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
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