End of September – Clean Up Views & Map of Ground Zero

 Army Corps of Engineers sets up shop on Hudson River in Battery Park City.

 Coast Guard and patrol boats, now a regular sight on the Hudson River.  Taken from my apartment

K-9 Units base camp on River Terrace.  It was disheartening to see their numbers dwindle as the days passed and the Units were released from this assignment.  The dogs are only trained to find living people, not corpses.  Taken from my apartment.

 Towing crushed emergency vehicles.  Taken from the 18^th floor terrace of my building.

Clean Up City.  The large muddy open space where the trucks are parked used to be baseball fields, something of a rarity in Manhattan.  The vertical street on the left is Warren.  Westside Highway (officially called West Street) is hard to pick out here, but it runs horizontally in this picture, between the field and the buildings. The WTC Site is just right of the far right building in the picture above.

MAP OF GROUND ZERO

Detail from NYC Office of Emergency Management (OEM) 9/22 Structural Status Map.  The red line indicates the area of “Red Zone”.  The area of gray and red buildings is “Ground Zero”.  Both areas were still closed to public access on 9/22.  Ground Zero remains closed.

• The Gray buildings had been completely destroyed.
• The Red buildings were partially collapsed.
• The Blue buildings sustained major structural damage and were not re-opened.
• The Yellow buildings were damaged but stable.
• The Green buildings were inspected but not affected.
• The White buildings were not affected.

MAP LEGEND:

1. World Trade Center Tower One (North Tower), completely destroyed.
2. World Trade Center Tower Two (South Tower), completely destroyed.
3. 120 Greenwich St., my friend Melva’s former apartment building.  When it hadn’t re-opened by the time her lease expired, she moved east to Broad Street.
4. My apartment building, 22 River Terrace, between Warren and “No Name” Streets.  Official Status "Inspected but not Affected"
5. River Terrace in front of my building was used as base camp for K-9 Units. 
6. Checkpoint at Chambers & Westside Highway.  The Tribeca Bridge overpass (an elevated walkway which passes over Westside Highway) is located at this corner.
7. Public School I89, where agencies set up offices until October.
8. Formerly the neighborhood baseball fields, this is where the dump trucks and other heavy equipment are stationed.
9. The Hudson River was dredged here to dock cranes and barges for debris removal.
10. For several weeks, the only markets that were open were here on Greenwich St.
11. World Financial Center (WFC) Ferry Dock.
12. Embassy Suites Hotel, movie theater and restaurants.  As of this writing, this complex has yet to re-open.  For a few days following September 11, the patio of the movie theater was used as a morgue.
13. World Financial Center.  We used to sit at the outdoor restaurants on sunny weekend days and warm nights, watching people and the Hudson River and boats that docked at the North Cove Yacht Harbor.  The esplanade and patio here are currently used as a street connecting North and South Battery Park City.  While walking at this spot a few days after re-occupying my apartment (#4), a motorcade of black SUV's passed me.  It was probably George Bush, Giuliani and Governor Pataki on their way to a ceremony at the heart of Ground Zero.  As they were passing, I turned quickly to light a cigarette, cupping the match against the wind -- when I turned back and looked up, a bodyguard in black vest riding in the front passenger seat of an SUV, tinted window rolled halfway down, had his eyes locked on me, totally alert and he started to raise his rifle.  I froze and every hair on the back of my neck stood up.  (Note to self -- do not turn away from the passing Presidential motorcade!  Could be more hazardous than smoking!)  There are memorials set up all along this area behind the WFC.  Besides the World Trade Center mall, the World Financial Center mall had the only other retail stores on the west side of Lower Manhattan.  The WTC stores no longer exist.  The WFC sustained damage, so the stores and restaurants here have not re-opened yet.  There is still no place to buy socks or anything else down here.  Where’s the Gap when you need them?  A long walk and a train ride Uptown.
14. City Hall N/R Subway station, where I caught the train to go to work.  Even pre-disaster, this was a bit of a hike.  If it was raining or snowing heavily I would often just catch a cab from the Embassy Suites Hotel.  Post-disaster, the City Hall Station was closed for a while and the nearest open subway stop to me, Franklin Street, is not even on this map.  While no cabs were allowed in, there were no options for transportation but walking to the Franklin Street Station.  And when cabs were finally allowed in, they generally didn’t cruise my neighborhood looking for passengers, since the WFC office buildings and hotel remained closed.
15. Rockefeller Park Lawn, used for a while by NYPD as a helicopter landing pad.
16. Stuyvesant High School, also used as emergency offices by various City, State and Federal Agencies until mid-October.
17. Manhattan Borough College.