Newsday from New York, New York • 28

Closing of Bridge Hurts Merchants I Its 2 p.m., and I got three people walking in today, said Stanley Katz, manager of Katz Clothing Store on Orchard Street. Larry Simonberg, spokesman for Mayor Edward Koch, said the city had not launched an East River ferry to the Lower East Side because there was no pier available to accommodate the service. Marcia Reiss, speaking for the Department of Porta, International Trade and Commerce, concurred, though she said the agency is negotiating to establish a private ferry link between Green-point and a pier at 34th Street in Manhattan. Few of the area residents were encouraged by the news. Many adopted a fatalistic attitude.

If something good happens here, Im gonna have a heart attack and die, said Josephine Filo-mena, a lifelong Madison Street resident. since bridge subway and car traffic was banned. The impact is fierce, fierce, August said. So fierce that Silver organized a demonstration yesterday of about 100 merchants, residents and other officials at the foot of the Bpan to demand additional buses and direct ferry service between Williamsburg and the Delancey Street area. Ferry service between Williamsburg and South Ferry was launched Monday by the city Department of Transportation, prompting Silver and area merchants to demand an express bus route South Ferry to Delancey Street to restore commercial patronage.

Merchants are dying here as a result of th the city's insensitivity, Silver said. Across the mostly commercial neighborhood, talk of hard times was downbeat. More than one referred to it as a ghost town. By Scott Ladd They met inside Ratners Daily Restaurant: a state assemblyman and two Lower East Side merchants surveying a handful of patrons lingering past the lunch hour and bemoaning the financial scourge wrought hy the closing of the Williamsburg Bridge. Business, they agreed, was lousy.

Our business is off 25 percent at least, complained Ratners owner, Fred Harmatz. Lunch? People arent going to schlepp across the Queens-boro or Manhattan bridges just to eat. Nodding solemnly, his two visitors Assembly-man Sheldon Silver and Barnett August, executive director of the East Side Cjhamber of Commerce said most merchants along Delancey Street were reporting bumness losses of 50 percent or more Trump Offers a Loan to Fix Bridge BRIDGE from Page 3 Within a week the city said yes. Thats a grand scheme, Transportation Commissioner Ross Sandler said of Trumps suggestion to build a new East River bridge. But new bridges are very problematical.

Westway was essentially a new bridge. Trump was escorted on his morning tour by Alfred DelliBovi, chief of the federal Urban Mass Transportation Administration. DelliBovi asked for Trumps help after the city closed the bridge last week when severe corrosion was found. It can be fixed, and fixed a lot quicker than Im hearing, Trump said. And though he termed the citys $250-million repair estimate reasonable, he said he could do better.

This captures my imagination, said Trump, 41. It is a dream project in the sense that you are talking about one of the great, important bridges of New York. Transforming the crumbling hulk into a bright, shining span would rival any of his accomplishments to date. Trump said including Wollman Rink in Central Park, which he completed in a few months and for less than $3 million in 1986, after the city failed to fix it after six years and $12 million. Trump said he would hire thousands of workers to do the job speedily, although he did not give a timetable.

The city should then build a new bridge farther north. He said he would like to play a role in selecting the site for a new bridge. And once a new bridge was constructed, the Williamsburg Bridge should be closed so that a more thorough rehabilitation could be conducted. Trump said he had faith in Sandler and his chief engineer, Sam Schwartz. But he raid the city had proven its inability to maintain or repair the bridge, which was closed last week after corro- Newadajr UUana Nieto Donald Trump and Alfred DelliBovi, of the federal Urban Mass Transportation Administration, inspect the bridge yesterday.

A Bridge Too Close sion was found in 30 support beams. He pointed out workmen painting over corroded beams. Its scary, he said. Theyre just disguising it. Sandler who joined Trump toward the end of the tour, denied that claim.

In some cases the repairs will come after the painting, he said. The state Department of Transportation is responsible for the building, reconstruction and maintenance of all state highways and bridges and also oversees the inspection of all state highways and bridges, including the Williamsburg Bridge. DelliBovi said he. would exert pressure on the city to accept Trumps REACTION from Page 3 what you do with traffic once it comes into Manhattan' said John Keith, president of the Manhattan-based Regional Plan Association. 'Trump did win support for at least thinking in the positive.

Said Kent Barwick of the Municipal Art Society: Right or wrong, I admire his visions. But Sidney J. Frigand, Port Au thority spokesman, recalled what happened to the last bridge-building visionary, Robert Moses, who tried to cross the East River by adding a third tube to the midtown tunnel in 1962. A burst of criticism erupted, especially over a plan for an accompanying 30th Street cross-town expressway. Alexis Jetter contributed to Ms story.

i a' Plan Would Pay Interned Japanese $20,000 1 EE to CM By Carol Polsky The U.S. governments internment of Japanese-Americans in isolated camps during World War left its legacy of interrupted lives, lost livelihoods, and for many, an unspoken, almost unconscious shame, say several farmer internees who live in New York City. Yesterday, they applauded Wednesdays UJS. Senate vote favoring reparation payments to surviving internees. They said its time the country acknowledged a historical chapter during which young Japa-nese-Americans faught in the U.S.

military while their families in the United States lived behind barbed wire in bleak internment camps in remote areas including parts of Arizona, Idaho and Wisconsin. Its absolutely fantastic, said Lillian Kimura, president of the New York Metropolitan rtiAptjw of the Japanese-American Citizens League. Weve been working on this for better than 10 years. An apology is not enough, said Haruko Brown, a social worker in Queens. If someone is incarcerated illegally as we were, stripped of our civil rights, then there has to be some compensation for loss.

But, she added, the loss in years and hopes are somehow immeasurable. My parents were immigrants who built up their life here and they were wiped out, she said. They were really too old to start over again after the war. Thats the piece that is perhaps most painful. If the reparation measure is approved by the House and voted into law, it would provide tax-free, one-time payments of $20,000 to each of the estimated 60,000 surviving internees.

About 120,000 Japa nese-Americans from Oregon, Washington, California and Hawaii were interned amid a wave of public concern that Japan would invade the West Coast or engage in spying after its attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941. The government feared Japanese-Americans might collaborate in such an effort. Survivors recalled living in barracks under the surveillance of armed guards in watchtowers. Families crowded into one room and shared a communal mess hall and bathroom facilities.

Summers brought heat and duststorms, winter bitter cold. Its pretty dear to me it had a devastating effect on the imprisoned people, said Robert Mfiteki executive director of a mental health clinic in Forest Hills, Queens, who was 10 when he was interned. You feel there must be reason why youre in prison..