Tower Stories

by Damon DiMarco

  Must call my mother every other day. Must put quarters in my pocket in case I need change for a pay phone. Must have eye drops. Must carry Vaseline for my cut-up hands. I’d think, yesterday, we were running out of pens—let me grab some of those, and ziplock baggies for people who went through the food lines and didn’t know when they’d be back. “Take some more,” I could say, and hand them a bag. “Take some for one of your pals who doesn’t have the energy to walk up to Stuyvesant, and give it to them.”

  I started opening up the different pockets on their uniforms and shoving in PowerBars, eye drops, vitamins, Imodium, sunblock, candy bars, anything I could get in there so they’d have it down at the site. The rescue workers would protest and say, “No, no. I don’t need it. Really.” But they’d come back later on, saying, “I handed everything out, do you have any more?”

  I also found myself getting very frustrated with people who weren’t at the site. People who were doing things that now seemed trivial to me. “I’m gonna do brunch. I’m gonna go to the library. I’m gonna go walk the dog.”

  Walk the dog? You’re kidding, right? Hold the dog out the window and squeeze it’s ass. Figure out a better system for walking the dog, and that’s half an hour you can use to feed someone.

  Most of all, I had to learn to recognize that not everyone functioned the way I did. Not everyone thought it was important to help. At one point, I saw a young family going out to a restaurant on a Sunday morning in Lower Manhattan, and I thought, my God. That’s what a person should be doing. But I honestly didn’t know how they did it.

  Friends from all over the country would call me, the only person in Manhattan they knew; they were trolling me for experience. They wanted to pick out the pearls and live vicariously. That way, they could call their own friends and say, “Did you hear about Nicole working at Ground Zero? Did you hear about the guy who came into her place to eat after picking up human hands?” Like it was the biggest party of the year, and since they couldn’t get in, they wanted to say they knew someone who was there. It infuriated me, so I stopped talking to them.

  I feel the same way when people go down to Ground Zero now, as if it’s a tourist attraction. I can understand how people want to go down to see it, to understand it, to pay their respects. But then I heard from a friend of mine in California who was coming to town. I said, “What are you gonna do while you’re here?”

  “Oh, it’s gonna be great. I’m gonna get my hair cut, I’m gonna go do yoga, I’m gonna go to Ground Zero, I’m going to the MOMA, and I’m having dinner with so-and-so …”

  Great. You’ve just dismissed one of the most profound experiences this country has ever had. I hope they go down there, glib and giddy, and get the shit scared out of them by the words still etched in the dust of the buildings all around the site.

  “God help us.”

  “Pray for us.”

  “This way to the Morgue.”

  There’s a shadow history on this city that might never go away.

  We were finally running efficiently and we still hadn’t seen anyone from FEMA or OEM. No one ever popped in and said, “How can we help?”

  I’d taken to staying over at the site again. Why not? We had our own little city with clothes, beds, showers, food, a radio with batteries—everything you needed. If you brought a cell phone charger down with you, you could basically run the country from there. It was easier, psychologically, to stay there rather than to get distracted by the outside world. You got more done.

  We never knew how long it would go on. A campaign of Chinese whispers began: “I heard we’re gonna get ousted today.” “No, I heard tomorrow.” “Should we order more coffee?” “Should we order more water?” “They’re changing the color of the passes again. Yellow, then red. Then I hear they’re moving into blue.”

  Finally, the powers that be ordered a shutdown at Stuyvesant. Rumor had it that one of our senators had a daughter who was a student there and didn’t like being bussed to another location. They wanted to turn the school back into a school and move all the relief services to a big cruise ship over on the waterfront. But we had millions of dollars’ worth of supplies in there, and I wanted to know what was going to be done with it.

  I was told, “Sanitation’s coming tomorrow and will throw it all out.”

  “No, no, no!” I said. “Give me three days. We’ll find people to take it.”

  They gave us the days. We called every homeless shelter and church, every volunteer organization, soup kitchen, and volunteer ambulance corps we could think of and told them, “Make an appointment, come on down, bring your vans, and shop. Take whatever you want.” We gave the food supplies to the school as thanks for hosting us, and found homes for about 95 percent of the stuff we had.

  While we were packing everything up, the head of FEMA finally came in, a huge man with huge hands. He seemed very sweet. The heads of the police and fire departments were with him.

  He said this to me: “Wow, you guys really filled a gap. You’ve done an amazing job.” It turned out that no one had ever stopped in on us because they thought we were an official organization, like the Red Cross.

  “Well,” I said, “I’d like to take you on a tour so we can show you what we’ve been doing.”

  I started doing a walk-and-talk. “And here we have the Beverage Center. You can get a trolley here and take what you like. Just sign here because we need to know your name and phone number so we know which deliveries went where. Now, if you’ll follow me downstairs …”

  I wasn’t looking, but Karen, who’d run the clothing department, said, “I wish you could have seen the look on the FEMA director’s face. He couldn’t believe it.” Apparently, he’d run the Oklahoma City operation, and he couldn’t believe how we’d organized the Clothing Center, the kitchen, the sleeping bays, the Massage Floor.

  When we were finished, he turned to us and said, “This is the most impressive volunteer operation I’ve ever seen. I have to thank you, and the mayor will be congratulating you, trust me.”

  I never heard from him again. But in all honesty? That doesn’t matter one bit.

  UPDATE

  Within a week of September 11, 2001, the EPA issued an “all clear” to the citizens of Lower Manhattan. Essentially, EPA said that no toxic chemicals existed in the air or water as a result of the Towers falling. This report was directly contradicted by several leading independent firms whose instrumentation showed levels of mercury, lead, benzene, silicon, sulfates, and other hazardous materials that literally went off the charts.

  The students of Stuyvesant High School, where Nicole Blackman worked, were asked to resume classes at the facility on October 9, 2001, despite the fact that fires still smoldered nearby and workers in hazmat suits were busy carting debris away from the school premises. Similar situations occurred in nearby schools PS/IS 89 and PS 234.

  Life went on.

  In the fall of 2006, however, a group of Stuyvesant High School students and alumni held a press conference with Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. The group demanded that the federal government admit it had misled minors regarding potential health concerns present in Lower Manhattan in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks. A petition was presented that had been signed by more than 170 Stuyvesant alums requesting a federally sponsored health program of screenings, treatment, and insurance for former Stuyve-sant students.

  Stringer took the stand and testified that the Stuyvesant Parents’ Association had heard from 400 Stuyvesant alums who reported suffering from unusual first-time illnesses. These illnesses included, but were not limited to, sinus infections, worsened allergies, bronchitis, asthma, and the so-called “WTC cough.” One student had even been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and believed that his disease was caused by exposure to toxic dust at Stuyvesant High.

  To date, the federal government has not responded.

  61 For months after September 11, the West Side Highway became the main conduit to shuttle rescue and recove
ry workers in and out of Ground Zero.

  62 Located on 26th and Lexington Avenue. The Armory became the site where thousands of desperate family members filled out detailed, nine-page missing persons reports to assist in the search for survivors. Lexington Avenue became wallpapered with homemade posters showing the faces of missing persons with heartbreaking descriptions.

  63 A popular upscale, full-service supermarket in Manhattan.

  64 The Guardian Angels are a volunteer urban watch patrol.

  TONY RASEMUS

  Tony Rasemus, fifty-four, served two years as a marine in Vietnam. A lifelong resident of New York City, Tony has learned many skills over the years: he trained in ironworking and construction and volunteered his skills at Ground Zero the day after the attack on September 11.65

  Tony is a wiry man with a bristling reddish mustache and unstoppable energy. He frequently leaps to his feet in order to re-enact the scenes he describes. He pantomimes how he lifted rubble with his hands, and illustrates the proper posture for crawling into a debris cavity.

  THAT FIRST DAY, I went to volunteer down at the Javits Center and nothing was organized.66 There must have been 10,000 people from all walks of life. People wearing shorts and sandals … I don’t know what they were thinking. That’s totally inappropriate clothes for rescue work. They had various tables set up for construction workers, ironworkers, riggers. I said, “Where do you want me to go?”

  “Go over there. They’re taking names.”

  I saw a couple of guys hanging around with tool belts; I had my Carhartts with me.67 So I went toward them. My wife had gone down with me. She was trying to find a place to give blood. She said, “Do you want me to hang out with you for a while?”

  I said, “Nah, I don’t know. This might take a while.” So we said goodbye.

  She wasn’t gone five minutes before we got loaded onto a bus—a variety of guys—and it was Zip!> Right into Ground Zero.

  There was all kinds of people on that bus, but mostly construction workers and ironworkers. They let us off a few blocks away from Ground Zero. Don’t ask me exactly where we were. I didn’t know the geography of that area when it was functional. I’d been in Windows on the World, and I think at one time I knew somebody who had an office in one of the Towers. My knowledge of the geography basically consists of the subway tunnels and the PATH trains.

  We couldn’t go directly into the rubble. We had to move west and swing around, I know that much. They took us down the West Side Highway, people cheering with signs up on the sides of the road.

  I can tell you one thing that you should probably note in your thing there: as my wife and I went down to the Javits Center, I was looking at the various construction sites around the city. I noticed that all the cranes were at a rest position. Right? There was no ironwork being done. You want to find heroes from the rescue workers; those ironworkers are the guys to talk to. I’m telling you right now—outside the EMS people and the firemen, there was nobody in this city stood taller than the ironworkers. They shut down every construction site in New York City. I heard some of them talking to each other, and they said, “This is the only job we got now.” And I’m telling you, you could tell. You saw nobody climbing the iron all over the city. Nobody up there riveting. Nobody doing bolt-ups. I think they did an across-the-board union call. They shut down and headed in.

  The second group I saw the most of down there was the electrical workers. Lots and lots of IBEW.68 They had apparently lost some people.

  Firemen were still suppressing fires in the rubble. We had a couple of cutters, a couple of burners, some small pieces of heavy equipment. I don’t know which Tower I was working in. You couldn’t tell anything from what you were standing on, I can tell you that.

  We were all on the bucket brigade that first day. A whole bunch of guys would go up, pick up a piece of debris, stick it in a bucket, and pass it back down the line. Empty it out and pass the empty bucket forward. Buckets. Whatever you could pick up with your hands went into the buckets.

  The constant outpouring of citizens’ grief immediately following the 9/11 attacks often expressed itself publicly.

  You’d create a cavity in the debris. Then you’d hear somebody say, “Stop! Bring the dogs, bring the dogs!” The rescue dogs would come up; mostly German shepherds, but I saw one golden retriever. They’d get in there and sniff around. Next word you’d hear: “Bring the body bag up.” The rescue workers would go in and drag out whatever they could by hand. We didn’t find anybody alive.

  Twice I heard rumors that they’d brought people out alive. I think the last group was on the thirteenth, which was Thursday. A fire truck had been buried, and I heard at first that they’d found five guys, but later I heard it was two.

  All I really know is this: I personally saw no one taken out alive. And I never saw a whole body, either. Just parts, everywhere. Everywhere. Pieces strewn in with the rubble, not readily apparent until you got right up to them. And construction workers didn’t touch anything. The protocol was to call for the EMS people, and they’d come up to handle it. Then you’d go right back to the Pile. You’d leap back in and get to work again.

  There was one section that had been a bridge between two buildings, and the dogs were going crazy over there, right? Me and the ironworkers went over to it and some battalion chief, some fire guy, said, “No, you can’t get in here, this is unstable.”

  And we were like, “Yeah, we know, but the dogs. There’s something in there. Let us go in.”

  The guy kept telling us it’s dangerous, but the ironworkers were like, “We walk around thirty stories in the air on bare beams, okay? Trust us. We can do this.”

  So about two hours pass by and they finally let us in. We brought out twelve bodies. Later on, I talked to a fireman and I learned that this location had been one of their command posts.

  See, when the firemen showed up at the Towers, because of the immensity of the disaster, they set up command posts so they could say, “This company goes here, this company goes there.”

  We brought out nothing but firemen from under that bridge. Damn thing must’ve dropped right on top of them.

  The second day, Thursday, I went down to the Javits Center, same as before. It was now a lot more organized, but it was also taking a lot longer to get people dispatched. They were trying to segregate people by skills, and this time they said, “We need acetylene burners.”

  There was a bunch of us who stuck up our hands. “Yeah, that’s us.”

  They said, “C’mon,” and they moved us to the front of this long line. There was, like, eighteen or twenty of us, and everybody had to sign up: what your skills were, your phone number, your address, all this and that. But after we did the paper, we stood around and waited. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited … for whatever vehicle was supposed to take us down.

  This stake-bed truck pulled up and a crew of guys, ironworkers, got off. They were wearing dark-blue T-shirts that said, “Ironworker Local, Mackinaw City, Michigan.”

  I went up to one guy and I said, “Are you really from Michigan?”

  He says, “Yeah. A bunch of us came down. Five of us.”

  I said, “Not for nothing, but how’d you get here?”

  He looks at me, he grins real big, and he says, “Drove all night.”

  Right then, we’re standing there and the guys in charge, the foremen, called out that they wanted a burn crew. Like I said, there were, like, twenty of us, and these guys are ready to go. I mean ready to freakin’ God-damned go, man. These guys were like marines. But they sent another crew instead.

  After about two hours, we got sick and tired of waiting. Some of the local guys from New York City and Jersey? They just started walking down the West Side Highway. I mean, you could see where the smoke column was above Ground Zero, right? So we started out. A group of twenty guys straggling down the road with equipment.

  At one point, a truck goin’ north on the West Side Highway stopped and we talked to the peop
le inside. It was this pickup truck with a young couple in it.

  “My wife’s manicurist is from Russia; she’s lived here about eight years. She says to me just the other day, ‘I’ve never seen Americans be like this. I never knew this is how Americans could be. Especially in New York.’ I think that’s what a lot of people think. And that’s a shame.”

  “Yeah,” they’re saying to my guys. “We love you. Thank you. Way to go.”

  Next thing I heard was one of my burners say, “Can you drive us down there?”

  I have no idea who this couple was. They were in a brand-new pickup truck, and they thought about it and said, “Yeah. We can get you down there.” So fourteen or sixteen of us jump up on the flatbed—boom boom boom—of this regular old-fashioned American pickup truck. I’m sitting squashed in next to the tailgate. There’s an ironworker to my right who’s French Canadian, must weigh at least 250 pounds. I got him around the neck and if he falls off the truck, he’s gonna take my arm with him. His neck was the size of my thigh.

  Another guy was holding on to me, right? Everybody’s just grabbing on. All we needed was a little olive oil on us. We were in that truck like sardines.

  And these guys were going into Ground Zero for the first time, so everybody’s like, “We gotta come up with a story to get through the blockade.” See, we weren’t officially cleared ’cause we just walked away from the Javits Center. We didn’t want to wait.

  But I told the guys, “Look. We don’t have to come up with a story. I was there yesterday. The firemen and the policemen ain’t gonna stop you. They got too many brothers buried underneath. The only problem we’re gonna have is the military.”