More than 300 Gateway Plaza tenants filled the newly relocated SouthWest NY restaurant on South End Avenue in Battery Park City Sunday night for a holiday celebration. The event was organized by Gateway's tenant association and its president, Glenn Plaskin and hosted as a donation by the new SouthWest. Major renovations in the World Financial Center had forced the restaurant to close its doors there months ago. "It reminded me of the three buffet dinners we had in the [Gateway building] lobby during the hurricane week, when people made connections," Plaskin wrote in an email. "But this time on a larger scale."
Manon Chevallerau, a Gateway tenant, sent this report to the Trib, along with party photos by Robert Braunfeld:
"The party was a mixture of what the Gateway community is: retired elderly people, young couples with babies, single people, newcomers in the neighborhood and tenants like me (almost eight years in Gateway and 16 years in the downtown area), meeting some of my closest friends and making new connections. More and more I see people in this neighborhood gathering and standing up for their rights and duties as a community, like nowhere else in New York City."
Editor's note: People in some of the group photos in the slide show are unidentified. We'd like to know who you are if you're in a picture or know someone in a photo. Please write to carlg@tribecatrib.com.