//metrognome logo//

AS HE stood in the middle of his still-unfinished restaurant last week, workmen running around him like
 beheaded poultry, Abraham Merchant hardly had time to celebrate the American Dream.

But today is a big day for our fabled national ideal. Today, even though the flags at the World Financial
 Center are still at half-mast, the marina empty, windows covered in plywood and foot traffic almost
 non-existent, Merchant is going to open his restaurant, SouthWest NY, one of just a few businesses to reopen
 in the battered complex.

"I want to support downtown, of course," said Merchant, best known for the four restaurants that bear his name.
 "But it's also good business. If everyone down here takes the ‘wait and see' approach, we'll all be waiting
 forever."

Today's reopening may not sound like much - a typical story of one man's commitment to his neighborhood,
 perhaps - but behind all the frenetic last-minute scrubbing and menu jiggering is something more: a look at
 just what an amazing, tiny, crazy world this is.

Although he's now a mini-restaurant mogul, Abraham Merchant came into the world 37 years ago as anything but a
 potential Wolfgang Puck or Drew Nieporent. After his family fled war-torn East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) for
 Karachi, Merchant started his working life when he was 13.

He saved $1,800 - enough money to emigrate to America - in just three years. "I was very motivated," he said.
 "Life in Pakistan, even at its best, sucks."

At first, America wasn't much better: Merchant's first job was working seven days a week in a tiny newsstand at
 the corner of Broadway and 110th Street.

"I ate pizza for every meal," he said. "For months, I was sure that the cheese on top was chicken."

He worked at the newsstand for six months and then got two "better" jobs: Wendy's on Queens Boulevard by day,
 and Roy Rogers by night. That led to a job at Red Lobster, where he could work 20 to 30 hours of overtime
 every week.

Within 16 months, he was managing the joint.

Eventually, working for others lost its charm. He formed a partnership with a co-worker and opened his first
 restaurant, the long-forgotten Anaconda, a Brazilian place on St. Marks Place.

So what if it failed? Eventually, Merchant opened Art Bar, a trendy boite in the West Village, and opened four
 Merchants NY.

SouthWest NY opened in 1999. It closed on Sept. 11, 2001. Abraham Merchant made it to the restaurant just as
 the first tower fell. Four days later, he returned to find all his safes rifled.

But sitting with Merchant in the newly restored SouthWest NY, it all seems like ancient history - and that's
 the point.

"It sounds corny," said Merchant's chef, Marc Murphy, who worked at the World Trade Center's Cellar in the Sky
 after the 1993 bombing, "but it is going to mean something for this neighborhood that we're reopening."

--30--

gersh.kuntzman@verizon.net