NYC-WTC_000230621

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

NEW York MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 1, 2001 I pointed to a presumed uptowner. “All she to did all the taping work on my house least not in recent history. In 1918,'the tiu cares about is getting her cappuccino." when we painted—we’d see him at all the epidemic killed thousands, and before Certain communities and neighbor- parades with the kids. You hear things, that, so did ail manner of infectious dis- ' hoods were also hit harder than others, but one day you open the paper and your eases. But today, mass deaths seem to Pelham, in Westchester, lost nine people; face drops: 'That was the Frank Esposito happen elsewhere—from war or natural Chappaqua, home to the Clintons, lost that died?’ ” disasters, like earthquakes and mud slides one. Britain lost more people than Long He’s sitting on the back porch of a fel- and typhoons. Island, if Tony Blair’s estimates are right, low paramedic for the Fire Department, Kirk Humphreys, the mayor of Okla- Summit, the New Jersey town that’s home whose family has recently been hosting homa Cily, may be one of the few politi- to the former chairman of Citibank, the frequent barbecues in their Westerly cians who can speak to this issue. His current head of Morgan SUnley, and one home. T did two wakes and a Mass yes- words are both encouraging and chilling. of the state’s two senators, John Corzine, terday,” he continues. “I’ve got another On the one hand, he says, Oklahoma City lost either ten or twelve people—Walter wake tomorrow. If you can’t associate a developed a much crisper, more powerful p. Long, its mayor, still isn’t sure. face with a name, you still go.” sense of itself after the bombing. “We feel “Personally, I’m still in shock," he says. The whole island feels the strain. “My a lot better today about ourselves as a city “I’m down. You know, I ciy a lot.” Abrupt- wife, she’s home-bound,” says Guy Moli- than we did before,” he says. “I think we ly, he starts to do so. “My wife says crying’s nari, the borough president. “She reached found our character, our optimism, our healthy, I hate to cry.” And then he’s the point last week where she couldn’t caring. That hardship brought that out.” But he also warns of the enormous psy- 3 chic toll the attack will have bn New York’s public officials. In,fact, Humphreys ven- 99 , tures that one of the reasons he’s in office ' Xi kjj .AV - is because of Timothy McVeigh. “Our ■vj mayor didn’t want to run again,” he says, •fl '7 . “He might not have wanted to anyway. rjl But I think..he drifts off, hesitating, re- M . alizing that now is not th^ time to depress New York morale. “I think it took some- ' thing out of him.” , He hesitates again, struggling to find the right balance between realism and en- ■ couragement. “You’re going to see some If burnout," he finally 'says. “Mayor Giuliani, everyone’s admiring hiih at this time. But W ■ he’s reaching down into some reservoirs ■ L ’ ’ he’s spent a lifetime building: It’ll take a k long time to replenish that.” . : ;As'citizens,.'he says; we should also brace ourselves,.“This is bad to say," he , ..9 adds.‘But I thinkyou’re goingto see more.’ /‘‘■‘Y ■ divorce, more attempted silicides, more ■ -- J- --y -q-,. . ■■ ' substance abuse; You’re going to see peo~ Gathering of grief: The Armory, on‘2Sth Street, September 14.'- ■ pie really, really, really struggling with what they re.seeing.”' .I;.'..;-'"!'- I 'ri spilling over. “I’ve never told another manwatdi the news; so L went ho Block- j'Joanhe‘Lynn- is a hospice and long- I loved him in my life. But with'ail'mji -’ buster's. The place was mobbed. Hooked term-care physicia,n who's also-head of friends at a wedding this weekend; you ■ around, and everybody was sobbing. 'They Americans for Better Care ofthe Dying, a just put your arms around whomeverj and = all ■ wanted-toget'away'from-it. It was- Washington, D.C.-lbased nonprofit. She you say you love them. 'Everybody is—are' mental overload." ■" has spenTher whole life thinking aboiit we angry? Yes. We’re angry,” ;-T.= s-. - Molinari attended seveii wakes in three death'and loss; “One of the tasks orie has Staten Island—which perhaps has never ' days last week. He has two women in his to face, when' bereaved, is to construct a felt so much like an island. with'both thc office'who do nothing but coordinate his . life worth living” she says. “And it seems solidarity and isolation it implies—was attendance.'“For'some people',” he contin- the culture has fo'do that now.-too.'Not thunderously, disproportionately hit Oneues, “it’s slightly easier knowing the bur- just the individuals who lost people in the out of every five missing firefighters is from * den impacted the entire community,- "World Trade Center. I’m talking about as Staten Island, though the borough makes and that their loss is not ah individual a culture, we have to decide what our un- up just 6 percent of the city’s population.' loss—there are * so rriany people' giving . derstandingisofveryfundamentalque.s- And'a lot oftraders live there, b^use Wall' support Butthedownsidens, everyplace tibns. Working with bereaved people has Street sits just across the water. ■ - . they turn, they see another family who’s' taught me that we have more options than “You could-knock on every: door and lost someone. It becomes'very oppres- '. we think. The kinds 'of choices we make , you’d find someone who knows someone sive.” < . ' ' ‘ are very important; What we decide to do in the Trade! Center or who was Ori a Strange: Relative to it'size, Manhattan now,-while things are unsettled, will chart truck,”says Ron Barranco, a paramedic.“T feels like it had the fewest <asualties of alT the-course for some time to come'” ■ know 30 guys,IsTrom ihy community. ' ‘ \ ' ------ =------ ri-------- We’fe involved with Knights of Golumbus Americans have no frame of reference Additional reporting by Emily Gitter, and one girl, 27, is missing: Frank Esposi- for coping with mass, sudden .deaths, af 'Abby Tegnelia, and Jada Yuan. ,

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NYC-WTC_000230623