Victor Panossian owned one of the city’s top-selling Hallmark Card shops at 100 Church St., a block north of the World Trade Center. That was before 9/11.
Now there’s an empty storefront where some 700 customers a day once bought greeting cards from him and his wife, Silva.
They sold twice as many right before holidays – until the terrorist attack drove customers away.
“I was losing money. I was paying the rent out of my own pocket. I couldn’t take it anymore,” said Panossian, 62, who closed the store in 2007 and works with his brother-in-law at their specialty grocery, Massis Food, in Sunnyside, Queens.
They are not alone
It’s been a rocky road to recovery for lower Manhattan mom-and-pop stores hurt by 9/11. Some fled the neighborhood, never to return.
Stellar sales of Apple’s iconic pair, the iPhone and iPad, helped the tech company post stunningly strong quarterly results, pushing its shares to a record high.
Apple sold more than 20 million units of the iPhone in the fiscal third quarter as international customers, especially in China, snapped up the popular gadget.
The results shot past Wall Street’s expectations for sales of between 17 million to 18 million and likely put Apple at the top of the heap among the world’s smartphone makers.
Apple’s shares rose almost 3% to an all-time high of $386.90.
The company scored big with its iPhone during the past quarter, even without the help of a new version – which is due out this fall and could give Apple another boost – to plump up demand.
Wednesday, Apple rolled out a new $999 MacBook Air, as well as a $599 Mac mini. I
Even with high gas prices, taking a family road trip is still significantly less expensive than paying for airline tickets for all family members.
However, to maximize passenger comfort, get the best gas mileage and help ensure the car’s reliability, consider renting.
Car-rental companies typically offer a vast selection of new cars, including SUVs and large four-door sedans, that offer maximum comfort and the best possible gas mileage. But there are tricks for getting the lowest car rental rates.
For starters, shop online and in advance for the best deals.
Nintendo may not have the market cornered on controllers with their own screens after all. Heck, the gaming giant won’t even be the first one implementing that.
Come September, months before Nintendo’s much-hyped Wii U is released, EA Sports will unveil “FIFA 12″ for the iPad and iPhone. Users will be able to play the game solo on the iPad, but a new feature will allow them to use the iPad as a “screen” and a pair of iPod Touches or iPhones as “controllers” over a Bluetooth connection.
Previously, games such as EA’s iPad release of Scrabble have used iPhones and iPads in tandem like this, but as a sports game “FIFA 12″ may be an even more natural fit with the technology, offering play-calling and style-tweaking capabilities on the private iPhone screen. P Read more…
What’s your favorite (and inexpensive) idea for family summer fun?
Being that we live about an hour and a half from Galveston, ours would have to be going to Steward Beach in Galveston. It’s a family beach and is fairly inexpensive (unless you rent beach umbrellas and chairs at $30 for the day no matter when you get to the beach). They charge $6.00 per car to get in but you can bring your own ice chests and food, which is nice (no beer, which is bad). Of course, we could make the trips cheaper if we didn’t go out to eat too.
We also like going to the park but we don’t do that as much these days as we used to.
I’m sure the number of “cheap” things you can do as a family depends a lot on where you live. We’re 1.5 hours