Most Ghanaian in WTC Worked Here

...Curtain falls on fabled restaurant Windows on the World missing 79 of its staff It's belived, most of the Ghanaians who lost their lives, worked in this resturant
It was the highest restaurant in New York, a quarter-mile up on the 107th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and it was the highest- grossing restaurant in the United States, according to its management.
Windows on the World was more than a place to go for a dry martini and a juicy steak. It was a destination in itself and rivaled the Empire State Building as the best place for a bird's-eye view of Manhattan, the harbor, the Statue of Liberty and a good part of New Jersey.
It all is now Ground Zero, reduced to a menacing pile of still-smoking rubble by the Sept. 11 terrorist hijacking and suicide crash of two commercial airliners.
Missing with thousands of others in the buildings is the restaurant's entire morning crew -- 79 chefs, prep cooks, pastry chefs, busers and dishwashers.
Also gone are the jobs of the remaining 350 restaurant employees.
A majority of them, said Windows president David Emil, are facing enormous economic hardships.
No longer can they send checks to relatives in their homelands -- Bangladesh, Ecuador, Egypt, the Ivory Coast, Yemen and Ghana among them.
They and their families in this country are confronted with a grim future, with health insurance for most running out in two months and slim job prospects.
"These were great jobs for many of these people," Emil said last night, explaining that many survivors have few other marketable skills and limited command of English.
Although he and other members of his organization, NS Windows LLC, are trying to find jobs for their displaced workers, the restaurant business in New York is in a state of crisis, with a dearth of tourists and local residents' reluctance to go out.
So most restaurants are more likely to hand out pink slips than hire new staff. Support, both emotional and financial, has been pouring in from all over the country, even from abroad, according to Emil.
Among the best known employees lost in the tragedy was Heather Ho, 32, the restaurant's new executive pastry chef. In her previous position as pastry chef at Boulevard in San Francisco, Ho was honored as one of six Bay Area rising star chefs by the Chronicle's Food Department in 1999. Last year, San Francisco Magazine named her top pastry chef in the city.
"She was such a talented chef," said Emil, who recalled having dinner with Ho earlier this month, "and such a wonderful person."
Emil eventually hopes to rebuild and re-create Windows on the World, although it is entirely too early to say when and in what form. Windows on the World was opened in the World Trade Center in 1976 by the late Joseph Baum, a onetime Navy sailor who became a big player on the New York restaurant scene. The Rainbow Room was among his other high-profile ventures.
Although unscathed by the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Windows closed for a short while that year and then reopened with Emil, who once worked with Baum, at the helm. In 1996, the restaurant underwent a dramatic change, shedding its somewhat elitist image by lowering prices and abandoning its dress code.
It accommodated a variety of tastes and budgets 24 hours a day, with breakfast, lunch and dinner in the main dining room seating 240