I feel I need to share a little about what it's like to live in Manhattan
now. There are flags everywhere; and there never were any anywhere. You've
seen the firehouses on TV; imagine a firetruck covered in rose petals. I
live on the Upper West Side, and the firehouses lost men according to how
far north they were (the WTC is south of here): on West 77 they lost eleven,
on West 100 they lost only one. There are missing person xeroxes everywhere,
and notes about hospitals to help at, places to send money and lots of peace
notes. The peace notes the other day said "War is not the answer, Islam is
not the enemy." Today we are more normal. For us, that means rude and in a
hurry and honking. For the last 12 days no one honked on the street and no
one shoved in line and the counter people asked how you were and meant it.
Every time we saw an acquaintance, or an old friend, we made physical
contact and we said how really, really happy we were to see them. I still
feel that way when I see someone I haven't seen in awhile.
Of course, we all went out, and shopped, at least a little, and went to work
if we had work to go to. I'm ashamed to say that on the evening of the day
of mourning I saw the new baseball movie with my ten year old and his
friend. The only person in my circles who died was friends with many people
I know from Little League; I didn't know him though. He worked at the
Windows on the World restaurant, and was a well liked coach.
Many people in my circles were witnesses (my husband was). Many escaped by
walking, and running, north. I certainly could have been on a train heading
south to a home visit; many people live in the area, and they are,
generally, extremely wealthy. I would have exited at Chambers and headed
north, most of the time, but if I was going to Battery Park City I would
have gone to the stop under the towers and crossed the bridge over the
highway. By some miracle of timing, the many trains that go there were
diverted but there must have been people shopping because the base of the
towers was a large shopping mall, and many people worked at the stores
there.
Someone from my husband's job who escaped said they saw the elevator doors
glowing red from the fuel. The doors were huge, as was everything in the
building; the scale was oversize.
Just a few stories, it helps me to tell them.
Kate Sharp
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