How the Alliance Played a Crucial Role in the Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy

It’s our 30th anniversary, and we’re self-celebrating. Over the next few months, we’ll be rolling out 30 stories about 30 of our biggest accomplishments, including everything from our daily public safety and sanitation work, to our small business outreach, to how we helped the neighborhood navigate challenges and even tragedies. You’ll be able to find these stories on our website, as well as in our weekly newsletter, which you can subscribe to here. 

In October of 2012, Hurricane Sandy barreled across the tri-state area, causing widespread flooding and power outages throughout Lower Manhattan. Given the neighborhood’s geography and its close proximity to the waterfront on three sides, the district’s businesses faced a difficult period of recovery in the storm’s immediate aftermath. The Alliance was quick to respond by offering programs to help affected businesses find their footing and resume operations.  

Just three weeks after the storm, the Downtown Alliance launched the Lower Manhattan: Back to Business Small Business Grant Program, an initiative to support retailers, restaurants and service providers affected by Hurricane Sandy. The Alliance contributed the first $1 million to the program and helped to marshal contributions to the fund from Goldman Sachs, Trinity Church, Citibank, the Durst Organization, the Howard Hughes Corporation, the FiDi Association, AT&T New York, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation and other Lower Manhattan business leaders. The program awarded grants to qualifying small businesses located below Chambers Street.

The Alliance also launched a program to provide free Square Mobile Card Readers to assist affected Lower Manhattan businesses ring up sales. This addressed an immediate challenge many businesses faced in restoring their individual telecommunications systems ahead of the 2012 holiday shopping season. These early initiatives — coupled with the Alliance’s ongoing push for the city and state to invest in sustainability measures that would prevent future storms from devastating the neighborhood — were crucial in helping downtown businesses get back on their feet after such an unprecedented climate challenge and to prepare them for the storms of the future.