10 Fascinating Jobs That Keep New York City Running I Business Insider Marathon

from the people who pick up millions of pounds of trash a day to the cleaners who clean the 9/11 Memorial in the dark and the Queens Bagel makers who start rolling at 3:00 a.m. m., we met some of the New York City heroes who

keep

America moving. The busiest

city

is Queens. The

city

's famous Utopia Bagels make 15,000 Bagels a day by hand. It all starts with a 41-year-old dough recipe that uses barley mold. It's a really old way of making a bagel that most shops that make bagels use today. brown sugar, but to make a good quality bagel you need this ingredient, then they add salt and a big spoonful of patus bagel improver, so that softens the dough inside and crisps up the crust on the outside and then they start filling the mixer with New York City cover. water, but it has to be at the right temperature, we tend to use water at around 60° 62 63 but water temperatures can change when it gets hotter or colder throughout the year, so it's time to add 200 pounds of flour all purpose a little bit portion compared to what they have on hand, you're looking at about 7,000 pounds of flour, almost a 2 day amount for us that will go through all of this flour and this is actually just one of my mountains of flour, The final ingredient is yeast, but flavored.

Bagels, the recipe may change slightly to include eggs, sugar, or freeze-dried blueberries, depending on flavor. There is no set time for when the dough is finished mixing. According to Scott, it takes a good eye and years of experience. It is something that is called old when it is ready. how long have you been making Bagels 18 years 18 years Daniel has been shooting for 18 years you need to understand the temperature in the air you need to understand your machine you work with how long you should mix all of these things are very important factors about what happens with our Bagel Once the dough reaches the desired consistency, it is cut into sections and transferred to the rolling table where it is then formed into a large mount.

We can make up to 15,000 bagels in a day and this will make approximately 1,000 bagels. They cover everything with a sheet of plastic to help soften the dough before rolling it and it's just a 5 minute process that allows the dough to connect together a little better. They're saying hello, how are you? All of those ingredients are basically doing that right now at any time. There are four experts at H. These trained men have between 15 and 27 years of experience perfecting their craft. Something that, according to Scott, is an endangered species. There is no school of Rolling Bagels at the moment and these people are experts in their field.

Listen, I think. Derek Jeta said it's better if you put 10,000 hours into something you're a professional at and Daniel has definitely put 10,000 hours into it. These manual rollers take about an hour to an hour and a half to individually cut the roll and twist about 1,000 Bagel it. It takes on a certain kind of character because it's so tedious, you're cutting the same thing over and over again and I can tell who's rolling which bagel by the way they close the bagel and form it together. Daniel has that little lip here that I noticed Daniel is rolling, so I can see that you know those were Daniel's bagels and that gives each Bagel his own personality.

Our bagels are like snowflakes. We are all individually different and that is what makes us special. Once the bagels are rolled, they are placed on these plastic-covered racks. and let them rest for half an hour, then move them to one of the three refrigerators to ferment for at least 24 hours. What we are going to do now is open these Bagels because we still have to reduce the heat to stop the rise of these. Bagels we tend to stop proofing, where a lot of places tend to expand their proofing to make the bagels larger. There is a misconception that bigger bagels are better and they are not even close, as you can see each shelf has about 1,000 Bagels so "We are looking at between 10,000 and 15,000 bagels right before your eyes and this is just one of my refrigerators where we

keep

the bagels.

Here is my second refrigerator again. You have shelves of bagels 1 2 3 4. We have about 7 8,000 more Bagels, so these are basically We will keep our daily bagel preparation. fun and games Let's start baking some bagels We will always have two people working in the oven, so there is a kettle, as you will call it. It will control the flow of the bagels to the kettle and then there is the guy in the oven. who will be your director, but the kettle is the person who has ultimate control because he knows when the bagel is ready to come out of the kettle, it is very important once the bagels have been boiled properly, they are placed on boards that have been seasoned. previously with the appropriate flavors, like sesame for puppies or the very popular mix of everything, now they are spicy, yes, they are very spicy, but if you look at me, I am constantly dipping my hand in water to remove some of that heat now this is where we put both sides so we are seasoning both boards on both sides after the workers carefully cover each Bagel they move the boards to the oven now why are we putting?

We place them on boards because if we put these Bagels straight they will stick to the board they are being cooked on. We put six Bagels on a board. There are 16 boards that will go into the oven. We have an oven in the middle, Marshall, from 1947. It is the heart and soul of my

business

, we can produce up to 1000 bagels per hour after a few rotations around the oven, the boards are flipped so the bottom of the bagels are can cook evenly and then be ready to be pulled and served to customers see these are so look at it look at the color of this Bagel look at that beautiful crispy crust my son always does the pop test but feel that crispy crust look at that steam What comes out of that Bagel in total Utopia Bagels offers 30 types of Bagles and various sandwiches such as the egg with bacon and cheese or the classic padlocks. 43 employees make up Utopia Bagels and they all work like a well-oiled machine to serve the 3,500 customers who visit the store each week during which we are busiest.

On the weekend, Saturday and Sunday, we could have a line that lasts 8 hours straight, but you make me cry for my customers because our fan base is like no other, it's like a landmark, everyone has been coming here for over 50 years it's like a home for everyone it's the atmosphere it's the people it's the owner everyone is very friendly here and when you walk in you feel welcome everything is good I've been to other bagel shops but there's no place like home Scott treats you like to a family when you come here Utopia Bagels is the best, the most important thing about our Bagels is here and I get excited, but it is the heart, the heart and the soul that every worker here has in heart and soul, it is really something to I live and something we work on, you know my passion. for making people smile with our food and what we produce is a joy to me, it really is, this is Jim, he is cleaning the reflecting pools at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City.

Jim and his team are working under a 27 7t high waterfall in near total darkness vacuuming every inch of the pool. His goal is to do it without losing a place. It's a physically demanding job, but that's not the only challenge. I've never actually made fun of how many miles it is, but you do a few miles there and it could be wet and you walk out of there and feel like you've walked on the moon, almost the pools are almost an acre each so it would take hours to finish the job before the sun rises while he works inside the pool, the rest of the team.

Members work on the bronze panels above the floor. These routines occur 5 days a week and are essential to keeping the monument in pristine condition for the millions who come to pay their respects here. They start by closing the waterfalls and for the next 8 hours, Jim and his team work tirelessly to clean this pool, the hardest part is that it is a long ordeal, the pool is big, it's not a pool, you know, it's a giant pool of 200 for 200. I'm going to take out the hose and then I'll bring it back or whatever, you just don't have to use the whole real thing, we have too much hose, we usually have three guys through the pools, two guys will be in the pool and one guy He will be outside

running

the pumps that collect the waste. and return the clean water to the pool once we are ready, we are on our way.

I go and vacuum in general and I have whoever is with me that night the brushes behind, come on, hurry up, sorry, we have all day here, okay, the vacuum will do it. it captures most of the debris and the person brushing will pick up some of the other loose debris that doesn't get caught and it will get caught like some of our filters that we have down there, now I'm stuck in the hose here. I'm going to stumble and we'll be in America's mistakes. Workers generally clean sheets of dirt and algae from the bottom of pools.

They also remove larger objects that visitors drop or throw. They don't always know what they are going to do. Encounter at the pool every night we find kids toys small objects it depends on the crowd one night I actually found a bat there and I'm not talking about a baseball bat I'm talking about a bat it was pretty wild when it flew away from me when I realized I was grabbing a bat, depending on the cleanliness of the pool it could take six to seven hours and sometimes if we felt up to it we could do it a little faster.

Some people treat this place as a wishing well, so we captured some money, and unfortunately, I think some people consider it a far cry from the original 9/11. I think some people are uneducated about this place and some people treat them like a normal fountain and Sometimes you are also littering here. You know, people have to learn that this is your mall source. I knew some of the runners who died. A whole group of them had a meeting in one of the towers, unfortunately. Except one, Traer, all died. I think about them often because we go up to the top where the names are and brush near the nameplates, the feeders, and on the north side, they're all on one panel, so I see, I see. their names almost every day, a complete waste of lives that, you know, could have been doing some good in the world right now, while Jim and the crew finished cleaning the pools below.

Ryan is tackling the bronze panels with names on top of the panels honoring the 2,983 victims of the World Trade Center attacks in both 1993 and 2001. Ryan will have to remove the top layer of metal and use a blowtorch to remove a carving that someone engraved on the plaque without damaging the rest of the monument. This confuses me. Why do you want to write something? Here, for a mark like that, you have to go pretty deep, get all the way down, otherwise you won't be able to get rid of it if you don't go down enough, you'll see it when you finish it again the further you go. better, sometimes I've seen nice things written, but you know they don't understand you, you just can't write what you want after briefly assessing the damage.

Ryan needs to remove the crash bars so he can reach everything. metal surface to do this, he supports the bars with a wooden board and unclips the brackets that hold the panels. Now what I'm going to do is rub it with NAFTA, it's almost like a paint thinner, it just needs wax. off so as not to burn wax if I can open it and it shouldn't take long once I put the torch on there is a lot in the prep and then the finish from the torch is actually not that bad after sanding the top layer of panel and neutralizing the Ryan's wax is ready to blowtorch the damaged area to melt the metal into the patina so he can repaint the color coat and restore the panel to its original state.

This is what we use and it's basically just a patina on a solution oh I haven't used you in a while get them ready so basically I'm getting to the right temperature if it's too cold it'll get patchy if it's too hot it'll evaporate or it'll evaporate burn In the summer months, the longest part of the job is waiting for the burned panel to cool before applying a new coat of wax and acrylic top coat. To finish the restoration process, we will apply the acrylic spray simply as a coat. clear helps it adhere a little better the last step very well in addition to polishing the wax, so I'm going to put the wax on very well, not too hard, not too much, you don't need a ton.

Just put it on lightly, the wax will cover the finish and make it look once you polish it, it will look like new. It got a little warm, but that's because it's still warm, but now it was here. All you have to do is remove the excess wax with a white Scotchbrite pad and then once it's smooth you know you're done when people do something like that. I wouldn't say it makes me angry. I get it, some of these people may not have even been alive. when it happened or they were too young to understand it, my uncle wasNew York City firefighter and was very injured here, but luckily he survived, we got a little lucky after 7 grueling hours of cleanup, Jim and the crew. are ready to get out of the pool tomorrow morning a new group of visitors will see sparkling pools under waterfalls and most of them won't know that Jim's team was here when we finished the pool most of the time we were there We're ready to get out of there and for most of our inspection, we know we're pretty sure we did the right job.

There is always a small failure factor, but it's not that bad. My father worked in these buildings almost his entire life and my father was here during the bombing of '93 and that was before cell phones and everything and he was on the 30th floor of the second tower when he was there, he was like the marshal of floor, he came home covered in soot, but he stayed there because there were people who couldn't go down the stairs, so he made sure not to stay with them, so I think the day of 911, you know, if he was here, he would probably we would have lost him because he wouldn't have left.

He passed away a couple of years ago. He was always very proud of other work. I probably had opportunities. do other things in this building but even if I wanted to do other work I wouldn't do it for him and me and now you know I love doing it so I do it The New York City Department of Sanitation sends its fleet of 2,000 garbage trucks to start getting up at 5:00 a.m. You have to stay active some kids like to exercise some don't it's basically up to you what you do I don't exercise this is my workout this is my daily workout That's Frank, a veteran healthcare worker with 23 years of experience.

Well, you become immune to the smell. You don't smell garbage. You smell money. You check how solid it is. You can tell when the truck is full. Frank heads to the unloading station on Upper. By then the sun will rise on the East Side, we are currently on 91st Street. We will open the MPS doors when the truck enters and there will be radiation detectors that will read the truck. Trucks stop at the way station to help the city keep track of how much trash there is. New Yorkers produce, then the handles tilt the hopper, then she pushes the blade and the blade will push the material out to clean the entire truck.

They are approximately 450 to 600 tons per day. Tractors move garbage to containers below the ground. It's a bit of a dance, one FPL will clean the wall and another FPL will take the bins down, put the material into bins as quickly as possible and seal it to keep the smell down. A Stamper and then the packages in the trash. Mattresses are used like a sponge to absorb anything left over. When we have garbage, it will take 10-15 minutes to load a container once the sanitation department seals a container and slides it onto the dock, the responsibility then goes to covanta, the waste energy company handles two marine transfer St.

In the city containers are picked up by the crane and placed on the barge. 48 containers go on the barge. Each of these containers represents a truckload that we have taken off city streets and out of tunnels, reducing carbon emissions and reducing congestion and wear and tear. and tears apart the city's infrastructure, a tugboat connects to the loaded garbage barge. Captain Jason Harris is now in charge and can continue with a 9:30 a.m. departure. what you see here is called Hell's Gate, this is the upper end of the The East River tides play a big factor in when we can transfer barges.

You can't go against the tide when it's high tide. It is too strong. In fact, we would stop dead on this boat and the barge waits until you can go. very often a barge fills up and we will have to wait two, three, maybe 4 hours before the tide is in its favor. Navigate this heavy load safely along one of the busiest waterways in the world, down the East River through New York. From the port to Staten Island 3 hours later, the tug and barge return to the global transfer station. It's an inherently dangerous operation to move heavy equipment overhead, then a train takes it to one of Kant's waste energy facilities.

You can also get there by truck. Manhattan's residential trash goes to waste energy facilities like this one to be burned and converted into electricity. This facility processes up to one million tons of waste annually once the trucks scale and reach the dump floor which they dump in front of one of these bays. Tractors push trash into a massive storage pit 93 feet deep and 270 feet long. There are between 8 and 9,000 tons in the refuge pit. That's about 3 to 4 days of garbage. A giant claw descends on the trash in one fell swoop and can pick it up. No matter how much a garbage truck drags its claws, it builds a wall of garbage to prevent it from avalanching onto the sloping ground.

It also helps create more space for incoming shelters. You see trash in a very different way since I've worked here. We create. a lot of garbage since as a population two claws work together throwing garbage into hoppers that lead to the incinerator Romeo is an expert operator of giant claws 21 years playing the CL there is no lack of fuel for our boilers Toy Story is the first thing everyone thinks of Disney in reality they were inspired for Toy Story 3's incinerator sequence in an ant plant the incinerators burn garbage at 2000°F it takes 1 to 2 hours to burn a full load of the hopper now we have entered the control room area of ​​the plant this is the brain of the operation yes it is and here is your brain he has camera views of the combustion zone how important are you to this this place working properly how important am I I am the guy I am the guy that is in The hot seat Russell monitors As the furnace heats the steam, it spins this turbine and generates enough energy to power this plant and 46,000 homes in the region.

After it all burns down, all that's left is ash and metal. This magnet extracts enough metal to make 21,000 cars. The leftover ashes will cover. The plant then addresses those nasty fumes, but burning trash causes the leftover gases to first pass through a scrubber reactor. A milk of lime cleans the acid gases and the activated carbon absorbs the contaminants, then it goes through a bag chamber, basically a bunch of filters, so what's left comes out. that the components of the smoke stack of flu gases are what is found in normal air, such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide, humidity, the alternative to this would be to go to a landfill, waste for energy produces emissions of CO2, but in one year this process eliminates one million tons of CO2 emissions in a landfill. we would have produced we generate a very small amount of methane the methane we offset from a landfill results in a real decrease in CO2 emissions the city hopes to continue transporting trash in waterways to facilities like this it's all part of its goal of becoming zero waste to landfill by 2030, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve.

Only about 30% of New York City's waste is converted to energy, the rest ends up in harmful methane-producing landfills as far away as South Carolina and Ohio, and it takes significant investment to move it. Each year exporting trash costs the city about $400 million, so why was New York City shipping its trash so far in 1881? The streets of New York City were notoriously dirty, so dirty people got sick, so the sanitation department was established to clean the streets. and the department helped clean up the city, but the city quickly ran out of space to dump all of its trash.

In the early 1900s, the city dumped trash into the ocean even though it was illegal for up to 80% of the city. Garbage ended up in the sea, this continued until 1934, when a Supreme Court case forced the city to stop dumping into the ocean in the 1970s. Incinerators used for much of the 20th century were closed because they did not meet standards. EPA cleanliness standards, so the city opened. Landfills were built in all five burrows, including at one point the largest in the world in 1973. New York even built lower Manhattan using mounds of trash, but even that wasn't enough, with nowhere else to put them, the city began to send your waste to other states most of the time.

The landfills in this area have been closed, so the available landfills are becoming further away. Exporting garbage is a costly practice with a large environmental footprint and places a burden on communities far from these shiny skyscrapers. For now, New York City's only option is to keep exporting trash, but ultimately the department says the best solution would be to get New Yorkers to waste less. Garbage is like one of those things that you put outside and forget about. I think everyone should know what happens to what falls apart. If you know where it's going and you don't like where it's going, maybe you'll find ways to recycle things.

In lower Manhattan, the city's oldest Deli Cat's serves up to 4,000 customers a day. Hey guys, it's spence and I'm outside Cat's. This deli is one of the most legendary places in New York City, it's been here since 1888, so I'm going to try their famous pastrami on rye and see if it lives up to the hype. Cats's Delicatessen has been a New York institution for more than 130 years, the old-school deli is like a living museum—not only is it the oldest Jewish deli in New York, it's one of the only delicatessen shops of their kind still in operation.

Getting to tastings is a step back, it is a snapshot in time, it is being connected to your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents, your great-great-grandparents, because they all came here. We don't believe in changing practically anything, from the walls, to the neon, to the photographs, to the staff, to the food and to the recipes we really don't believe in changing them, you come here because you want that nostalgia, that tradition and that food that you know and love. Jewish delicatessen food dates back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when waves of Jews emigrated from Eastern Europe. to New York's Lower East Side bringing with them traditional Eastern European foods like cured meats and pickled vegetables.

Deli became a meeting place where tradition mixed with new American culture; At one time, kosher-style delis like Cates were plentiful, but thanks to things like gentrification and changes in food trends Cates is the only one that has been able to survive the ages. Part of their success is due to exposure over the years. The cats' nostalgic setting has been the backdrop for countless movies and television shows, the most famous of which is the iconic Meg Ryan one. scene in When Harry Met Sally the scene with Meg Ryan is one of my favorite scenes in all the movies we've seen react to now oh no okay yes yes yes I'll have what she's having The success of Hollywood's famous supporting cats too It's thanks to the fact that their food is actually that good, the menu has all the classics you'd expect from a Jewish deli, but most people show up for their legendary pastrami and corned beef.

Can you describe to me what her pami tastes like? the only place in the world to get a pami sandwich. I mean, I would eat it anywhere else. It's about treating each piece of meat like you would a child and knowing what to do with it and how to care for it from start to finish. that's what makes us so special we cook it longer than anyone we cook it for so long it would fall apart if you tried to put it in a slicer so it's so juicy so tender you have to cut it by hand your hands into slices focus means each sandwich is carved by experts to keep the crowd moving.

Katsis is set up with multiple Carvers at multiple counters and let's just say you better be prepared to order when you get in line so when you walk in you'll get a ticket. that's our system, we've been doing it the same way for 131 years, feed me, get ready because if you get to the front of the line and you don't know what you want, they'll yell at you, uh, me. I'd like pastrami at Ry but you know what you want you want a pami you want some lasas you want some matball soup you're good no problem don't worry so that was the easy part finding a seat is the hard part uh I don't know , I might have to eat it standing up, which I would, uh, so here we have the pami M uh, just classic, juicy, perfect Fant, you can't go wrong, do you have any tips for digging deeper into this monster of a? sandwich just do it just hug it just do it yes Regards Regards okay oh my gosh do it It's me okay I'm going to take a bite that's unreal that good man hit me with one of those napkins I have.to fix my face, so this is the juiciest pami I've ever had.

Thanks, how is it possible? 131 years of practice. That's how it's possible, there you go, eating that sandwich was a religious experience. I'm talking delicious perfection even. Still, it almost took a backseat to the actual experience of simply being in that noisy, chaotic room literally surrounded by photos of cat history from all who came before and posters from an almost forgotten era, all of it a reminder that cats will always be here for you. As Eternal has always been, in a city that moves towards the future there is nothing like nostalgia. I mean, there is nothing more powerful than those Traditions.

I can't believe this is my life and this is what we can do for a living. preserving a tradition and making people happy, hopefully, then, it's humbling and it's a wonderful, wonderful place to be. Roosevelt Island, the small sliver of land between Manhattan and Queens in New York City, has been dumping its trash through tubes for almost 50 years, so it was assumed. To be the future of garbage, no more bags on the sidewalks, giant trucks and vermin. Dozens of European cities have systems like this integrated into their infrastructure. So how did Disney's magical garbage tubes end up on a small island in the middle of New York City and why not?

The system that was introduced in the US pneumatic tubes dates back to the early 19th century. Basically, they work like giant vacuum cleaners that use compressed air to move objects from one place to another. Over the following decades, cities around the world began using tubes to deliver mail and medical supplies. supplies banknotes and at one point even McDonald's, but the idea was always to move people like in Jetson oh boy in 1870 Alfred Eli Beach developed the first subway in New York City using pneumatic power, it just traveled along More than anything, it was a proof of concept when Rosevelt Island first opened its doors to residents in 1975.

Developers had a unique opportunity to experiment with a new type of waste management before the The island was home to a notorious mental health institution, a smallpox hospital, and a prison. This penitentiary is by far the worst in the United States. The island needed an image overhaul and a garbage disposal solution at the time workers New York City toilets were on a 9 day strike, more than a week went by without garbage collection and people were rioting, the system was inspired by that of Disney World's Magic Kingdom was installed just a few years before and It is still in use today, so how do they work?

This is the automated vacuum-assisted collection process from the Roosevelt Island avac facility. That's really what it is. Larry Carrick has worked as the island's senior stationary engineer. since 2018 and there's a lot to take care of 1974 I think this was all installed and operational this is still functional for the most part so yesterday was a 17 hour work day you know it's part of the job every day about 8 tons of The garbage runs through these tubes eventually everything is compressed into these containers. The city's Sanitation Department sends special trucks to pick them up three times a day along with containers full of recyclables and bulk items too large for the city's avac system. island the garbage goes to a transfer station in Queens there it is mixed with the garbage from the rest of the city and sent to landfills or incinerators that burn the garbage to produce energy the avac system does not solve the problem of where our garbage ends up but it does makes the process of how you get there much cleaner all this happens out of sight of the 11,000 people who live on the island I have been here for 5 years I found out two weeks ago but the avac system is far from perfect Decades of wear and tear has left pipes prone to clogs and leaks, especially when residents don't understand what the system can handle, anything you can imagine, like crazy hockey sticks, someone dumped a bed frame in there, a bunch of carpeted backpacks and then I've heard about the infamous mattress and the infamous spinning drawer, so it's something to laugh about.

Fixing these jams requires some creative solutions so it basically spins when we have the handle or a machine hopefully it grabs onto whatever the jam is and we are able to punch through the junk once we have this in good shape we try rip it off when it comes to larger repairs someone has to get inside and these tubes are only 18 inches in diameter if there is a leak in any of the pipes. We'll have a gentleman come up to this area, get on a skateboard along with some welding equipment, and end up skating here so we can weld up the hold.

It is a very simple, intuitive and easy-to-use process. It works when it doesn't work it sucks, but despite occasional breakdowns, many residents prefer it to traditional garbage collection. Judith Birdie moved here in 1977, two years after it opened as a Residence, and as president of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society, she literally wrote the book. in it, oh, what a wonderful book, I think I'll read it. She said she couldn't imagine collecting trash any other way. There's no way she wants traditional garbage collection. I love that we don't have trash on the street. I don't see a single rat in this place in other parts of the world the avac systems have a more modern touch in Norway these different cans separate trash from recycling and in Sweden and Spain some are even fully automated why can't Americans ?

They just throw their garbage down the pipe, the main reason of course being that the money to maintain these systems is complicated and expensive, plus private developers don't really have any incentive to invest in this type of infrastructure. One of those who build these systems compares it to a sewer line, how many times do you have to flush the L in your apartment to amortize that investment, true, it is a basic service that you have in your home and installing them is complicated, if not impossible, it involves Demolishing buildings to put the pipes underground, that is especially complicated.

In New York City, Manhattan has a huge underground complex, like the subway system, gas lines, electrical pipes, so it would be essentially impossible to implement an AVAC system like we have here, but in the polo fields of Harlem, the New York City Housing Authority is giving There may be no one-size-fits-all approach to dense, high-rise buildings. Pneumatic pickup can really save a lot of curb space. This will be the first time in half a century that an AAC system will be installed. In the city, the project will cost approximately $31 million and will serve 4,000 residents in four different buildings.

It is expected to be completed by summer 2024. If the project works, it could serve as a model for the rest of the city and the country. A Swedish company. called envac designed the Roosevelt and Disney systems and is looking to expand its American footprint. We truly believe there is a huge potential market in the US, there is still a long way to go. We know it won't be easy. Roosevelt Island might not be the trash-free utopia we were. It was promised decades ago, but advances in avac could lead us to rethink how we dispose of our waste and the infrastructure behind it.

Someone has to take the time. Someone has to have the technology available. This can continue. Someone has to keep investing money in upgrades. produces positive things Pat lafa meat purveyors supplies thousands of restaurants from New York to Las Vegas has the largest dry aging room in the world a family has run this

business

for over a century and Pat is the third generation owner in this Now that more than $10 million people gather here, it brought a whole new approach to the business of selling high-end meat to both fine dining restaurants and burger chains like Shake Shack.

Pat's team produces 250,000 pounds of meat every night. It's like a Jenga where When one piece moves and another piece comes in, it takes years to develop an army like we have their guns, butcher knives, band saws and meat grinders, so how does Pat Lafita manage to Supplying everything from $3 Smash Burgers to $200 Bets and How He Turned a Humble Butcher Shop into a $270 Million Meat Empire Pat Only Shops Prime and Choice Tops USDA's Highest Grades These Cuts Have the Most of marbling, which adds flavor, so how does all this expensive steak get into kitchens? Chefs usually know what they want to order or what they want.

They need to order after that dinner service and then really want the product to be delivered the next morning a few hours later, which is why shifts here start around 6:00 p.m. m. and then it's a race against the clock some kitchens need these Stakes by the next morning the only way to work through the night is to have cohesion like an ex military myself building that equipment takes time many Stakes begin in this dry aging room containing 15,000 of Pat's best cut has to stay at 36° F and 80% humidity, otherwise everything will spoil or freeze and Pat could lose millions as the meat ages, the moisture evaporates and the muscles They break down, but we know the dry aging process is at work when we see the protein has sunk from the bone and the fat workers carry the meat to the POR in the section Master butchers get to work on everything from the Tomahawk Stakes even New York strips, cutting them exactly the way each restaurant wants Pat to train. most of these butchers the ones you made this morning were beautiful all the ones here there really are no butcher schools or restaurants they will ask me Pat where do you get your butchers like we don't get our butchers we make our butchers they just need some tools to do the job in most people's hands, you will see bone knives with this, you could basically do all the work, until you get to cutting the steak and that is where you want a similar knife and what makes this a butcher knife unlike a chef's knife we ​​have a protective corner but certain cuts require the use of a band saw, it is ideal for cutting bones or making high volume orders as quickly as possible and only master butchers can operate them probably be a good 2 and Half a year before they even reached the fans, they saw the following workers load everything onto trucks if a customer is local.

Pat's team can deliver within a few hours. Press Club Grill in New York City receives thousands of pounds of cum per week. Owner and chef Franklin Becker showed us how he prepares a boneless ribeye. Yeah, I try to season it pretty aggressively and he let all that salt soak into the pores of the meat and then I'm going to move on to an infrared broiler for this steak. It doesn't take long, it's pretty quick, in just 5 to 6 minutes you'll get a juicy medium rare, so you'll see the fat start to caramelize, okay, you let it sit and then the meat will reabsorb all those juices and when you cut into it If you really there will be nothing left on the board, that's when a steak is perfectly rested, that's when you know you've cooked it right.

One of the most legendary steakhouses in New York City. Peter Luger has been sourcing Leaf's cuts of meat since 1998 Peter Luger has earned its reputation as a New York City institution, frankly, through a lot of hard work and I think it starts with our attention to detail and the selection of each piece of meat that arrives at this restaurant; We really seek to leave the highest. quality steak that we can buy brilliant with just a little salt and a little bit of butter, we cook the steak to order and send it piping hot to the G, that's it, but Leafa doesn't just supply fine dining restaurants in 2004, Pat bought the the company's first burger machine to make burgers for a new fast casual chain that was about to open Shake Shack Pat created a special blend with no frills or added fat for the new chain Shake Shack still uses Pats recipes today and jizz still supplies burgers from over a hundred of its locations each burger starts on the main floor 2,000 lbs of Angus beef is dumped onto conveyor belts machines spray them with diluted vinegar which kills potential germs other machines grind and blend the meat ground beef goes to the burger forming machines that can make 200 different mixes the workers need to move fast the company produces over 200,000 burgers a day I guess it's pretty hectic and frustrating at times when overloaded, but every day is just a profound challenge The butcher shop Mel in ten times New Jersey is one of Pat's loyal customers,Melanie Landano orders up to 100 pounds of hamburgers a day for the restaurant.

We use the original Pat laf Frita mix, which is a rib brisket mix for special events. If a customer requests dry brisket burgers, we get the ones that some people request. a $45 dry burger a day, we, anything you want, Pat will make it for us once we put it on the grill, we leave it on the grill and a lot of people like to press the meat and then all the juices come out. I do it, I turn it once I leave it and I let it cook and then I let it sit here on top of your daily customers Mel also cooks burgers for four local schools on Monday morning alone, grills over 200 burgers for the students, so today I'm probably going to cook five or six boxes in 1 hour so it's Burger paloa Mel also buys Leafa skirt steaks, ribey cheese steaks and meatballs here are our leaf meatballs this goes with this freshly heated meatball this is his grandfather's recipe and they are delicious.

I'm Italian so I don't use any other balls, but Patler becomes a meatball if I don't have time to make my own, so family recipes are still an important part of Leafa. Pat's great-grandfather opened a Brooklyn Butcher Shop in 1922, after moving the operation to Manhattan's growing meatpacking district. Pat's grandfather took over and founded Pat Leaf Meat Suppliers. Pat began learning the job as a child. My favorite moments were cutting meat with my grandfather, my father to my left, and my father to my left. I'm right, but Pat's father insisted that his son try a different career first.

He didn't want me to work those hours. He didn't want me in that environment. Pat spent 9 months working as a stockbroker but then left that job to join the company. family business a decade later Pat would be named CEO and now my father can't wait for my son to go to college and come back and run the family business when Pat joined in 1994 the company had 44 restaurant clients now has 1,600 and we are posting annual sales of $270 million we are several hundred times larger than in 2021 Pat opened this new $20 million facility to keep such a massive operation

running

Pat has to be more than a manager, although he does everything comes Works in production works with us, goes to the table, goes to see the customers, supervises everything, it's something I love to do and I think the best I can while cutting meat.

For me, it's a relaxing time even after so much growth. Pat believes there is room for more. This facility produces about 250,000 pounds of product a night and has the capacity to probably triple or quadruple that amount, so we built it with the space to be able to expand from there if you flew to JFK in the '9s. The US was much easier, but after 9/11 a conversation began about how to protect the country from food, drugs and dangerous people and US Customs and Border Protection, as it was called, was formed. know today, you will generally see two types of CBP.

Official airport officials like Steve and agricultural specialists like Ginger are tasked with finding, confiscating and destroying millions of items each year that do not belong in the United States. It's a big job and sometimes requires a partner, a side kick on all fours. it's K9 Spike look Spike he's an 8 year old Belgian alawa I've been his only hand since day one, he's had narcotics training during our career, he probably sees over 400 different seizures. CBP officers like Steve identify high-risk individuals. trying to enter the US, as well as drugs and firearms, and because the stakes are so high, dogs like Spike are trained in a special way in what is called passive response, which means that if They smell drugs, they don't scratch, they don't bark and they don't make a scene they sit and if they are right the dog is rewarded his reward is actually this toy here so he likes to play so that's right, you like to play you like to play yeah you do it yeslet me see it, let me see it here at the port, we have captured up to 16 keys of ecstasy recently, narcotics are then seized and sent to be incinerated, the location of the incinerator is kept secret as a matter of national security.

Now more or less Everyone knows that narcotics are not allowed across US borders, but drugs are actually not the most commonly seized item at JFK Food. When a regular traveler arrives in the US, he must declare any food that he brings or carries. Fine of up to $1,000 for first offense. These items are not taken because the agents want to eat your delicious Spanish ham or Caribbean mangoes. It's because agents are responsible for protecting American agriculture from any foreign pests or diseases that may affect our livestock or crops, and that's it. where agricultural specialists like ginger come in everything is destroyed to protect against pest risk we are protecting the country's agricultural interests we are protecting against bioterrorism where someone might try to intentionally bring in items to wreak havoc on this country foreign insects hitchhiking and luggage wreaked havoc in the US before Florida orange and grapefruit growers lost $2.9 billion between 2007 and 2014 thanks to the Asian citrus Sid and, since it was introduced to the US in the 1990s, the Asian longhorned beetle has devastated hardwood trees.

Eradication efforts between 1997 and 2010 cost more than $373 million in our country we go to the supermarket and the food is always there, we don't have to look at it to see if it has holes or check if it has any disease, it always looks great, so We get spoiled and I don't really understand the importance of protecting that, so it's crucial that even a single stowaway orange be found and confiscated, but with 34 million annual international passengers to and from JFK passing through each of those bags it can seem quite impossible for humans, that is fortunately. They have a little help from the Beagle Brigade.

This four-legged officer is a cookie, and like Spike, the cookie is trained in passive response, but cookies are trained to sniff out food instead of drugs. They actually learned that they start with five Target orders and then they're done. the years they roast and walk away with sometimes like 150 commands they know and Biscuit is pretty good at sniffing these beagles have an estimated 90% accuracy rate watching your dog sit on three grapes in a hard suitcase Samsonite is just amazing, the Scientists say that The nose is a thousand times stronger than ours and they prove it every day, once Cake smells an item, the passenger in question and their suitcases go to Ginger, who will do an x-ray and search the luggage.

Okay, both are your correct suitcases, okay? pack everything yourselves, pack your bags yourself, okay. Ginger opens the bag and searches each one by hand and if she finds something that is not allowed, she confiscates it and puts it in temporary containers. This is very common in that region, once you open everything, you have grapes. leaves, these are HSE meat sausages, this is another very good example of what we get very often, especially in the spring, this is a plant that they plan to bring here to grow, so anything for propagation has additional requirements of Inay, for what two families are worth. of a JFK flight disposes of contraband food in one of two ways: the disposal or the incinerator.

Ginger will package up the seized items and label them according to their final destination, so we're going to walk through this container full of those two. passengers to our smuggling room this is the room where illicit food comes to its end this is our shredding machine this is what we generally use for fruits and vegetables that type of staple is called the muffin monster but before Ginger You can send a piece of fruit into the muffin monster, open it, crush it and inspect it. She is looking for evidence of illness. Insertion points for insects and exit points for larvae.

If she finds a small insect like this, she neutralizes the pest risk and sends it to the US Department. of Agriculture for further investigation now we return to the muffin monster Every day 120 pounds of food are ground since they arrive International passengers avocados mangoes and citrus are among the most common fruits that end up in the grinder we get dirty it is important to dispose of them correctly I love it eat as much as everyone else. I'm a big fan of food, but I know the importance of making sure that what we seize due to established risks is disposed of properly to prevent it from causing problems, so next time you have an orange stuffed in your luggage, declare it and leave Let experts like ginger decide if it is possible and leave the serrano ham in Spain because Biscuit will find it.

This guitar may look like a real Gibson, but it is not. It comes from China and wait it's NH Gibb son s o n no Su these are also fake Coach Zipper Bag Michael Core Oo we have Nike sneakers here they are part of a huge counterfeit industry worth over a trillion dollars and given As these counterfeits arrive by mail, Customs and Border Protection officers are tasked with seizing them in 2020 alone. CBP seized more than 26,000 shipments of counterfeit products. Imitations are getting better and more profitable for these fakes. These fake products are not only dangerous to consumers, but they also contain cadmium, arsenic, lead, and cyanide. makeup and disfigured people, the perfume has horse urine.

Proceeds from counterfeiting are known to fund criminal activities including attacks and bombings, people think it's a victimless crime, oh what's the harm? I'm just buying this pocket bag, what could I do? Long ago. because the problem is where the money goes and since everything is now sold online, buying counterfeit products is becoming easier, but stopping them is much more difficult, it's like they go up, you chase them, they go down, they go up again and here we have fakes . Look, that's Customs Officer Steve Nethera, he's America's first line of defense against counterfeits. I have had many millions of Dooll watch seizures.

We visited him at JFK to learn how he detects and stops counterfeits as the counterfeit market surges. Counterfeit products are anything that infringes on a company's intellectual property rights or IPR. They think they are fake Air Jordans, Rolex or Louis Vuitton bags and because these products have registered trademarks, counterfeiting them is illegal, you can be sure that your product will be counterfeit, it is only a matter of time that half of the products are counterfeit. The CBP seized in 2019 arrived in the mail from China, followed by Hong Kong and Singapore, before a package landed in the US.

CBP collects information about the container and the sender's plane using Intel and X-ray machines. CBP reduces one million packages to That will be removed for further inspection. Those suspicious packages will go directly to Steve. He will start by looking at the box. Well, I'm looking because I don't have my glasses on, so I'm fooling the first one when he arrives. is the country of origin, we Tong come from France, the watch comes from Switzerland, when it comes from China, that is their number one red flag, then look at the shabby boxes, then open the package and this is from a familiar shipper that sends counterfeit items, possibly footwear or we have Nike sneakers here, this is obviously to save space, but this is not traditional of the manufacturer to crush all of these items, we try to be careful when we open it so that, if there is something that it's legit, we'll tape it up and put it back like it was originally, but that's rare, chances are what you find is fake, the most common counterfeit bag is Louis Baton, the most counterfeit sneaker is Nike Air Jordans , here we have a Rolex watch. but how does he know well the forgeries of it?

Brands train Steve on the telltale signs to spot a fake. Sometimes they send a kit and the kit will include a genuine product. It will include some sort of results list of what to search for in most cases. The list of results is being kept top secret to protect the brand from counterfeiters, but Steve could share a few things. Rolex would never put their watches in small Ziploc bags. They don't put them inside. The silica gel that Rolex does not ship to people in the United States. States that only shipped to their retail stores. I have another package here, this one coming from Thailand.

We have a variety of items. Here we have Chanel glasses. We have Gucci glasses. Clock. It's jewelry. Louis Vuitton bag. High-end manufacturers like this one. Never mix your products, in other words, a Gucci inside a Fendi or a Louis Vuitton, these people put watches, a wallet inside a bag, they don't put any of this, the stuffing inside and their items do not come in plastic bubbles like some of the fakes are obvioushere we have a Burberry coat and it says burbelly wrongly on the button but some are not so easy to detect the quality improves sometimes the factories, especially in China, it is the same factory that makes good for The owner of the brand also makes fakes and That's a real problem for luxury brand owners.

Sometimes the brands themselves can't even tell the difference. Some of the fakes are just as good. I've never seen one like this before, so of course. I'm going to be picky about the packaging and the branding doesn't look like the normal fake we normally see. It comes from Israel. What is the country of manufacture of Paul Reed Smith Soul? South Korea Israel is not a manufacturer. There are many. of red flags is like half and half it has model code, serial number, UPC number, but what's puzzling me is the country it comes from so I'll put it here on hold and it will be determined later. but for Steve to get hold of something, there has to be a trademark on that product, which we have here. imitator of a product that has a registered trademark or not, counterfeits can be dangerous, that fake makeup can cause rashes, swelling and burns.

They have had cadmium, orenic lead and cyanide in the makeup and he is disfigured. Cadmium is found in rechargeable batteries and control rods in nuclear reactors. Fragrance. Laboratory tests have shown that it contains horse urine. Steve says fake safety equipment is even more alarming when it comes to auto parts. It is a very great danger. Spark plugs that can cause the engine to catch fire. Oil filters causing instant damage. For the engine, airbags are a big deal, it's something you don't necessarily realize, something you have to consider until you need that airbag and it doesn't activate in the protective way it should.

Counterfeit manufacturers don't take into account health or safety or who they heard along the way, they only care about the end result. Many studies have shown that counterfeiting is one of the ways in which criminal organizations finance themselves. The group accused in the 2004 Madrid train bombing sold counterfeit CDs to partially finance their 1993 World Trade attacks. The two brothers behind the 2015 attack on the Charlie Hebo publication that killed 12 people and injured 11 financed your weapons partly through counterfeit Nike sneakers, and sometimes it's difficult to make that connection between that bag you may have bought on the corner and organized crime activity, but this seemingly under-the-radar activity can be lucrative for criminals. and it's because it's high profit and low risk, so when Steve finds a counterfeit product he takes it and then calculates the MSRP of the items using the brand's website and CBP's internal database.

This one here would cost about $1,000, that's the MSRP, what the manufacturer would lose if it were genuine. They are generally online for about $200 in 2020 CBP. More than 26,000 packages have been seized for intellectual property rights violations, worth a total of more than $1 billion, but it's not just manufacturers' profits that are affected, their reputation when a buyer fails You know you've bought an imitation and it falls apart. the real company that the customer blames and over time the consumer's trust in the brand erodes. Steve does all the paperwork for each seized package and then stores the products. Here we have a publication.

He is filled with seizures, so he will go to the storage room in the In the end, all these products will be destroyed, they will be incinerated in a top secret location, so what happens to the counterfeiters? National security investigations can decide to open a case, but Steve says that doesn't happen often. The first problem is HSI agents. many of them are going to deal with the most important thing, which is the narcotics, all the fennel and cocaine that are coming and that are killing people, that is a top priority and it should be, and the second problem, the nature of the counterfeiting, is that these bad actors operate without respecting borders, it is often very difficult to catch an individual because they are not located in the US.

US authorities have no jurisdiction in China, where many counterfeits are manufactured, so it is Hard to put counterfeiters to rest within the US. In 2020, Homeland Security investigations arrested 203 people for counterfeiting, of which only 93 were convicted. Diane says a more successful tactic is to go after counterfeiters online, many selling their copycat products on platforms such as Amazon, Alibaba and eBay to fight counterfeits. Online retailers have launched anti-counterfeiting measures. Measures l These marketplaces truly work with brand owners, we do not want to be a place where a customer purchases an item that could ultimately affect her health and safety.

Amazon's program is called project zero. When businesses sign up for Amazon, they provide information about their brands, trademarks, and listings using this data. Amazon's algorithm scans 5 billion products a day for signs of counterfeiting. Look for things like blurry product photos. Imitated product descriptions. Payment information. We look at the price. We look. reviews and if a listing turns out to be fake Amazon will suspend account in 2019 Amazon blocked 6 billion suspected bad listings on their site we could suspend funds we could quarantine inventory then Amazon's new counterfeit crimes unit takes over Formed in 2020, the unit is made up of former FBI Homeland Security agents and federal prosecutors.

Like Kibaru, every time a fake is identified, Karo's team will send a packet of information to authorities. This information may consist of IP addresses, banking information, email addresses which help us identify the person behind the computer and avoid the jurisdiction issue the unit sends data to agencies around the world to the Euro-Canadian law enforcement authorities we partner and we work with the law enforcement authorities on the ground in China the local authorities react when a brand owner approaches them and wants to do a raid and I've been involved in quite a few of them where they are very successful and then we can decide if we want to start a raid civil suit or if we want to initiate criminal action against them, but even if the counterfeiters are caught, the sentences tend to be low so criminal counterfeiters could face 10 years in prison compared to drug trafficking where the punishment can vary From 20 years to life in prison to the death penalty and counterfeits are getting creative and making their products look legitimate by creating fake Amazon listings to flooding the US Trademark Office with fake applications, it's frustrating that they don't stop, every day we discover new violations for customers and all this has led to a growing counterfeit industry that today represents 3.3% of the global market.

When counterfeits are sold, taxes are often not paid on those products and, in turn, this can also affect economies. By 2022, the counterfeit industry is expected to absorb $4.2 trillion from the global economy and could put more than 5 million legitimate

jobs

at risk. Because we are dealing with a moving target, it is a challenging crime problem to address, it is growing every day and it is due to consumer demand, people need to be educated more about the dangers and the old, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. in Brooklyn, Grimaldi's Pizza consumes 200 pounds of mozzarella cheese a day to feed hungry New Yorkers at 9 a.m.

Tony and his team begin preparing a 33-year-old dough recipe the mixer is loaded with olive oil water from the tap New York C activated yeast and 50 pounds of high gluten flour, so we have it preset for 5 minutes, it's on a low spin cycle, okay and what we do is we sprinkle salt on top of the flour. 5 minutes later, we have our famous dough recipe once the dough is mixed. it should be cut, weighed and shaped into bowls within 30 minutes so it does not rise. Tony trusts Grimaldi's most experienced pizza yawls; They're cutting everything the same size every day, it's almost like muscle memory at this point. point where the scale isn't even necessary, you know they know what they're doing and it's almost like a healthy competition down here to run like, come on, stay away from me, I'm rolling, you gotta cut faster, let's go with other skill.

That's hard to master is rolling the perfect dough in the bowl, so we roll the dough and make sure it's a smooth outer layer and there's no air inside so that, for example, you know if you're rolling it. and you're just going to make a meatball and you're going to put it down like this, it's going to rise and it's going to thin out in the middle and then the pizza, when you lift it up, that's when it falls, so Gale is known for a nice crust and hard what is the texture is the base is the most important thing for the pizza is you know the base of the house no no Foundation no pizza this batch of dough is enough to make 65 to 75 pizzas, which is just a fraction of what which will be needed for the day once all the trays are full they are taken through the hole to these coolers so this is just the dough that was made last night okay so this we are getting ready for our first few hours . at galdi and then we'll start again, we'll probably go through the first batch we did today and then another eight or nine for the night shift in 2011, Grimal moves to its current location, the two-story Palazo building at number one Front Street. was originally built to be Brooklyn's first safe deposit company, now the Grimaldi refrigerators are in the same location as the old vaults, so I think it's really cool that we turned them into our own vaults, so basically protect our gold and this is our gold right here.

Next is the time to make the sauce. Large cans of diced sarano tomatoes covered in sugar are poured and blended. For us we use a shelf life of one day, so we only try to keep it marinating for a few hours, if not a full day. and it goes directly onto our pizza, so we like to keep it as fresh as possible, it's very thick and imported tomatoes Galis processes about 700 quarts of tomatoes each week or about 6624 L above. 200 bowls of mozzarella are cut into thin strips, a process that no longer exists. unchanged since it was opened galdi cheese is very special it is made just for galdi so nowhere else in the world can you get the flavor profile we are doing in our mozzarella.

It is a fresh mozzarella dried with UV rays, low humidity and sodium, so it can withstand high levels of humidity. intense heat from our oven and be cooked and melted to perfection in a short period of time by the end of the week Grimaldis will hand cut about 2,000 pounds of mozzarella an hour before opening Grimaldis restocks their Co so they can be turned back on the oven, is it okay? Now it's dumping 40 pound bags of anito charcoal into the bottom of our kiln right here, so we keep about 10 to 12 bags in there at a time and what we're doing is we're trying for at least a day or more. and dry our charcoal to make sure it burns a little cleaner and doesn't explode from the inside, you know, on top of pizzas, etc., when it starts to heat up, our lighting process and our oven also get a little hotter fast.

The pizzeria keeps the coals in the brick oven overnight to keep them warm, so right now we have a rack inside our oven that holds our cabbage, but right now it's turning it over and getting rid of all the old coal, the which is why we don't do it. clean it at night because we want to make sure it stays warm at night because it will take many hours to heat our floor when the coal is lit the equipment starts shoveling 200 pounds of coal into the side of the kiln compared to cold IDE vood It burns for longer, hotter and with less smoke.

You can't get a gas oven, a wood oven up to 1000° like a week ago, so we can get not only a different flavor profile than charcoal, but also getting a different profile from charcoal. heat and intensity that pizza experiences when the doors open at 11:30 a.m. m., it is all hands on deck to fill orders to be an official Grimaldi pie, it must be prepared a certain way and, like most Grimaldis pizzerias. built your pizza with cheese, the first slices of mozzarella are placed evenly around the dough and the spaces are then filled with sauce, so when it melts you see a little bit of B but you also get a little bit of not too much sauce. too much cheese, so that's what we're looking for with special girl toppings ranging from hand-pinched Italian sausage to thinly sliced ​​pruto and AR chokes, and mostof the pastries are finished with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil from the Grimaldis Romano mix and a few pieces. of fresh basil to help speed up the cooking process Grimaldis uses a two rack system so we have a pre-stretch section and then a stretch and cheese section on this side we are pre-stretching the cheese and throw them on the first rack, right here, everyone standing. on this side there is a topper, which means they are putting the dressings, the sauce, they are finishing it with the olive oil, the basil and then they finish it by putting it on the top shelf, the top shelf is for the oven.

The guy knows they're ready to go in the oven, working in a cold oven takes years of experience to master, from memorizing baking times to maintaining a constant heat, it's not easy to make a perfect cake, so what we're doing is load We go in, we close the door immediately, we give a touch of heat to the bottom of the pizza so that we can move it without breaking it or anything like that. What's weird in Brooklyn is that we use this copper bar. right here you know it's very important with this high heat, if you're using a wooden stick, they break and wear and tear and dry out non-stop, especially when you lift a heavy pizza so you can see it's only been about 60 seconds and they're already rising, so basically I'm making sure I can lift them, give them a little twist and then I'm just moving them into position right here, the high heat means the pizzas only need a few minutes to cook the water in the dough evaporates quickly creating air bubbles and leaving a light, airy texture on the crust, while the charcoal gives the pizza a slightly smoky charred flavor and crispy texture on the outside, people start lining up and waiting up to an hour to get a table and 16 minutes after opening the first and third floors of the restaurant are practically full on the dining room floor you will find waiters with more than 20 years of experience and a good sense of humor wait I thought it was you mommy I'm hungry boom, it You got it, Dad, while Grimaldis has an established clientele, the vast majority of their business comes from tour groups since 2005.

Tony Muya, who runs Pizza Tours, has been coming to Showcase Grimaldi Pizza, so if I can describe Grimaldi in three words, it would probably be legendary, authentic and loved because people love galdi, the key to making a great pizza is passion, it's love, you take the dough, the cheese or the sauce on its own, they're just simple objects , but when you're making a pizza it's a work of art, so for us and me. It is the passion and love that I put into each pizza that makes it special. The iconic Rockefeller tree didn't come from a Christmas tree farm, it came from someone's backyard here in Onana, New York, this year's tree is a found 80-year-old Norway spruce.

At Al Dick's Garden Tree, 75 feet tall, 45 feet wide, and approximately 11 tons, I found this tree in 2016. The Roell Center's head gardener was traveling down the road and saw the tree. Eric stopped by Al's general store to see if Al and his family would donate his tree to Rockefeller Center. He asked me if we could do it. We said yes, but they had to wait a few years. It wasn't tall enough. When they weren't tall enough, they were rolling. I have been searching. I watered it for a couple of years, had it for a couple of years and then this summer when I visited it, it looked great and perfect and it was the year to take it when the spruce was introduced as Rockefeller 2023.

The team got to work protecting it and preparing it, we had a 24 hour guard, Eric, especially he has been here every day, we have been like a family, we are going to miss them being outside every day, but taking this huge Spruce to downtown Manhattan is not it's nothing. easy task first had to get out of the ground we went up and started tying it took us until Saturday afternoon Eric hired a team of local workers to tie the branches to make sure they were secure through the cutting and driving and then it came the crane and we built the crane and put the counterweights on it so it could support the tree.

The crane is already attached to the tree when the workers begin cutting. Eric and his team have private property and passersby to Think about it, it only takes a few minutes to cut down the huge trunk leaving the giant tree hanging in the air. Now we transfer it to the truck. The tree is placed on its side on that 115-ton long trailer and we strap it down. The Tree Goes To make a nice little trip to New York City, often the trickiest part is getting directly from the property you're on to the highway, which is typically a 3.5-hour drive and takes up to 3 days with a 75 ton tree that doesn't I don't want the Rockfeller Center Christmas tree to get stuck in traffic and of course New York City is always very helpful to us in terms of closing the streets and making sure that we can have a smooth arrival to the city.

Normally the tree reaches large crowds, but this year due to Covid-19 it stopped at an empty Rockefeller Center. We like to think that tree arrival day is the official start of the Christmas season in New York and this has certainly been a different year. any other, so we found it even more important to continue those Traditions carefully. He stood up from the truck, then leaned up and slid into the sturdy tree stand in the middle of Rockefeller Center as if placing the tree in Rockefeller Plaza wasn't enough team is working on the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree they took a little surprise to find a little owl this year, workers found a little owl hiding inside the tree and the bird went viral when people guessed it would be hitchhiking to travel from upstate New York.

He was brought safely to a shelter and appropriately named Rockefeller Rocky, for short, also blew up the Internet. The fact that the tree looked a little bare upon arrival, but what might look like a skeletal tree has now received a major facelift. This is the extension to make it nice. and for the next two weeks, the tree was surrounded by scaffolding as the tree's branches settled and fluffed. It has been reported that the workers also placed branch extensions to make the tree appear fuller we make a hole in the tree we put the branch back up with it booming like like a tissue like a tissue it is like a tissue then they covered it with 50,000 LED lights and topped it off with a £900 Swarovski crystal star and finally on December 2, the Rockefeller Christmas tree is illuminated this year via a virtual ceremony.

The tree is always real, you can smell it, you can see it this year, we probably won't let you touch it thanks to uh to co, but I I. I can assure you that it is a very real tree, we have the pine cones for Pro and when it is all over, we take the wood when it is ready and we convert it, we donate it to Habitat for Humanity and it becomes homes for the future.