Donald, Jerred, Michele, Kiera and I, the
self-appointed Executive Committee of the days-old Battery Park City Residents
Association, met at Schimmel Hall before the Town Hall meeting we called was to
start. Many residents worked together to
stage this meeting – securing the Hall and setting up the mics, getting the
word out that this meeting was going to happen.
The stage was set with a podium and a row of chairs for the “Executive
Committee.” Sitting on stage is not
something I was prepared for, but there I was.
We were all nervous that this meeting would
dissolve into chaos like City Councilwoman Kathryn Freed’s meeting the previous
week did. She called a Town Hall meeting
at NYU, in a classroom. The room wasn’t
big enough, angry people lined the hallways and were even turned away at the
front door of the building. And Freed
didn’t have answers for anyone, she had underestimated residents’
desperation. OEM was a no-show at that
meeting, which made Freed look even worse.
After 45 minutes of switching to a bigger room and getting set up again,
the entire meeting lasted about eight minutes before completely falling apart,
with residents yelling and storming out.
The press that was there had a great time getting this all on tape.
So on this night, a week later, we were
nervous that our Town Hall was going to be equally a waste of time and erupt
into blame and yelling. Word about
Freed’s disastrous meeting had spread, thanks to the evening news coverage of
it, and many agencies sent representatives to our meeting, including FEMA, EPA
and Red Cross. OEM told me they would
come, but no one was there yet.
Schimmel Hall seats 1500 people. We guesstimated 500 residents would
show. We hoped that the yellers had
their fill at Freed’s meeting. Residents
started filing in about thirty minutes before the meeting started. All of the broadcast networks sent camera
crews and there were quite a few newspaper reporters. I didn’t talk to any of them, Donald did all
the talking. (I guess that's why – or at least how! – he got to be President of the BPCRA. ;)
People packed into the Hall. Soon, all of the seats were taken and people
were standing in the aisles. It was
getting hot on stage, where I sat with lights blaring on me and cameras in my
face and over 1500 people staring at the five of us demanding answers. The Schimmel Hall people turned away all new
arrivals, there was not enough room. The
people were angry. Trouble already!
No one from OEM had come yet. While on stage, I tried calling one of the guys
I talked to the day before at Pier 92 Headquarters. He didn’t pick up and he never called
back. More trouble.
People were shouting at us to start the
meeting. Donald started talking from the
podium. Immediately, people yelled “We
can’t hear you!” So he spoke up, and
said what we agreed we should start the meeting with something like: Look,
we’re not politicians, we don’t work for any agencies, we are residents like
you and we want to share with you what we’ve been able to find out and hear
what issues we should be working on. We
don’t want to detract from the tragedy that has happened here, we understand
that there are more important issues than whether residents have
transportation, but this is where we live and we want to get on with
living. Then he called for a moment of
silence for the people who lost their lives and for their families and
friends. This seemed to get people in a
better frame of mind to proceed with the business at hand.
Donald was all warmed up now and proceeded to
talk a while. While Donald talked, the
politicians arrived. First, a short,
rotund man walked right up on stage to stand next to me. I recognized him from the Mayor’s televised
press conferences, I thought maybe he was from OEM! I stood to shake his hand and welcome
him. He was not from OEM, though. He was Congressman Jerry Nadler. Now I thought, this is a little odd, you’re
just going to stand up here like this is your meeting?
Then a steady flow of politicians marched
right up on stage to sit all around me:
State Senator Tom Duane, Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields,
City Councilwoman Kathryn Freed, Community Board 1 Chair Madelyn Wils, the
Chief Aide to House Speaker Sheldon Silvers,
City Councilman Elect Alan Gershon and all their people. And Annette Guarino, Deputy Counsel from the
Battery Park City Authority, the agency authorized by the City to manage
Battery Park City. The BPCA is also our
tenants’ association. Don’t you think
that’s a little odd to have a government appointed body represent tenants? Anyway, I had already spoken to Annette at
length on the phone and gave her my list of suggested actions for
transportation and health issues. She
had also talked to Donald before and they already hated each other. Donald hated the politicians and proceeded to
announce this from the podium even as they were all gathering on stage with us.
While Donald professed his dislike for all
politicians, Annette spoke very loudly to me on stage, “Can’t you control
him?!” “I just met him tonight, really,”
I said laughing at the ridiculousness of the moment. Even during this exchange I was shaking hands
with each of the politicians as they stepped on stage. They all flashed me their best “Look at me
up here on stage working with residents” smile.
I felt a little out of my league and definitely out-maneuvered sitting
here with them, in my jeans and ponytail.
I didn’t even know who they were!
I knew so little about NYC politics.
This was a great crash course.
OEM never showed up and Annette announced the
transportation solutions that I had proposed and worked on with OEM. She did, however, point me out and said that
I had been working with them to get these solutions implemented. Then she proceeded to announce that the parks
in Battery Park City had reopened, except for the ones still being used as
helicopter landing pads and staging grounds for relief efforts. She said that there were butterflies in
Battery Park City the day after the attacks.
This news did not go over well with residents who were still homeless
and scared. They were not ready to
appreciate butterflies.
Madelyn Wils, who I have come to respect
quite a bit (and C. Virginia Fields, too), announced the formation of the
elected officials’ Ground Zero Task Force, to be led by Congressman
Nadler. They will be holding a Town Hall
Meeting in one week, at the Downtown Hyatt.
From the podium, Donald put Congressman Nadler on the spot, forcing him
to agree to let a BPCRA member sit on their board.
The meeting lasted about three hours, the EPA
and FEMA and Red Cross and volunteer lawyers talked about everything from air
quality to relief efforts to legal assistance in breaking leases. Donald turned it over to resident questions
and as we feared, resident questions were mostly about their own specific
situations, not necessarily applicable to the community as a whole. But people announced various tenant
associations and other groups that were forming and where in the Hall they
would be waiting to meet fellow residents who wanted to join them.
The meeting dissipated without any real
closure, but people milled about for a while, talking, signing petitions for
various things, connecting with each other.
Sheldon Silvers’ office handed out masks. I mentioned, this is perhaps not the best way
to allay people’s fears about the air quality down here. But the assistant either didn’t care or
didn’t get it and just handed me a mask.
Someone from another official’s office handed out $50 phone cards. I took one, but it was the last one so I gave
it to a woman who was waiting to get one.
All in all, the meeting went pretty well, not
much yelling and no crying. We might not have disseminated much info, but we
made a strong statement about the power of community action. I felt exhausted but empowered. I felt really good about my participation in
getting our communal act together. But I
made a mental note to wear my black suit to the next Town Hall meeting!
[Photo of our Town Hall meeting in the following week’s
Battery Park City Broadsheet]
[Daily News article, 9/29]
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