NEW YORK, NY June 03, 2009 —Vice President Joe Biden was in town for a roundtable at Pace University yesterday WNYC's Matthew Schuerman says it was designed to promote the federal stimulus plan and how it's helping New Yorkers.

REPORTER: The event had a real manufactured quality about it, with reporters kept behind a barrier and unable to ask questions. The six panelists clearly were invited because they could testify about how the stimulus bill had turned their companies around.

That said, some of those stories were touching. There was Steve Chen, who runs Crystal Window and Door Systems in Flushing Queens. He was about to lay off 100 workers, but he says within 24 hours of President Obama signing stimulus bill into law, he started to get calls from potential customers. He didn't end up laying anybody off and is in fact hiring.

REPORTER: Vice President Biden says people will see stimulus projects getting underway in the next few months.