SANDY'S SHADOW: Nearly four months after Superstorm Sandy flooded Wall Street and forced evacuations in lower Manhattan, roughly 85 percent of small businesses near the South Street Seaport are still boarded up.
VISUAL EFFECT: On Fulton Street, the wide tourist-friendly pedestrian walkway that comprises the seaport's main shopping district, not a single one of the major chain stores — which include Coach, Ann Taylor and Brookstone — has reopened.
PERSONAL EFFECT: A state senator who represents the area estimates at least 1,000 jobs were lost in lower Manhattan — 450 of them in the seaport neighborhood alone. Among local business owners, there is a pervasive sense that their plight has been ignored by the rest of the city.
