These messages are as they were when they were sent out by email
to friends and family outside New York on 9/11 and the days just
after. They're still online at our website.

Hal

==

9/11 AM

Just a brief message--

Lynda and I are okay--stunned and getting our news
from TV (mostly CNN and NY1) as I'm sure you are.
Our main concern is that our daughter-in-law Maggie
works for a law firm very near the WTC (the firm is
at Battery Park Plaza and I *think* that's some
blocks south of the WTC). At any rate, we haven't
heard from her yet, and haven't been able to contact
her firm, or her husband Zach (Lynda's younger son),
who works out on Long Island.

Westbeth, where we live, is well north of Canal St.,
and, while from our livingroom window we can see
a mountain of smoke, the wind seems to be taking
the smoke and debris to the southeast.

We haven't been down to street level as yet today,
a day when normally I would have been taking a
PATH train under the Hudson to travel to Newark,
NJ, where I teach two classes on Tuesdays and
Fridays.

In short, we're well, and we're hoping that Maggie
is too.

Hal

9/11 PM

The first we knew of it this morning was when Ana Doina called from
New Jersey and asked Lynda if we were okay. Lynda (I think--I was
upstairs taking a shower, getting ready to go off to Newark for my
two Tuesday classes) said, "Sure, why? Who is this?" Ana said, "Look
out your window." And Lynda looked out and saw great billows of
smoke rising into the sky. Our windows on that side of the livingroom
look south, but the WLC is blocked from view by an arm of the building
we live in. At night, when we're going to bed we can see the skinny
communications tower at the very top of  . . . I guess it's WTC1. Just
that, and its warning lights--lights intended to warn off aircraft,  
strange
to say.

Most of the day, we sat transfixed by the images on the TV screen, one
or the other of us jumping up every now and then to check the billowing
mountain of smoke downtown. The first phone call was from Lynda's
mother in Florida.

It wasn't until a bit after 5:00 in the afternoon that we ventured out  
of
the apartment, first to go up to the roof about five floors above us.  
Waiting
for the elevator, we checked out the large window near it that until  
today
had a clear view of the WTC in all but the foggiest, cloudiest  
weathers. Just
smoke, today.A handful of people were up there, looking off to the  
south,
where the smoke was still rising, and where a sudden rush of stronger  
billowing
may have betokened the collapse of Bldg. 7, which occurred, I think,  
about
that time.

It was warm and sunny on the roof. The late-afternoon sun was
sparkling on the Hudson, just across West Street from our building.
One of those gorgeous late-summer evenings--except for the
large smudge of smoke. I remembered living as a kid in an apartment
house at 7th Ave. and 14th St., where for a few weeks during WW2
we could lean out the dining room window and see the black smoke
rising from the French liner Normandy burning where it lay on its
side at its dock at the foot of 14th St.

There aren't many docks along the Hudson anymore. The riverfront
is becoming people space, with miles of pathways for joggers, and
skaters, and bikers. And there were a lot of them down there as
we looked down from the roof. Dog-walkers too. Yes, the dogs
still need to be walked here in New York.

So, we decided to go down and walk for a bit ourselves. West Street
is usually crowded with traffic, especially on weekdays, early in the
morning and in the late afternoon. It's what the West-side Highway
becomes here downtown. Today it was free of trucks, cars, taxis.
Police cars and emergency vehicles were almost all we saw. But in
the park and along the pathways used by joggers and bikers--lots
of folks walking along, riding along, just standing or sitting staring
south. Some people heading uptown, a couple with face masks
hanging around their necks.

We got down to Pier 40, just below Morton Street before coming
to the police barrier, where two officers were turning people back.
A block or two below, lots of emergency vehicles, ambulances,
flashing lights, and beyond them the mountain of smoke where the
WTC had been until this morning. Against the darkness of the
smoke the white and green tower of the Woolworth Building
seemed brighter and more elaborate than ever.

Coming back up, we walked along Hudson Street (what 8th Ave.
becomes south of Bleecker Street) and the scene was really
strange--almost no traffic, some of the sidestreets barricaded
(to secure the precinct house on W. 10th Street, a patrolman
told me). Shops (almost all dark, with their security gates down
and locked) were closed, as were most restaurants (all but a
couple Chinese places). Even the White Horse was closed.

At one point, a convoy of twenty ambulances went by, speeding
north, with wailing police cars fore and aft. The ambulances
I saw were from places as far away as Cherry Hill, New Jersey,
just east of Philly. When emergency vehicles weren't passing by,
the street had that eerie Sunday-morning sort of stillness to it.
What wasn't there was what we saw--the taxis, the trucks, the
twin towers (margarine sticks, I've enjoyed calling them) of the
WTC, the business as usual.

When we got home there were more phone calls and more TV.
We learned from Timo (Lynda's son in Chicago) that Zach and
Maggie had been heading this morning for Century 21, a big
store right across the street from the WTC, to get Maggie a
pair of shoes. Later, Zach called again and told us that he and
Maggie had picked up people walking back into Brooklyn
from Manhattan and ferried them home in their car. Folks on
TV started wondering whether there wasn't some failure of
intelligence involved in all this. Duh, double-duh.

Hal     "That's the way the world goes,
             and it's not going well."
                          --Bertolt Brecht


9/11 +1

The wind's changed, and tonight we're getting something of the
taste and smell of the smoke, which plumes north-northeast
through the clear evening sky, Mars standing high over New York
Harbor to the south. We were out only briefly, to walk a couple
blocks south on West Street and cross over to the Hudson River
Park, where we stood for a few minutes looking down at the
WTC area, where some of the standing structures were silhouetted
by emergency lights against the great white cloud arising behind
them.

As we had seen shortly before on the BBC, people along West
Street farther south were cheering and applauding emergency
workers--both those coming north, and those relieving them
going south.

This morning, there was no New York Times outside our apartment
door as there usually is, so after a cup of coffee or two, we headed
out to find a paper.

The Bus Stop, our local breakfast joint, already had a line as we
passed, and we soon found that no newspapers had been delivered
to stores or curbside boxes below 14th Street. And the streets were
empty of traffic--a few emergency vehicles, but mostly walkers
and people on bikes. Most stores were locked and shuttered.

At 8th Ave. and 14th. St., we passed through the police barricades
and headed north, above 14th. St. Non-essential vehicles were
prohibited below 14th St. Basically, we walked up 8th to 23rd St.
and then east to 6th Ave. and then north to 42nd St. We bought
a Post, and then an Observer, and then a Wall Street Journal,
and then a News--but no NYT. So, we walked back west along
42nd St., thinking we'd find one easily at the Port Authority Bus
Terminal, forgetting that the bridges and tunnels were closed, and
thus the buses wouldn't be running. The PA was closed and
barracaded, so we started back down 8th Ave.

We found our Times at Penn Station, two levels down below
street level, at a Hudson News Stand where the guy at the cash
register said there were no more Times at the same moment
another guy was unloaded a new batch onto the floor.

Lynda, our newspapers, and I then continued on down 8th
Ave. until we decided, weirdly, to stop in at the Utopia luncheonette
at the corner of 8th and 27th, the same place we'd stopped
on our walk downtown the very first time I'd trained up to Baltimore
to see her some twelve years or more ago now. Somehow, it
was just a rest stop for us now, and not a bit nostalgic--well,
maybe just a smidgen. So, we ate breakfast, with our unread
newspapers on the chair beside me, and with pop-songs and
Dubya on the PA-ed radio. I had only five bucks in my wallet,
so the waiter and I tried two different credit cards before we
found one for which the telephone call would go through.

People were moving everywhere we went, moving uptown,
downtown, like us with newspapers. Not in Penn Station,
though. There folks were standing in long lines for tickets,
or sprawled in the waiting room (only for ticketed passengers).

At the 14th St. barrier, police were checking IDs of people
wanting to go farther south, into the Village. A woman in blue
was asking two gals and a guy if they had IDs showing they
lived there. Lynda and I just walked past, and were nearly
home. The line outside the Bus Stop was even longer.

Back in the apartment, two messages on the machine told
each of us separately that the Eugene Lang College of the
New School University would be closed today, the building
being used as a clearinghouse/information center for people
who couldn't find people.

So, once again we wavered between CNN and NY1 on the
cable-connected TV. The little one without cable brought
in only Channel 2, the local CBS station. All the other
New York stations were off the air (though not off cable),
since their transmitters had gone down yesterday with the WTC.

Hal          "Flotsam, please, and a side order of jetsam."


9/11 +2

Here's what the morning commute in the NYC area
looks like today. This website has pages for places
all over the country, so have a look. This URL is
specifically for the NYC area, but click around and
you'll find others.

http://newyork.metrocommute.com/

My Tuesday-Friday commute is by PATH train to
Newark. I catch the Journal Square train at Christopher
Street, just before it goes under the Hudson River and
into New Jersey.

   "There is now PATH service from 33rd
   Street to Newark/Hoboken every 5-10
   minutes, but there is no service to Exchange
   Place in Jersey City. You must transfer to
   the light rail at Pavonia Avenue. The World
   Trade Center line will be out for perhaps
   several years, or more."

At Journal Square in Jersey City, I usually transfer to the Newark
train, which comes/came out of the WTC. Just outside Jersey
City, the train comes out of its tunnel and travels above ground
the rest of the way into Penn Station in Newark. Much of the
way, the WTC towers were once visible beyond the unseen Hudson.
Tomorrow I'll see a different landscape.

Hal     "Between the manifold splendors of anger, I
            watch a door slam like the corsage of a flower
            or the erasers of schoolchildren."
                          --Andre Breton


9/11 +30

A couple people lately have asked if we're returning to
anything like normality here in New York, so I though
I'd send one brief (and final) message on this to you.

I think you're already aware of New York's situation--
the clogged streets (improved by the ban on one-passenger
cars on weekday mornings), the downtown streets still
closed, the revenue loss, the Yankees' loss last night,
etc., so I won't deal with much of that.

This morning Lynda and I had to move our car out
of its curbside parking spot for a few hours so the street
could be clean--or rather so the city could once again
pick up some revenue by ticketing and/or towing cars
that don't get moved for street-cleaning. That, according
to the morning New York Times, amounts to $250,000
or so in income for the city each day. So, alternate-side-
of-the-street parking is back for the first time here in
Manhattan since 9/11. The city needs the money.

After dealing with the car, we stopped by the community
room downstairs to cast our votes in the Green/Ferrer
run-off in NYC's mayoral contest--that's the second
time we've voted since 9/11. Who says small-d democracy
is dead?

Not much else. On 60 Minutes II the other night, Charles
Grodin (the weeknight Andy Rooney) did a bit on the
various aches and pains that many of all of us have been
dealing with since 9/11. Lynda's got no voice today. She's
been working her way through the same set of symptoms
I've just about finished with--sore throat, headache,
sneezes, sniffles, mucous running amok, laryngitis, and
so on. I threw my back out (getting up from a couch, it
seemed) on the Thursday after 9/11, and that took about
a week to work itself out, but then I didn't try hanging
upside down from a horizontal bar, as Grodin did.
So, Lynda's napping now, and I'm doing phone duty.

In general then, all's well. Life goes on. How's by you?

Hal           "We don't serve fine wine in half-pints, buddy."
                                   --Robert Ashley