Mark and I just got back from ground zero which is right around the corner. We decided to pay our respects to everyone who died on 9/11. There were lots of people milling around. Many brought flowers. Some hung up photos of their loved ones who died. A man was reading a small tribute to each person who died in the towers. It's hard to believe that it has been four years. On Sept. 11 Roxana and I had just started our business (Smart City Kids) and our first workshop (on getting into nursery school) was Sept. 12. We wanted to cancel, but couldn't reach the enrollees so we went to the workshop figuring no one would show up. Everyone came and they insisted we put on the class. That's when I first learned how crazy the school admissions experience makes NYC parents. Before I started Smart City Kids, I worked at the Amex Tower, which was right across the street from the World Trade Center. We lived on 15th St. then, so I'd take the subway and get off at Courtland St, the WTC stop. I was in the tower every work day for fifteen years. I felt like I knew that bottom retail floor like it was my own building. Claire's was there, the Disney Store, Borders, Kelly's photo, Godiva Chocolate, Citibank, Duane Reade - these were all the places I'd shop. Once I slipped on the marble floor of the mall because I was wearing Arche shoes which were dangerous when they came into contact with anything wet. Lots of people stopped to help me. At the bottom of the escalator, when you walked across the West Street Bridge, a little old lady who would stand there every day and say (over and over again in a very high pitched Southern drawl) - Please Feed me, I'm hungry. I used that lady in The Ivy Chronicles. I still wonder where she went after the Towers came down.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

# posted by Karen Quinn : 10:21 PM