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Re: considering today...



9/13/01

Deborah,

     Thanks for your concern--I appreciated your email. Our local internet provider had connections with Verizon COmmunications, which was located down near the World Trade Center and was affected by the disaster.  So, we have not had internet or email for 3 days.

     I only learned about the disaster at 9:50 when one of my staff members called me from the Broadway-Nassau subway stop. (It's wierd--I always have the radio on in the morning and there were no announcements of anything happening from 8:45 when I got in to work until about 9:30.)  Later, I found out that John had tried to call me at a little after 9:00 to tell me about the disaster and couldn't reach me.  I had tried to call him at 9:15 to ask him a question and it didn't ring through which I thought was strange at the time.

     Anyway, John works across from the World Trade Center towers at World Financial Center (the American Express Building).  He was evacuated by a female security guard at 9:00 who told everyone:  It's an emergency, you have to leave the building--get out.  He and others just got up and left everything behind.

     So, John went outside and went over to a restaurant to use their pay phone and couldn't reach me. No answer on my phone. When he came outside, he saw the fire and smoke in tower one and people were jumping out of the building.  He sorta freaked out and thought that probably the building would fall down because the damage and fire was really bad.  He wanted to get away as far as he could so he walked up to Canal Street and caught the subway to come to my office on 21st street and Park Ave South.  He walked in to my office building just five minutes after the second tower fell down.

     We have both been stunned and dazed about all of this.  I didn't go in to work yesterday or today because I wanted to stay home with him.  On Monday, his division  of Lehman Brothers is meeting uptown to plan and figure out what to do.  It seems as if it will be months before they can go back into their building--3 World Financial Center--it's the American Express Building.  As far as he knows, from conversations with everyone in his work area, everyone he knows is okay-- which is a miracle since several of his co-workers come in around 9:00 to work.  You can see John's building in all of the news coverage--it has a pointed roof top and is right next to the recovery operation on Vesey Street.

     I hope that all the archivists working in the Wall Street area are okay.  There are probably other message on the listserv but this email message from Deborah Richards was the first one I read.  We're hoping to go into UFT tomorrow, if the commuting/subway situation improves.  There have been shutdowns today because of vibrations in the subways.  Please keep New Yorkers in your thoughts as we cope with this horrible situation.  We all appreciate your concern--        Lucinda

Lucinda Manning
UFT Archives & Records Center
United Federation of Teachers
260 Park Ave. South
NY, NY  10010
212-598-9213



     The trauma of going through it and seeing people die from jumping is really hard on John.  Watching the pictures again and again is almost too much.  I

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