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Center City Businesses Suffer Following Massive Water Main Break

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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A Center City street is still shut down as the cleanup from last week's massive water main break continues. Crews repairing the road say it could take some time until it reopens.

Nearly a week after a water main break flooded several streets in Center City, crews have repaired the main, but are still trying to fix the street that buckled.

"There's a lot of work to be done," said Jim McNamara.

McNamara's pub on Samson Street is among the roughly 40 businesses in the area that were affected by the flood caused by the water main break.

He's lucky because the damage to his pub was minimal.

"By the time I got here it was just a little mud, a little bit of cleanup, pretty simple," said McNamara.

Fergie's Pub was able to reopen hours after the break, but other businesses like El Vez Restaurant reopened a day later.

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Brick Wall Tavern just reopened Friday.

Most of the businesses here are back up and running, but unfortunately not all.

"We are shooting for the 18th," said Zach Sprague, assistant general manager at Time Whiskey Bar.

It may be another week or two before Time Whiskey Bar, near Samson and South Juniper Streets, can reopen.

"We are losing money every day with people not in the door," said Sprague.

Time had six feet of water in its basement, which damaged its beer cooler and most of its liquor supply.

On top of that, the bar needs all new electrical now in the basement and still has a lot of cleanup left.

"I know the building across the street got hit even worse than we did," said Sprague. "They had something like 15 feet of water in their basement. Everybody got hit on different levels, but everybody got hit."

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