For a District That's Short of Heroes, a Teamful
By PATRICK McGEEHAN∕New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/nyregion/06parade.html
The "Canyon of Heroes" that the champion Yankees will parade through on
Friday looks more like the valley of hard times these days.
After heading north from Battery Park at 11 a.m., the procession will pass
the headquarters of Bank of New York Mellon, which lost more than $2.4
billion in the third quarter. Soon after, it will roll by Milbank, Tweed,
Hadley & McCloy, which laid off 89 lawyers and other staff members five
months ago.
Then, high up on the left, will be the headquarters of the Nasdaq stock
market, whose officials said on Thursday that an unspecified number of
layoffs had helped offset a decline in its revenue. Another block up
Broadway, the ballplayers will pass offices of Thomson Reuters, whose parent
company reported a 60 percent drop in profits.
Sure, people will be cheering and the confetti will be flying. But the
energy radiating from the offices that line the route may be more cathartic
than triumphant. This is, after all, the central artery of the financial
district, which has gushed losses - measured in billions of dollars, tens of
thousands of jobs and a few of the city's largest banks - since the last
victory parade, 21 months ago.
That parade, for the New York Giants football team, preceded the near
failures of Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch and the complete collapse of
Lehman Brothers, plus the federal bailouts of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and
other big banks. It came before the recession had sunk its teeth into New
York and taken a bite out of the city's collective psyche. Back then, the
city's unemployment rate was 4.5 percent; now it is 10.3 percent and twice as
many New Yorkers are out of work.
"The city needs this," said Donato A. Cuttone, who runs a stock brokerage
firm with a 10th-floor perch at 111 Broadway.
After the financial "meltdowns" of the past year or so, Mr. Cuttone said he
believed workers in the area surrounding Wall Street were "more in the mood
to celebrate." He described business as "horrible" but said that his firm is
bigger now than it was the last time the Yankees won the World Series, in
2000, though it employs fewer brokers on the floor of the New York Stock
Exchange than it did then.
"It's very, very tough," said Mr. Cuttone, 64. "Expenses go up, commissions
go down and you have to find a way to cope with that. So, for the Yankees to
win, it's a definite plus-tick for the city," he said, employing a bit of
trader-speak for a good thing.
Noori Rafael, 28, a mortgage banker with GFI Capital Resources Group at 50
Broadway, said watching the parade from the office windows might buoy spirits
after recent layoffs there.
"Wall Street is just not the same as it was before," Mr. Rafael said. "It
has been strained. But over the last few months, there is a feeling that we
have hit bottom and the markets are loosening."
Renee Rosales-Kopel, a Yankees fan who works in the William Barthman jewelry
store at 176 Broadway, recalled hanging banners from the roof for the victory
parade after the 2000 World Series against the Mets.
"This year," she said,"The mood has changed."
Ms. Rosales-Kopel, who was at Yankee Stadium for the final victory on
Wednesday night, said some of the players shop in the store. But she added
that business was down about 25 percent from last year.
"People are hurting," she said. "The ones who are spending feel guilty about
it. And a lot of the banks that are still paying are telling staff not to be
too showy about their money."
Like others who live or work downtown, Ms. Rosales-Kopel said she strongly
favored having the parade, despite the weak economic conditions. "We all need
a little euphoria," she said. "It may only be temporary, but I hope it comes
with the parade."
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who was also at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday
night, did not specify how much the parade would cost the city but said it
was worthwhile.
"It will cost us something in terms of police and sanitation," he told
reporters on Thursday. "All of the infrastructure stuff, the other stuff, is
being paid for with private dollars that are being donated."
For example, the mayor said that Atlas Materials in Brooklyn donated the
recycled confetti strips that would be distributed by the Downtown Alliance
and cleaned up by city workers.
Richard Peterson recalled the fun he and his co-workers had at Thomson
Financial's offices at 195 Broadway when the Giants paraded by in 2008. "We
had the windows open and people were throwing papers out," said Mr. Peterson,
who now works for Standard & Poor's.
He said he did not know how the current mood compared, now that Thomson is
part of Reuters, but he had a bit of potentially uplifting information to
share: Some number-crunchers in the Capital IQ unit of S&P determined that,
on average, the stock market has risen a solid 10 percent in the year after a
Yankees championship.
--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc)
◆ From: 58.115.141.225