Strike's costs likely not as high as estimated

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But Broadway theaters — which sell many of their seats far in advance — continued drawing crowds. "It's pretty much, 'the show must go on,' " said Alan Cohen, a spokesman for The League of American Theatres and Producers Inc.

Except for a 6 percent to 9 percent no-show rate at Wednesday matinees, Broadway theater audience attendance has been normal, he said, based on reports received from producers.

Economist David Wyss of Standard & Poor's estimated that about 25 percent of the city's productive time had been lost during the strike, as people wasted extra hours trying to get where they needed to go. That is substantial for the city, he said, but of almost no consequence to the national economy.

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"This is not a national event or even a regional event, because if people aren't spending money, they're going to spend it somewhere else," he said.

That doesn't mean the strike didn't have a very real and painful cost for many.

"The people who have to get to work at a certain time, who don't use computers, who are nursing home workers or hotel workers or day care providers, those are the ones that are going to be hurt the most," said Beth Shulman, author of The Betrayal of Work, about the lives of low-wage workers.

Consider the toll on Jerry Castro, who works in an open-air parking garage in midtown Manhattan. He lost $50 a day in tips when most of the garage was closed to provide clear passage to emergency vehicles. Instead of 150 cars a day, this week there were just 30.

"The strikers are crazy, creating problems in this cold weather," said Castro, who also spent $20 a day taking cabs to and from his Queens home. "I have nothing."

Marcia Van Wagner, deputy comptroller for budget who had a hand in coming up with the city's estimated loss from the strike, said on Wednesday that she was still comfortable with the predictions.

To start, the city took the measure of the city's annual economic activity — about $425 billion — and adjusted for the time of year. They figured losses by estimating how the strike would disrupt productivity and retail, plus overtime for city workers.

"There's not a magic formula or model or something that produces a number like this," she said. "We'll never really know."

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