the Krewe had secured corporate sponsorship, nonprofit status and fire-fighter support, the city shut down their free-food enterprise. Though OEM officials say the Krewe lacked the proper permits, the Cajuns believe they were sent home because they competed with the new, official provider of free food at ground zero, the Salvation Army.