After 9/11, A New Beginning in Little Neck

Margarita Uvaydova, 38, is a hair stylist at in Little Neck Plaza. But she hasn’t always worked in the sleepy strip mall out in northeast Queens. She used to work at a salon on John Street in Manhattan, just a block and half away from the World Trade Center.

But when two planes struck the twin towers on 9/11, Uvaydova, a Kew Gardens resident, decided she’d had enough.

Uvaydova began working in Little Neck shortly after the attack, even though she had the option of returning to Manhattan. But after the dust settled and travel again became possible, Uvaydova said she simply didn't have the heart to keep going back.

“For a few months you couldn’t breathe in there, because of the air and everything," she said. “You kind of didn’t want to be reminded for a little bit. You need a little time to cool off.”

Uvaydova found herself constantly fretting over calling clients following the attacks, fearing that they wouldn’t answer the phone because something had happened to them. So when a job opening came up in Little Neck, she took it.

“It’s never the same,” she said. “I had every opportunity to go back, but it just wasn’t the same.”