Wholesale Relief

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov, 2001 by Geoff Van Dyke

Empire State News Corp. worked round the clock to move thousands of special issues of magazines in the days after the September II attacks, but the company isn't making money off its extra efforts.

Larry Scheur, president and CEO of Empire State News, has pledged that all profits from special issues related to the September II attacks will be donated to The Widows and Children's Fund for New York City Police and Firemen. The first check, which Scheur says is "in the mid-five figures," went out to the Fund in mid-October.

"We shouldn't be profiting from the severe disaster that's happening right now," says Scheur. "As shaky as this industry is on the newsstand side right now, the families of the New York Fire Department need the money more."

Scheur should know: He was one of the last people to see some of the fallen firefighters. Scheur's Empire State News serves western New York, but he was in Manhattan for a meeting on September II, at the Southgate Tower Suite Hotel on 31st Street and 7th Avenue, when the first plane hit. Scheur met members of New York City Fire Department Engine Company I on the sidewalk in front of their West 31st Street station, and they advised him on the best way to get to the Upper East Side while avoiding prominent landmarks. All the members of Engine Company I on duty that morning were soon called to the World Trade Center and perished when the towers collapsed, Scheur says.