From: SandyTesha@aol.com
Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 00:50:50 EDT
Subject: Subway 4 weeks after

Hi all,

Things are ok here. It's really amazing how different everything is and
continues to be here in the city. Although the clean-up downtown is
cruising along, the economy is really grinding to a halt. A producer friend
said that 4 more people were laid off from his ad agency today, he fears he
may be next. He may go have to tending bar, but who will there be to
serve? There ain't no tourists, that's for sure. This is my business too,
and the trickle-down effect is already running it's course. Things are
really, REALLY slow. It's becoming more than a little scary in terms of
finances and the future of peoples jobs all over the city, in every
industry.

Saturday night my roomie and I went to a hotel bar for a drink - we were the
ONLY ones there! A bar, 11pm Saturday night, in midtown Manhattan, totally
empty. It was rather freaky. There were no tourists, and the locals went
away for the 3 day weekend, I guess.

I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge (now open to pedestrian traffic) Sunday,
just as the air strikes were starting over Afghanistan. the smell was
absolutely awful, just acrid, chemical, horrible and burned my nose and
throat every time I inhaled. This is what the workers have to smell all day
and night. The smoke from downtown has appeared to subsided - from the
bridges view, anyways. Still a big hole there. Still so strange to see.

Since Sunday the National Guard has "taken over" the city... Grand Central
Station, Penn Station.. everywhere you turn there they are in their camos
and weapons... Wierd.

The subway system here is completely messed up... the MTA just released the new subway map addressing these changes, which continue to change every day. I have attached a copy of the old map and the new one of lower Manhattan. (hope it comes through!) Even if you do not know the exact lines and stations, it is freaky seeing a big, blank space where the WTC used to be. A commentator on NPR said his son asked, upon seeing the new map, "daddy, where did South Ferry go?" (South Ferry is the last stop on the 1/9 line, where the Staten Island Ferry departs from.) On these new "temporary" maps I see hung in the subway stations, someone has scrawled to the left of the blank hole "WTC Cemetery. RIP."

The 1/9 line tunnels down there are collapsed/crushed from the rubble above.
The N/R line tunnels/ stations are flooded.

Several of the other lines cannot be accessed because rubble has closed the stairways and tunnel entrances.

Commuters travel times have skyrocketed, making it so hard for everyone who still works down there.

Apparently they are having to fill the empty stations and tunnels directly below the rubble with concrete... which will have to be drilled through to make a NEW tunnel whenever they decide it's time to rebuild the subways down there.

More statistics from The Frozen Zone:
4,815 persons still missing
417 found dead
at least 321 identified dead
8,786 injured
179,000 tons of debris have been carted away from the "field", which is 5-6
stories high
30,000 tons of steel have been removed
1.2 million tons of debris/steel remain to be sifted through and removed.
It may take 9 months to one year to do this.

I hope you and yours are well. Stay safe, I really mean it this time!

Love,
Sandy

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