Memories...
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Only six miles to go...
Phone calls made, I decided to head for First Avenue (well, Allen Street, actually) and hope the buses were running. Only problem was, it meant heading east again instead of north. But there might be a bus... And if there wasn't, I knew there was a shoe store on Delancey Street where I could get sneakers.
I was thirsty. The day was getting warmer and warmer, and it had been a long morning so far. When I finally saw a deli open, with water and a place to sit down, it looked like heaven. A bottle of water was $1.25. I produced the dollar and fished for a quarter, but he waved my hand away. I was ridiculously grateful - not to save a quarter, but because I was too tired to make the effort of finding it.
When I sat down with the bottle of delicious water, a young Asian woman joined me, and we compared notes about the possibility of subways and buses working. At the next table, three elderly Jewish men from the neighborhood brought us up to date. Both buildings had fallen, they said, and the city was shut down. No-one allowed in or out. Hundreds of people had walked across the bridges, and the rumor was that the "F" train might be running.
My table companion decided she would try for the "F" train. I would have had to backtrack, so I decided to keep going for the bus. I pulled myself to my complaining feet, and headed back out into the sun.
At Allen Street, I joined several people waiting hopefully at a bus stop. We waited. And waited. It looked as if buses were still not running. I also realized that, among the thousands of people walking north, relatively few had been in the buildings - most people who worked there lived in Brooklyn or Staten Island. I was drawing unwanted attention, with the ashes on my clothes and the smudges on my face.
A bus went by - a tour bus. Completely empty, it went past the hundreds of people on the streets, ignoring their plight. Couldn't they have picked some of us up? Traffic was jammed and moving slowly, but a taxi came into the intersection, empty, with an "off duty" sign up. As it stopped in the intersection, two guys waved him down, did a quick negotiation, handed over a fistful of money, and got in the taxi. I felt like crying. I had $80 in my purse - I'd have handed it over if I'd thought of it. Anything not to walk any further.
"All I want is a pair of shoes"
It became clear there were no buses. I was going to have to keep walking. But first, I had to get sneakers. I hobbled the couple of blocks east to the Foot Locker on Delancey Street. The place was chaotic - obviously a lot of people had been there first - and the doors were locked. There were people inside, pointedly ignoring the two people - me and an old lady who wanted a sunhat because she was getting sunburned - knocking on the door. And I was already so thirsty again.
After ten minutes or so of trying to get them to open the door, I swallowed my tears, and started walking again. For the sake of variety, I turned north on Orchard Street, and found something wonderful.
The Tenement Museum on Orchard Street had opened its side doors, and brought out trays and trays of cups of water. They let anybody who wanted to come in and use their bathrooms, and sit down for a while. What a contrast to the Foot Locker who pretended I wasn't there! I looked at the line for the bathrooms, and didn't bother - I was dehydrated anyway, I didn't need a bathroom! And if I sat down, I felt I'd never get up again. So I gulped the delicious water, and kept going. One foot in front of the other.
Later, I heard about someone who had walked down 30 floors in strappy barefoot sandals, which had fallen off her feet on the walk uptown. She got hold of some socks and walked in them. Someone else I know saw someone with a gym bag, and said, "Do you have sneakers in there?" The guy gave him the sneakers - he sent them back to him later. I also saw people walking in flipflops bought in Chinatown, pretty sandals swinging from their hands.
I followed First Avenue in the dwindling hope that a bus would come. One block after another, hobbling down the wheelchair ramps, across the street, back up the ramp on the other side. One foot in front of the other. At one corner, a car owner had turned on his car radio and opened the door, and half a dozen people had gathered to listen. Through the East Village, past the Indian restaurants at 6th Street, past Stuyvesant Town. About a mile and a half later, still wearing my heels, I saw another Foot Locker store, at 21st Street.
This one was locked, too, with staff inside putting boxes back on the shelves, but this time they acknowledged me enough to signal "closed." I tried to persuade them with sign language, as did the elderly Chinese couple also now trying to open the door. They clearly found us threatening, though I can't imagine why. Finally, as a small group gathered, the manager opened the door, and said "Five people only," as we crowded in.
"Cash only," they yelled at us. In hindsight, I realized their credit card machines were not working, and they had probably been mobbed for an hour or more by people trying to buy sneakers, but at the time I looked at them, in their nice comfortable store, angry with me for being a customer, and compared them with my exhaustion, and the comparison did not make them look good.
I found a usable sneaker, asked a salesperson where its mate was, and she snapped at me, "Look for it!" Finally, I found a matched pair, paid in cash (thank heavens for that $80), and sat down. Ah, the bliss of taking off my heels and putting on sneakers! The sneakers weren't laced up properly, but I just pulled them together - I was too exhausted to think about re-lacing them.
I wore those sneakers with their mismatched lacing for two years, and still have them. I never want to forget how I felt at that moment, when I couldn't face the effort of re-lacing a pair of sneakers.
3-1/2 miles to go
I stood up slowly, got my feet under me and moving, left the store, and started walking again. Now that I was in numbered streets, I knew how far I still had to go - about 3 and a half miles. It helped, being able to count off the blocks one at a time. A little further up, a religious group ("Jesus is the water of life") was giving out water. I gulped down one cup, and a woman approached with two more. I held out my empty cup, she started to give me one, then grinned and poured both into my cup. Never had water tasted so good.
I passed Bellevue Hospital, and wondered what the long, long line of people winding around the park was for. They didn't look injured. (It turned out they were there to donate blood, which wasn't needed - not many people were injured.) Frustrated doctors were gathered in front of each hospital, all wanting to help, without much they could do. I was walking, chatting with some others, and one guy had some minor abrasions. The doctors pounced, "Can I help with that?" - they were so happy to find something they could actually do - but he didn't want to stop. He just kept going, as we all did, one foot in front of the other.
The morgue is there, too, amongst those hospitals on First Avenue. There wasn't much activity that day, but for months afterward, there would be a temporary tent morgue out on the side street, dealing with the overflow as they worked day and night to identify body parts. Outside, for months, a construction wall was papered with flyers with the faces of the missing.
The numbered streets were going by faster now - I was in familiar territory, and the end was in sight. Then bad news - at 42nd Street, the police diverted all traffic, vehicular and foot, off First Avenue, away from the U.N. I had to walk west to 2nd Avenue, one long, long avenue block out of my way. I remember joking with a woman that we knew we needed to get more exercise, but this wasn't what we had in mind.
Another ten blocks, and I was near my firm's midtown office. Should I go there? It was yet another avenue block, on 3rd Avenue, and I was afraid that once I sat down, I wouldn't be able to get up again. My legs were still buckling every time I stepped down at a curb. So I bypassed the office, and kept walking, one step in front of the other.
Now there were bars with their doors open, and the TV placed out on the street where people could see. Each one had a small crowd of people gathered around.
Transportaton!
I was at 57th Street, with less than two miles to go, when the miracle happened. A bus! A number 31 bus, that would go almost to my door, pulled up at the bus stop across the street. It might as well have been a mile away - I couldn't run, couldn't even hurry. The bus pulled away.
But now I had hope. I waited at the bus stop, and no more than 10 minutes went by before another bus showed up. I pulled myself up the steps and sank into a seat. My walk was almost done.
People on the bus saw my grimy face and dusty clothes, and asked if I'd been in the building. It was my first experience of what a co-worker would call "the celebrity factor," which would take odd forms over the next months and even years. I've been scolded for not being grateful enough. Usually, though, the reaction is a stunned, then awkward silence.
At the other end of the ride, I lowered myself slowly down the steps backwards, walked another block and a half, and I was home. I pulled myself up the last couple of steps to my building courtyard, limped inside, dealt with the shocked faces and questions from the building's staff, took the elevator to my floor, let myself in, listened to the message from Steve and smiled, petted my cats, drank four glasses of water, and sank down on the couch. It would be four days before my leg muscles would work normally again.
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This site was last updated 02/22/07
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