DEP Press Advisory on Deer Hunting Cancellation, October 2, 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

The Call of the City Above the City Mr. Kamp says urban rooftop gardens By DAVID KOEPPEL will be in more demand than ever, as people seek ways to cope with the aftermath of the attacks. In describing a rooftop retreat he The horror of the attacks on the World created for a private client on the Lower Trade Center has left millions of Americans East Side, he spoke almost dreamily about with a kind of collective acrophobia. For the pleasures of gazing down on the city many, airplanes, skyscrapers and even ele­ from on high. “Lying in bed you could see vators provoke feelings of fear. the World Trade Center framed with vines,” But others who have made their careers he said, recalling the garden. “Now there’s away from the confines of the cubicle­ a big hole in the view. We used that land- crammed offices of New York City say that znark as an anchor, and it was not as nothing can pull them away from the pre­ permanent as we all thought.” carious heights of a workplace without Though Ms. Purinton now lives upstate in walls. And while some confess that their Ancram, N. Y., she spent many years design­ enthusiasm for working high above the city ing penthouse terraces in New York City for may have been temporarily dampened, they well-heeled clients. One of her favorites was still prefer the great outdoors to the con­ a garden for a transplanted Texan that straints of office life. Many are window washers and construc­ included a small orange grove, blue and tion workers, but an amazing variety of purple hydrangeas, Calla lilies and brooms. other professions thrive up in the sky, and “It was so liberating, like working with a for the inhabitants of this alternate world, it fresh palette.” Ms. Purinton said of doing a is a very special place to work. “I still love job so far above the ground. being out on roofs; I feel no less secure,” Nobody tracks the number of people who said Harry' Wilks, a professional photogra­ make their living atop or alongside the pher who has spent more than 20 years on city’s buildings, but there are a lot of them. Manhattan rooftops. “It’s completely isolat­ The New York metropolitan area counts ed, like going on vacation.” about 5,000 iron workers, many of whom Mr. Wilks’s photographs merge rooftop work on skyscrapers and on bridges and images with building ornaments. He often have participated in the recovery effort at . shoots at angles thaLdlslorlJshapes and size, the World Trade Cenler. And the window so that gargoyles and lions’ heads tower cleaners’ union has about 750 members. menacingly in some photos. Gerard McEneany, who spent seven Only days after the disaster, Mr. Wilks years washing the windows of skyscrapers climbed to the top of a 21-story building in like the World Financial Center before head­ Union Square to document a giant memorial ing back to earth as a union delegate in vigil below. The trade center figured promi­ April, used to think that the danger of work­ nently in several of his photographs and he ing so high up added spice to the job. Then compared its destruction to the loss of a his window cleaners’ union lost two men at loved one. the trade center on Sept. 11. Most people who work above the city “There’s a tremendous amount of fear pursue less artistic visions, and those jobs and rightfully so,” he said. “Many of our rarely get more practical than providing guys are hesitant to go out there again.” water to the masses. Enter Andrew Rosen- The fun of working up high has also faded wach, president of the 128-year-old Rosen- for Ken Dybing. As an electrical worker for wach Group, which installs and repairs the the New York Bridge and Tunnel Authority. wooden water tanks that loom above the he volunteers for death-defying cable walks city’s skyline. On a recent afternoon, Mr. across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to Rosenwach stood on the roof of a 14-story repair its 1,500 red-and-white lights. office building on West 57th Street, admiring On a clear day, Mr. Dybing’s view irum the view as one of his employees dangled on 700 feet above the water extends from the the rim of a new 14-foot-high basin made of seashores of Sandy Hook, N.J., to the Wat­ western yellow cedar. chung Mountains of New Jersey. From time Since the destruction of the trade center, to time, Mr. Dybing and his colleagues say. Mr. Rosenwach said that his company had they are even “buzzed” by low-flying pere­ continued to work on rooftops throughout grine falcons. the city. “We’re more determined than ever Of course, there is also the unobstructed to deliver to anyone needing service,” he panorama of the city skyline, a view he says said. “I like to think our water tanks are was so recently fraught with joy and now also symbols of the city, they’re like flags with sadness. "I don’t remember the skyline that are still flying high.” before the World Trade Center, and being up A longtime employee, Roger Martinez, on the bridge every day is a constant re- said he once worked indoors as an uphol­ * minder that’s it’s gone,” he said. “But we’ll sterer, but preferred the open air. “I still persevere. Some day, I hope I’ll find it as love it up there because you can see how exhilarating as it once was.” beautiful the city is,” he said. “Everyday, it's a different job, and I’m away from all the noise.” It is that yearning for tranquillity that inspires city dwellers to seek out the serv­ ices of rooftop landscape architects like N/r/zTxs David Kamp and Jamie Purinton. to ■3-01 Psae NYC-WTC_000152497