[ti:Online Campaigns to Save New York's Theaters, Businesses]
[by:www.21voa.com]
[00:00.00]更多听力请访问21VOA.COM
[00:00.04]New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood
[00:03.76]is filled with restaurants and other businesses that are now closed.
[00:10.56]Nearby, Broadway theaters are also dark
[00:14.96]because of COVID-19 suspensions.
[00:19.48]The coronavirus crisis caused great economic difficulties
[00:24.36]for all these businesses.
[00:27.20]But some well-loved areas have received financial support
[00:31.68]to help them survive the difficulties.
[00:35.88]People are continuing fundraising campaigns online and on other media.
[00:43.80]Tom and Michael D’Angora
[00:46.40]are theater producers who live in Hell’s Kitchen.
[00:50.88]They opened a GoFundMe campaign last month to raise money
[00:55.72]for the West Bank Cafe and Laurie Beechman Theater.
[01:00.96]GoFundMe is an online fundraising service.
[01:05.56]The GoFundMe project raised more than $340,000 in just weeks.
[01:12.68]The campaign included a telethon, a live online event,
[01:17.80]in which many theater actors and singers
[01:21.28]performed in support of West Bank Cafe.
[01:24.60]Andre De Shields was among those who appeared on the telethon.
[01:30.24]The famous Broadway performer is the winner of three Tony Awards,
[01:36.12]the highest honor in American theater.
[01:39.96]He is also a big fan of the West Bank Cafe.
[01:43.68]“I’ve spent some of my most delicious, my most insouciant,
[01:48.68]my most important times right here,” De Shields said in his appearance.
[01:55.48]“We don’t want this lovely piece of heaven on earth to ever go away, he added.
[02:02.16]Then he presented a large donation to Steve Olsen,
[02:06.44]owner of the West Bank Cafe and founder of its Laurie Beechman Theater.
[02:12.44]“We were a couple weeks from really running out of money,
[02:15.76]and going out of business,” Olsen said before the campaign started.
[02:22.00]But now, he says he is hopeful that the business he opened in 1978
[02:27.80]can survive until the restaurant and live theater reopens.
[02:33.28]The GoFundMe project continues to raise money
[02:36.68]for the West Bank Cafe and Laurie Beechman Theater.
[02:40.68]But, at the same time, the D’Angoras have started another
[02:46.00]such campaign for Birdland, a site for jazz music shows.
[02:51.24]That GoFundMe has already collected more than $180,000.
[02:58.36]Gianni Valenti owns Birdland.
[03:01.16]He now believes it also will survive the coronavirus closures.
[03:06.84]It’s “very heartwarming to see the response we’ve had,”
[03:10.36]Valenti said of the donors,
[03:12.68]adding, “I just love the fact that they care about Birdland,
[03:16.68]about the music and about what it means to New York
[03:20.24]that we all keep it going
[03:22.48]and hopefully down the road we’re back to normal.”
[03:26.68]I'm Armen Kassabian. 更多听力请访问21VOA.COM