![\"duddridge-small-busines-wcbsj00c-hi-res-still.jpg](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/duddridge-small-busines-wcbsj00c-hi-res-still.jpg#.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nWhen the towers fell on 9\/11, many small businesses in Lower Manhattan thought they might never reopen.<\/p>\n
Twenty-five years later, some are still serving the community. Thirty-four mom-and-pop shops were recently honored with a legacy business award, including City Blossoms and Bubby’s Pies.<\/p>\n
“Stay on your feet no matter what”<\/p>\n
Inna Lipovsky has been running City Blossoms for more than three decades, and now, she runs it alongside her daughter Karina Granin.<\/p>\n
The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Lipovsky was supposed to meet a driver at the twin towers to take her to a flower show in New Jersey, but something made her change plans.<\/p>\n
“I said, ‘Why don’t you drive through Staten Island?'” said Lipovsky, who lived in Staten Island at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said that last-minute change may have saved her life, but she lost contact with her husband, who worked on Wall Street.\u00a0Meanwhile, her daughter was worried sick.<\/p>\n
“I couldn’t reach him,” Granin said of her father. “And then he just showed up covered in all the dust because he walked across the bridge.”<\/p>\n
But many of their clients and friends, they didn’t see again.<\/p>\n
Located just blocks from Ground Zero, all the vases in Lipovsky’s shop shattered, but her only concern was her family, staff and community.<\/p>\n
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City Blossoms was located just blocks from Ground Zero during the 9\/11 attacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
CBS News New York<\/p>\n
In the weeks that followed, her flowers became something much more than a business.<\/p>\n
“People sending flowers to someone who lost someone,” she said. “Everyone knew someone who died. Everyone was affected.”<\/p>\n
Over those next months, she kept making bright bouquets, bringing color back to a neighborhood that was gray with ash. Her shop became a gathering place to connect.<\/p>\n
“There was no way she would leave,” Granin said of her mother.<\/p>\n
“You know what, if you fall in, you’re not going to pick up,” Lipovsky said. “You have to stay on your feet no matter what.” \u00a0<\/p>\n
“I never considered quitting or closing down”<\/p>\n
A few blocks north of City Blossoms, Ron Silver was working as a chef at the beloved Tribeca restaurant he founded, Bubby’s. He remembers standing outside when the first tower came down.<\/p>\n
“I zipped up to get my son from school,” Silver said. “Pure chaos.”<\/p>\n
In the days that followed, he sneaked past police barricades to get into his business so he could make pancakes for first responders and anyone who needed a meal and a place to sit.<\/p>\n
![\"duddridge-small-busines-wcbsj00c-hi-res-still-00-01-5513.jpg](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/duddridge-small-busines-wcbsj00c-hi-res-still-00-01-5513.jpg#.jpeg\")
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This photo was taken Sept. 12, 2001, when members of the public donated supplies for first responders outside Bubby’s in Tribeca.<\/p>\n
Ron Silver<\/p>\n
“The purpose of the business at that point was just to provide a community space,” Silver said.<\/p>\n
People heard on the radio that first responders needed items like eye wash, socks and bottled water, and they started dropping it all off in front of Bubby’s.<\/p>\n
Silver says he pushed through for his community.<\/p>\n
“I never considered quitting or closing down or that New York wasn’t coming back or any kind of thing like that,” Silver said.<\/p>\n
Remembering 9\/11 – 25 Years Later <\/a><\/p>\n
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\n More<\/p>\n