Appeal draws crowds back

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
NEW YORK -- It's a summery September afternoon in Manhattan, days after the first terrible anniversary. It seems only yesterday that one of the sexiest cities in the world was brought to a sudden, painful standstill.
And, yet, it seems like ages ago.
Times Square is a sea of tourists in fanny packs and bright white sneakers. The line at the TKTS booth on Broadway stretches an excruciatingly long block, but nobody's giving up the chance at half-price theater tickets. The double-decker buses, which after the terrorist attacks rolled nearly empty, once again are weighed down with the videocam set.
A little further uptown, at the Hudson Hotel, the smart crowd in frameless Gucci shades and low-rise Brazilian jeans clogs the dark-wood and red-brick lobby, creating an instant scene, even as they unglamorously lug bags around.
In 2001, New York's tourism industry was pummeled, with the number of visitors decreasing by 5 million and spending shrinking by $1 billion. Just after the attacks on the World Trade Center, Times Square seemed a ghost town. Restaurants that had required reservations weeks ahead were suddenly wide open. Broadway shows played to near-empty houses. Evening cabs were scarce, as drivers, who struggled to find fares, turned in early.
Today, the Big Apple seems back in the swing. Wounds may still be healing, but, New York being New York, it has lost none of its appeal as a party town.
Friendlier attitudes
And, even by New Yorkers' accounts, the place has yet another selling point now, one of the happy side effects of a tragedy that can never be diminished: It seems that a bit of the unfriendly edge is off.
As trite as it may seem, you can tell the difference walking across, say, Rockefeller Center. The herds of suits seem more human now. Folks look you in the eye; some even offer smiles.
A bus ride uptown to the Guggenheim turns into a Hallmark moment when a woman who seems lost in her Walkman gets up from her seat to offer you $1.50 in quarters when she realizes you don't have enough coins. You try to give her two $1 bills in exchange, but she refuses it.
"I just want you to have a nice day in New York," she says and goes back to her Walkman without waiting for a thank-you.
A New Yorker just handed you a buck fifty? Is seems more than happenstance.
"New Yorkers had taken tourists for granted," says Crystine Nicholas, president of NYC & amp; Company, the city's tourism agency. "There were so many of them taking up our sidewalks. But when those tourists stopped coming, suddenly we felt very lonely. New Yorkers thrive on people. That's where we get our energy. If you live in a city of 8.5 million, you gotta like people. And when you're missing 5 million visitors, you notice."
Still hasan edge
Another employee of NYC & amp; Company says she has even seen New Yorkers wave at the tour buses they'd once scorned. But don't get it wrong: New York has hardly turned into an Epcot version of itself. It's still an edgy place that spins at a breakneck pace, a place that continues to offer all of the extremes.
One day, you get a kind stranger on a bus; the next, you get a wacko limo driver so enraged because your cab driver supposedly cut him off that he jumps out of his car at a light and sticks his head in your cab to spit at your driver.
"It's not that anybody can forget what happened," says Nikki Walbert, a graphic artist stopping for a Snapple break on the steps of a midtown office building. "You try not to think about it, but it's there every time you get on the subway or ride an elevator to the top of some skyscraper. You kind of exist in this weird place where you think what happened at the World Trade Center can't possibly happen again and that it can happen at any minute.
"Whether you want to or not, you see life a little differently. Even the guy selling pretzels seems less like a stranger now. But it's not like you're thinking that all the time. It's there, but you're just going through your day, not really obsessing about what happened downtown."
There is plenty of obsessing about what happened downtown. Ride down to ground zero, and you'll be taken aback by the crowds of tourists who have turned what is now an empty hole in the ground into the city's No. 1 attraction.
"There's ground zero, and there's the Statue," says Juan Gonzalez, a dispatcher for the Gray Line double-decker buses. The downtown loop, which gets you close to ground zero, is far outselling the uptown loop these days, he says.
The city is not officially counting visitors to the site anymore, but, according to NYC & amp; Company, more than 1 million went through from January to June 2002. During that time, you needed a ticket to get on a platform erected to make it safer for the folks who insisted on getting a close look.
Accommodating tourists
Since June, there has been a visitors' kiosk at the base of Broadway and Reade, at City Hall Park, to accommodate the surge in tourists to the downtown area.
You'll also find big crowds carrying flowers and cameras at Battery Park, new home of The Sphere, a sculpture by Fritz Koenig that was recovered from the five-acre World Trade Center Plaza. The Sphere is dented but in one piece. And now it stands behind an eternal flame lighted this Sept. 11, with more than 90 world leaders in attendance, as a memorial to the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives.
And, while you still can't go inside the Statue of Liberty, you can ride the ferry to Liberty Island and stroll the grounds. The island was off limits for three months, and visits were down 40 percent during the first six months of 2002, but, says Brian Feeney, a spokesman for the National Parks Service, Lady Liberty is still hot.
"You can still take the ride to the island and see the statue from up close," he says.
"And the bright side is that you don't have to stand in line forever to climb the 354 steps to the crown. In fact, even when we were open, less than half of the people ever went to the top."
Once the sun sets, New York seems even more like its old self now.
Broadway shows are packed, even midweek. You can forget about tickets to "Hairspray," unless you know somebody or bought your seats way in advance.
Right after the attacks, Broadway suffered major losses. This year, 38 shows opened. That's 10 more than last year. During 2000, 11.6 million took in a show. The number was down to 10.8 million at the end of the 2001 season, but attendance is climbing again, says Jed Bernstein, president of the League of American Theaters and Producers.
"It's still early to say, but we're projecting we'll probably be back to 11.3 at the end of this season," he says. "We certainly have dodged the bullet compared to where we could be. I remember last fall wondering if there would be a spring season at all."
Clubs, restaurants
Clubs and restaurant owners have stopped holding their breath, too.
Asia de Cuba in midtown is a tough reservation again. Theo and Thom, a couple of the sleekest scenes SoHo has to offer, are overrun by hipsters just about every night of the week. Doormen at Bungalow 8, the nightclub that is a haven to superstars and supermodels, are still throwing major shade at the door.
The bar at the Mercer is slamming. Industry, a new lounge and eatery in the East Village, is awash in buzz.
There's less cash circulating, but, according to folks in the nightlife biz, that has less to do with an unwillingness to party and more to do with general economy woes.
"People are being more frugal," says Jeffrey Chodorow, who owns Asia de Cuba and such hot spots as the Hudson Cafeteria, China Grill and Tuscan Steak, along with several South Beach counterparts.
"At Asia de Cuba, you would get a distorted picture. Maybe we get 3,000 reservations in a day, instead of 4,000, to use a number, but we're still full. Spending habits are a little different. Maybe people don't order dessert now, or they pick a cheaper wine. I would say customers are not as freewheeling, but they're still out."
'It's really picked up'
Spending might be down, but good luck getting into Jane, an upscale neighborhood restaurant on the border between the West Village and SoHo that wasn't sure it would make it after Sept. 11.
"It did cross our minds that we wouldn't survive," owner Jeffrey Lefcourt says. "We opened at the end of May 2001. And, after Sept. 11, downtown was so smoky and difficult to get to that we had a hard time. We had to make some tough decisions, let some people go. But now it's really picked up.
"I think the mood has changed. And people are being nicer, holding the door open for each other and things like that. Maybe they're not up for a big party, but they're definitely coming out for dinner."
Then again, party maven Amy Sacco, owner of Bungalow 8 and Lot 61, says Sept. 11 didn't change the party vibe one bit.
"I think it's better than it has been in years, and not because of Sept. 11 but just because these things are cyclical," she says.
"It's reminiscent of the '80s. People are dressing up and going out more. Everybody has their own reason. Maybe some people are going out less because they've lost their job. Then again, some people are going out MORE because they've lost their jobs."