Since the beginning of the year, 85 businesses in the Mid-Hudson region have filed notices with the New York State Department of Labor indicating that they would be “temporarily” shutting operations.
Of those 85, 54 businesses had notices posted since April 1.
To put that in perspective, in all of 2019, a total of 41 businesses in the Mid-Hudson region filed a WARN notice, which stands for Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, a bureaucratic way of saying you”™re out of a job.
That 54 filed since the beginning of this month, is pretty big; and 85 since New Year”™s Day even bigger. A record year in the making for all the wrong reasons.
All told, 4,040-plus lives in the Mid-Hudson region upended by the coronavirus.
The closing of the manufacturers, retailers and restaurants came with a handful of asterisks. The layoffs would be temporary or come with furloughs or might even be permanent.
DAY ONE
On April Fools Day, the California Pizza Kitchen on Central Park Avenue in Scarsdale 
closed, leaving 37 workers to file for unemployment. The chain pizzeria was at the end of the strip mall just south of where Klaff”™s had its store until it closed in the summer of 2018 ”” its parent in Norwalk itself shuttering after 97 years in business.
Joining the pizzeria that day in closing was the Crowne Plaza with its 402 rooms in downtown White Plains. The hotel stated that it would be closing temporarily and laying off 85 workers. No more room views of that giant hole in the ground across the street where the Westchester Pavilion once stood.
APRIL 2
Nexans Energy USA Inc. across the river in Orange County, whose motto is “Brings Energy to Life,” suspended operations. Its manufacturing facility would be empty of its 127 workers who make industrial power cables and wires. It has been in business for 109 years.
All 282 workers at Crown Awards”™ 250,000-square-foot facility up on Skyline Drive in Hawthorne were laid off. In business for 42 years, Crown Awards bills itself as America”™s Largest Awards Manufacturer, creating trophies, medals, plaques, glassware and anything you can engrave. With schools and leagues curtailing sports and other activities so as to maintain social distancing, there would be no winners, no losers, no banquets and sports presentations. No trophies, no medals, no ribbons, no pins.
APRIL 3
The Rivera Auto Group, which does business as Rivera Toyota of Mount Kisco on North Bedford Road said it wouldn”™t be selling cars for awhile. Its filing didn”™t include the number of sales and office people that would be affected.
APRIL 6
It would be three more days before the next filing popped up. This one was no surprise, in
fact it was an amendment to an earlier filing. Doral Arrowwood Resort had its final nail hammered into its coffin after going bankrupt last December. All 275 employees were gone from the once bustling hotel and convention center on Anderson Hill Road in Rye Brook.
APRIL 7
Manhattan-based SPEAR Physical and Occupational Therapy PLLC closed its office in Pleasantville. It did not list the number of employees in Pleasantville, but in a separate filing it had 133 overall at all of its locations. Sport Performance Enhancement and Rehabilitation was started in 1999 by Dan Rootenberg and Dave Endres.
APRIL 8
Next to Captain Lawrence Brewing in Elmsford, 40-year-old Two”™s Company Inc. filed 
for a temporary layoff of its 109-person workforce. The gifts and home decor company was founded by Bob and Bobbie Gottlieb in New Rochelle just over 50 years ago.
Autobahn Indoor Speedway at the Palisades Center in West Nyack closed its go-kart track and left 27 without jobs.
Well-known chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten closed The Inn at Pound Ridge, leaving chefs, prep cooks, front-end managers and waitstaff numbered at 83 to wait and see how long before they could return to work. The restaurant was for the longest time known as Emily Shaw”™s Inn where you might spot locals Hume Cronyn and wife, Jessica Tandy, Colleen Dewhurst and Robert Vaughn.
APRIL 9
A deluge struck on this day when restaurants under the Apple-Metro umbrella in 
Yonkers, New Rochelle, White Plains, Hawthorne and Mohegan Lake closed and left 318 without work. Harrison-based Apple-Metro was started by Zane Tankel and Roy Raeburn in 1994 with a single restaurant and grew it to 33 units and nearly $200 million in annual sales.
From award-winning restaurateur and chef Dan Barber came an amended post saying that 133 of his employees at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills would be laid off. Those four-hour courses would have to wait another day.
Over on Jones Street in New Rochelle, transFORM, the maker of custom-made cabinetry, closed their manufacturing plant. It did not include the number of workers affected.
APRIL 10
Intercos America Inc., a cosmetic manufacturing company in Congers and West Nyack, laid off 204 of its 352 workers. The company is part of Italian-based Intercos Group.
Zinburger Wine & Burger Bar at The Shops at Nanuet, laid off 70, according to its filing. On its website, it said it looked forward to serving its clientele again.
Havana Central Restaurant and Bar in the Ridge Hill Shopping Center in Yonkers let 65 go. The retro décor will remain empty for awhile.
The Martin-Brower Co. LLC shut down its distribution center in Harriman affecting 116 members of Local 445 of the Teamsters Union.
Ruth”™s Chris Steak House on White Plains Road in Tarrytown stopped cooking and left 58 workers idle. (But maybe not for long as the chain received $20 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans.)
The Texas Roadhouse restaurant on Huguenot Street next to the Trump Plaza in New Rochelle temporarily closed affecting its 84 employees.
APRIL 13
The Guess outlet store at Woodbury Common Premium Outlets in Central Valley filed stating it would be shutting temporarily. Without giving the number of employees, the posting also said that its other affected site was at the Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers.
The restaurant at The Time Nyack hotel left 68 seeking unemployment.
Building materials supplier Tilcon NY Inc. in West Nyack and New Hamburg put 18 jobs on hold.
Spotted Dog Ventures LLC dba Emerson Resort & Spa sent 147 workers home.
The Mandee store at the Arcadian Shopping Center in Ossining closed. It did not post the number of workers.
AMETEK Rotron, which makes AC and brushless DC motors, fans, blowers, heat exchangers, fault detection devices, and a variety of subassemblies and systems for military and aerospace customers worldwide. The Woodstock factory would stand idle as would its 268 employees.
Romeo Ford and Romeo Chevrolet Buick GMC in Ulster County had 71 sales and office workers go home.
APRIL 14
Paper Source stationery stores in Nanuet and Scarsdale laid off 21.
North American Dental Group”™s offices in Scarsdale and Yonkers would be laying off x-number of employees as it wasn”™t listed on the posting.
Charlotte Russe, the national fashion retailer that had launched a comeback after closing stores a year earlier, was left to let workers go at its stores in Poughkeepsie and West Nyack. It too did not say how many workers.
APRIL 16
Westchester Toyota on Central Park Avenue in Yonkers laid off 100.
APRIL 17
Bartaco restaurant on Willet Avenue in Port Chester let 80 go.
Instacart, which had same-day grocery delivery and pick-up service in Fairway Market stores, was winding down its operations in light of the retailer”™s recent bankruptcy filing and store closings. It filed an amendment saying its 27 in-store shoppers at the Pelham store bought by Village Super Market would be laid off.
All 11 sites for Abercrombie & Fitch, abercrombie kids, Hollister Co., and Gilly Hicks would close affecting 401.
ICR Inc., a collection agency in Poughkeepsie had 50 on its staff. A bit of irony as how can you collect money when everybody is out of work?
APRIL 20
Clothing retailer Zara USA, with stores at the Palisades Center mall in West Nyack and the Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers let 68 go in a “temporary plant closing.”
APRIL 22
Mid Rockland Imaging Partners Inc. in New City with several offices let go of 85 workers.
Poughkeepsie Day School, with 63 workers, closed.
APRIL 23
PQ New York Inc., which does business as Le Pain Quotidien in Rye and Woodbury Common in Central Valley, stated that 23 of its 42 workers would be laid off. It also ominously stated: Closing may become permanent.
APRIL 27
Bed Bath & Beyond, with stores nationwide, stated that 304 workers would be affected at its sites in Elmsford, Hartsdale, mount Vernon and Yonkers.
Shake Shack Enterprises LLC, which does business as Woodbury Commons Shake Shack, announced that 62 workers would be laid off.
A YMCA summer camp in the rural hamlet of Huguenot, in Orange County near the Pennsylvania border, said 61 would be let go. No scraped knees or mosquitos bites this summer.
EFCO Products Inc., which makes sweet and savory products for bakeries and chain restaurants at its Poughkeepsie site, would let go 16.
APRIL 28
Visionworks, the eyeglass retailer with five stores in the Mid-Hudson region, was letting 34 workers go.
Without having stated it earlier, the one thing that ties all the different businesses together is this declaration on each WARN posting: Reason for Dislocation: Unforeseeable business circumstances prompted by COVID-19. All told, 4,040-plus lives upended by the coronavirus.
