More Than a Restaurant

The Windows on the World restaurant was the summit of the World Trade Center’s north tower, where millions from around the world came for an unbeatable view of New York. But for its executive chef, Michael Lomonaco--who survived the Sept. 11 terrorist attack only because he had gone downstairs to have his glasses fixed--the real thrill was going to work to see the world.

Seventy five other members of the restaurant’s 400-person staff were on duty that morning, all are missing and are presumed dead.

Any New York restaurant is bound to be staffed by a variety of immigrants. But Windows stood out because of its size and the fact that it reopened in 1996, in the midst of a national surge in immigration.

At work, “you’d hear a dozen languages in a day. It was so exciting,” says the Brooklyn-born Lomonaco, who moved to the restaurant in 1997, from the venerable--and much smaller--21.

As much as he enjoyed being the top dog atop the tallest building in the city, Lomonaco cherished his job’s private perks, such as the informal meals the staff sometimes prepared for themselves before the dinner rush. He would brighten whenever Junior Jimenez--who is among missing--decided to whip up some Puerto Rican specialties. “He would get some plantains, some chicken and rice .... He just had a touch,” Lomonaco says, his voice quavering with emotion.

The restaurant’s staff came from seemingly every background and part of the globe. Chefs and sommeliers with their own television shows and books worked alongside union-scale wage earners.

Heather Ho, 32, an esteemed pastry chef, is among those missing. Ho had just moved to New York this summer, after a three-year stint as pastry chef at San Francisco’s Boulevard restaurant. Her recipes were often featured in food magazines and newspapers, and she had been named dessert chef of the year by San Francisco magazine.

Ho, from a family of prominent Honolulu financiers, is the granddaughter of Chinn Ho, who in 1962 became the first Asian American owner and publisher of a metropolitan daily newspaper, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Another islander pastry chef was also on duty that morning--Norberto Hernandez, a father of four from Puerto Rico. While Hernandez worked in the kitchen that morning, the wife of one of his brothers was attending the business conference in the restaurant. Both are presumed dead.

Many of those at work during the buildings’ collapse were union cooks, servers and dishwashers, nearly all of them immigrants from countries including Bangladesh, Mexico, Egypt, Ghana and Yemen.

“Our staff really was a window on the world,” says Glenn Vogt, the restaurant’s general manager. When a reporter read a list of 23 home countries of employees to Vogt, the manager mentioned three more.

On holidays, colleagues liked to come to work in the traditional garb of their home countries and cook for one another. Lomonaco recalls a buffet of curries and flat breads laid out by his Muslim co-workers from Pakistan and Bangladesh to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Some of those friends were trapped in the building collapse.

*

Those memories make recent reports of attacks on American Muslims even more appalling to Lomonaco. “That’s just not what America is about. Americans should be ashamed this is happening, but we can’t be silent. We have to speak against it,” he says.

“You work such long hours, and so closely with these people, you see them more than your family. They become your family,” Vogt says. Further, he says employee turnover was low at the restaurant, partly because workers felt they were part of a prestigious, world-famous enterprise.

Even low-paid employees took advantage of a 50% discount to treat relatives visiting from their home countries, Vogt says. When they did, “they got VIP treatment. We made sure they had an amazing experience so their families knew why they were working so hard.”

The restaurant was the spire on a shrine to global wealth and power. Like the World Trade Center itself, the 107th-floor dining room boasted towering superlatives: top-grossing restaurant in America ($36 million in sales last year); best wine cellar (with enough stock to serve a bottle to each of the World Trade Center’s 55,000 workers).

When renovating the restaurant five years ago, new owner David Emil spent money like movie producers, racking up a $25-million tab. Even the name of its lounge, “The Greatest Bar on Earth,” declared its aspirations.

*

Travelers from out of state or out of country happily paid $8 for a drink that came with a million-dollar view. For affluent New Yorkers, it was often a place for celebrations of birthdays, wedding anniversaries or job promotions. Some thought it perfect for a first date: If conversation flopped, there was always the view.

Michael Whiteman, who created Windows on the World in 1976 with the late, legendary restaurant developer Joseph Baum, said the restaurant symbolized New York’s recovery from misfortune.

“[When the restaurant opened] New York was a disaster. The city was facing bankruptcy, it looked like the city was going down the tubes,” Whiteman says.

When the World Trade Center was criticized as a white elephant and waste of public money, “the restaurant’s enormous public success made the building respectable,” Whiteman says. Baum and Whiteman ran the restaurant until 1979, when it was taken over by Hilton International Hotel Co.

Windows on the World closed after the World Trade Center bombing of 1993. Baum and Whiteman oversaw its reopening in 1996. “Again, it symbolized a turnaround for New York,” Whiteman says.

New York restaurants are planning to donate a portion of profits Oct. 11 to families of deceased Windows workers, and restaurants in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Atlanta have told Vogt they plan to do the same. Winemakers and distributors in France, Italy and Germany are also collecting donations for families of those workers.

“Everybody knows dishwashers or line cooks don’t make a lot of money, and some of these people were breadwinners for three, four or five children,” says Vogt. “I know some families will be unable to get by without their support.”

Vogt hopes the show of kinship from across the country and abroad will at least let families know they are not suffering alone. “This is what the restaurant business is about, being an extended family,” he says.