Their patriotic duty to tour
10/14/01
BY STEVE CHAMBERS
STAR-LEDGER STAFF
NEW YORK -- In all the talk of
heroes since Sept. 11, nobody ever mentioned Jerry Doty of Columbus, Ohio.
But he got on a plane Friday --
shortly after watching news account of the anthrax scare -- and came to
New York City to play an integral role in getting the city back on its
feet.
"I'm not going to be a
prisoner in my home, and if I'm going to spend my money, I thought this
was the right place and the right time when they really need it," the
58-year-old retired schoolteacher said yesterday, standing in Times
Square..
With lost tourism revenues
estimated at $230 million and rising since the terrorist attacks, hotels
and restaurants are slashing prices in a bid to overcome jitters. But most
tourists interviewed here said their coming had more to do with patriotism
than with saving money.
Dawn Manning of Mobile, Ala.,
who has been in New York since Wednesday, declared on Thursday, "The
rest of the country is with y'all."
Yesterday, Manning and her
husband Donnie were still enthusiastic.
"We wouldn't leave,"
she said. "We're here to support New York and nothing like what
happened Friday is going to make us change our plans," she said.
In the weeks after the attacks,
the $25 billion travel industry virtually ground to a halt. Hotels and
theaters were empty. Food spoiled in restaurants. Carriage drivers cooled
their heels in Central Park.
Things have started to creep
back since, as increasing numbers of tourists regained the nerve to fly
again. The industry was thrown into uncertainty again Friday, with report
of the first anthrax cases in the city, but people with plans to come to
the city said they were undeterred.
"They could just as easily
find a case in Boston," said Ann McGough, a Boston free-lance writer
who organized of trip of 40 people last weekend and has plans to come in
November. "So should I not go to work? Should I not take my daughter
to the park? It will deter some from going, but unless you live in a
bubble, what can you do?"
Like other tourists, McGough
felt her visit was both patriotic duty and a way of doing something to
remember the victims of the tragedy.
"I want to support the city
in any way I can," said Nicolette Maus, a former New Yorker now
living in Atlanta, who was buying a replica of the Twin Towers and an
"I love NY" bumper sticker at Times Square Gifts and Souvenirs.
Debra Chantry is from England
but living temporarily with her family in Ohio. When her sister opted not
to make a scheduled New York City visit from London last week, Chantry and
the family decided to "carry on" in her place.
"Coming from England, all
this didn't make us too nervous," she said, standing in a line that
snaked around the Empire State Building with her husband John and three
children, Hannah, 12; Sarah, 9; and Mark, 6. "We're used to
terrorists, because of the IRA."
Keith Yazmir, a spokesman for
NYC & Co., the city's tourism marketing agency, said the people
dribbling back in recent weeks aren't enough to keep the industry afloat,
but they are important.
"We are hearing very
inspiring messages, and that is a positive sign," he said. "It
does not equate to business as usual. It does not add up to the numbers
the city's institutions need to go on. But we are counting on them as the
vanguard. We really need more and more people following their
example."
The industry is taking
unprecedented steps to woo back some of the 18.4 million overnight
visitors and 19 million day-trippers who visited last year.
Hotels are negotiating their
rates -- a room at the Plaza could have been had as cheaply as $225 this
weekend. Starting tomorrow through Sunday, 167 of the city's finest
restaurants are offering $20.01 lunches and $30.01 dinners. And this
coming weekend, a free culture program with professional acts will be held
both days in Bryant Park.
The Mannings, who arrived in
town Thursday with her sister and brother-in-law, upgraded to the Crowne
Plaza in the theater district for $139 a night, a special "Come back
to New York" promotion.
Feeling guilty about the
savings, Manning rushed out and bought more theater tickets. She said the
thought of canceling a trip she'd been looking forward to for months never
occurred to her.
After a visit years ago, Manning
had painted a skyscape of New York as seen from Ellis Island. After Sept.
11, she took it out of the closet and hung it, Twin Towers gleaming in the
foreground, in the den.
"We felt so much more
compelled to come," she said. "It was just such a tragedy. We
love New York. It's the greatest city on Earth."
Some tourists have set their
sights higher than the range of their own wallets.
Mitch
Goldstone, a film shop owner and a Irvine, Calif., city commissioner, has
helped arrange a grassroots movement that is now vowing to book every
hotel room and Broadway show in New York for the weekend of Nov. 9-11,
which coincides with Veterans Day.
"This
is not a junket," he said. "It's a humanitarian mission of
patriotism. The nation is at war, but it's also united."
Goldstone
said he, too, was not deterred by Friday's news of a case of anthrax at
NBC News headquarters in Rockefeller Center. He said thousands of people
around the country have rallied around the appeal he and others made
during a news conference in Irvine on Wednesday.
"The
thugs terrorizing the world are nothing more than gangsters," he
said. "But their miscalculation is that the nation is more united
than ever."
Standing in Times Square on
Thursday, Judy LaChance and her friends in the May Festival Chorus, said
no terrorist act was going to stop them from enjoying the city.
In town from Cincinnati last
week for a performance, they extended their stay by four days to do some
sightseeing and help the local economy.
"I feel like I'm giving to
the country by being here and not being afraid to be here," LaChance
said. "I love this city. I love this country."
© 2001 The Star-Ledger.
