Businesses along a once-bustling Bronx block are suffering a slow death thanks to a chaotic MTA construction project that is chasing away customers and inviting the homeless, costing thousands of dollars in lost revenue, owners and workers say.
The Metropolitan Transportation Agency essentially cut off the row of storefronts from the neighborhood in the fall when it erected a massive mesh fence steps away from their front doors as part of the Van Cortlandt Park-242nd Street station restoration project in Fieldston.
Enraged business owners say they’ve lost up to 50% of their business in the past six months because of the plummet in both foot and car traffic — clearing way for a homeless-free-for-all in the already-uninviting corridor created by the fencing.
“This is killing us,” said Lou Porco, the owner of Broadway Joe’s Pizza, which has been in the area since 1969, to The Post last week.
“A lot of people think we are closed because they can’t even see us. People can’t stop, they can’t pull over because there is no parking,” he said.
Gary Singh, owner of the local Shah Halal Food, said the situation is all the more frustrating because of the lack of progress he has witnessed by the MTA — which has now extended the problematic project another two years.
“The MTA said they need money. They got the congestion pricing toll to help them out, and here they start working, and then they stopped,” he said. “They are asking for money, but they are wasting money. Nobody is working out there.”
At the time, the MTA claimed it would take six months to build a two-stop elevator from the street to the platform level as part of plans to make the No. 1-train station more accessible, but crews only worked for about two weeks before seemingly abandoning the project, the business owners said.
As March grew closer, MTA officials broke the news that the construction would be delayed two years, after crews supposedly discovered that a sewer was below the proposed elevator.
Rather than moving the project, the MTA decided to restructure its existing plans — meaning the abrasive green fence will stay put.
“Two years? Who’s going to rent these empty stores? Right now we don’t know what we are going to do,” Porco said. “We don’t know if we are going to be here. I hope we will be, but we can’t predict the future.”
Porco said he has been forced to cut his employees’ hours back to accommodate the estimated 35% loss in sales since the massive green fence was erected in September.
The business owners told The Post they’ve been mostly left in the dark on the status of the project, with MTA workers recently warning them to expect their water to be shut down for several hours Friday.
The city Department of Environmental Protection declined to respond to Post requests for comment about the water shut-down, instead directing questions to the MTA. The state transit agency did not respond to emails sent by The Post.
Singh worries that the prolonged construction could mean the kiss of death for his business, which he opened just eight months before the fence was erected.
“I bought this business in 2023. I used my life savings, and I borrowed money. Eight months later, they put that thing up,” Singh said. “I am so depressed I feel like crying. What can I do about it? Nothing. They don’t care about us small businesses. We are struggling.”
The shop owner said business was booming until September, when patronage dropped 50%. Many of his customers used to stop in when leaving the nearby subway or hopping off the bus. The bus stop has since been moved to the end of the block to accommodate the monster fencing.
Local business owners and workers said that while the fencing is driving away customers, it is drawing in a homeless population that is taking advantage of the blocked vantage points the fence provides.
The lack of car traffic, including NYPD cruisers, has given the vagrants an incentive to pounce, a worker said.
“They harass us, they steal things, and when we try to stop them, they try to break the doors,” said a man who only gave his first name, Danny, and has worked at Shamrock Wines and Liquors store for more than two years.
“If we continue to lose business like this, we will have to shut down,” Danny said. “There is no other option, there is no solution. We are helpless … We are pleading for help.”
Michael Walker, 60, was one of the few customers who breezed past the giant fence last week to pick up dinner from the Broadway
“I used to come on this block a lot but not as much anymore. Today I am hungry, so I stopped,” said Walker, who works as a mover.
Walker said he has noticed a shift in patronage throughout the block, with residents choosing to avoid it altogether, since the fence went up.
“Either they start doing the work or take the fence down. You are hurting the business and the community. This is ridiculous. The MTA can do better,” he said.
“They are screwing these people over, and it’s not fair.”
The financial loss is tangible for Abuekr Algazali, who said they threw out more than $1,000 worth of food last week because there were no customers to buy it.
Both of Algazali’s businesses, a deli and a Mexican restaurant, are obstructed by the looming fence, has been borrowing money from friends to make ends meet after falling several months behind on rent and utilities, racking up more than a whopping $43,957 in unpaid bills before interest.
“It makes me sad. I’m angry. I’m the sole breadwinner. My wife has MS, she cannot work,” Algazali said.
Algazali has begged the MTA to create small openings in the fence so pedestrians can reach the businesses but says his pleas have gone unanswered.
