Queens

On Sept. 11, 2001, Mohammed Mohammed, a doctor and owner of El-Rawsheh restaurant in the Astoria, was seeing patients at his medical office when he heard news of the attacks on World Trade Center. Inspired to help, he took in exhausted people who had walked to Queens from Manhattan. “It’s hard to find words to explain my feeling that day,” he recalled. “Total shock – like an electric shock.”

Within days, Mohammed suffered a further shock when drive-by vandals started throwing bottles at his restaurant in the Little Egypt section of Astoria. Some nights along this commercial strip on northern Steinway Street, crowds gathered to shout insults or hold signs that read, “Get out of our country.” Police assembled to prevent a confrontation.

Four years later, Little Egypt has returned to a peaceful state, but many area merchants say they have not recovered from the blow to their bottom lines. Mohammed reported that business has declined steadily to about 50 percent of what it had been before Sept. 11. “Before we had different customers from all over – couples and families Long Island, Connecticut, Manhattan,” he said. “Since 9/11, they just stopped coming.”

Neither the New York Chamber of Commerce nor the city government have studied Muslim-owned businesses specifically, but an informal survey of more than a dozen restaurants, delis, cafes and electronics stores in Astoria reveals that many are still reeling four years later, while some have managed to adapt to harder times. A handful of stores closed or changed ownership, but most stayed in business.

In addition to the economic slump following the 2001 attacks—and now with a spike in inflation cutting into profits—many Muslim owners say they have face additional burdens. After Sept. 11, many of Middle Eastern descent began staying indoors or fleeing the city out of a fear of authorities or bias attacks, cutting into the client base of many shops and restaurants. Merchants who had served non-Muslims also started losing customers, speculating that suspicion or distrust kept them away.

For Gamal Dewidar, owner of the Elkhaiam Café and Hookah Palace on Steinway Street, business is not down from four years ago, but his clientele has changed. Losing his base of Egyptian and Lebanese customers, who he said now go out less than before Sept. 11, Dewidar decided to change the image of his café. He added English wording to his awning and in April removed much of the Arabic lettering and installed new neon signs in English.

Dewidar said the image change has helped attract young crowds from Long Island and New Jersey. “Jewish teens are too young to drink, and they like the hookah,” he said, referring to the Middle Eastern water pipes in the café. “They come here for fun, to have a smoke. My café is for everyone. There is no religion here.”

Ahmed Kamal of the Zindabazar Dhaka deli on 30th Avenue faced a similar predicament to Dewidar after Sept. 11. Kamal said that the grocery side of the business, owned by his brother Badal, lost profits as the Bengali clientele has been moving out of Astoria, primarily to find lower housing costs.

To attract a new customer base, Badal set up a juice bar at the front of the store last year. Now, along with imported mango juice and grains from Bangladesh, the store sells health-food products and drinks like Daily Detoxifier and Wheat Grass Hopper.

“The health-food trend is big here in Astoria,” Kamal said, pushing fistfuls of wheat grass into a juicing machine to produce a pungent dark green liquid. He said the juice bar has boosted profits by about 10 percent.

But attracting customers from outside their own communities is not always easy, say restaurant owners such as Mohammed. “It’s what people see on TV,” he said. “They think all Arabs and Muslims were involved with 9/11, so they stay away.”

Ali Elsayed, owner of the Egyptian restaurant Mombar for seven years, echoes Mohammed’s frustration. He says profits are down about 60 percent compared to four years ago, in part because of rising costs, and in part because suspicion keeps his former customers away.

“We live in a prejudiced society – this is no beautiful and perfect America,” he said. “This right-wing regime is taking away our civil rights and fueling bias.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, an Islamic advocacy group, reported in May that hate crimes against Muslims in the United States increased by more than 50 percent last year. New York State was ranked second nationally, after California, in the number of bias cases, with 124 incidents reported; the organization does not compute incidents per capita by state.

Efrem Pertsinides, chairman of the 36th Avenue Business Association in Astoria and owner of 36th Avenue Wines and Spirits, said he thinks prejudice drives business away from Muslim-owned establishments.

“Does their being Muslim affect business? Definitely,” he said. “I hear it around, and from customers in my store. They say, ‘Why should I give my money to these people?’”

“Tensions used to be black and white,” said Frank Arcabascio, president of the 30th Avenue Business Association. “Now it’s cultural.”

Still, some Muslim-owned businesses like Jour et Nuit, a Moroccan restaurant one block south of Little Egypt, are thriving. Owner Najib Bennani said business has been going “beautifully” since he and his brother opened the restaurant this summer.

“I am not a fanatic like some,” he said. “I serve beer and wine. And my customers are from everywhere – Connecticut, New Jersey, Long Island.”

“A lot of New Yorkers are open-minded and curious about different cultures and tastes,” said Ahmed Jamil, director of the non-profit Islamic Service Foundation of New York. “Astoria attracts these kinds of liberally-minded young people.”

Keeping a pro-American image has helped other businesses. After Sept. 11, many restaurants and shops put American flags and World Trade Center images in their windows. Merchants like Pakistan-born Azam Qureshi of Astoria Boulevard’s Liberty Convenience still hands out pins of American flags to children in his shop.

Today, some stores advertise their support of the victims of Hurricane Katrina and the South Asian earthquake, displaying posters for relief organizations in their windows.

But looking ahead, some owners and community leaders believe merchants must go beyond showing their pro-American or humanitarian sentiment.

Hassan Sayed, 31, an immigrant from Lebanon and owner of Zeronese Computer, a computer service and repair shop, said Muslims must become more open to networking and overcome fears about authority. He said that he is having trouble getting others to join him in approaching the Steinway Street Business Improvement District to ask it to extend its boundary to include Little Egypt. The district currently ends at 28th Street, where Little Egypt begins.

“Arabs are afraid to get together and meet or organize,” he said. “They think if they say something wrong, the government will exaggerate it and put pressure on them.”

Wissam Nasr, executive director of the New York State branch of CAIR, is setting up a network of Muslim business owners, bringing together different groups in the New York area, from Bengali deli owners to Pakistani bankers.

“Muslim business owners are like any other entrepreneur,” Nasr said. “They need to be nimble and adaptable to survive.”