Tower Stories

by Damon DiMarco

  “At least from what I saw, [Ground Zero] was the Planet of No Women. Some sort of sci-fi movie where everyone female had been bombed out of Manhattan and only the men had stayed behind.”

  Eventually, I talked to a friend of mine who said, “What do you mean you’re buying your own vitamins?”

  I said, “I don’t have time to spend running all over the city lobbying for multivitamins at supply distribution centers. I have to get back down to the site.”

  So my friend looked on some websites and found Whitehall-Robins, which manufactures Centrum. He called them and forwarded them some of the emails I’d been sending out, which described what I was doing and what we needed down at Stuyvesant. Then a representative from Whitehall-Robins called me and said, “I understand you need some vitamins. We’ve been trying to figure out how to make donations and we didn’t now who to go through. What do you need?”

  I said, “A truckload of Centrum. Right now.”

  She said, “What have you been doing?”

  “Buying the big jugs. I don’t know if you have the individual packets, but those would be a lot cheaper to hand out.”

  She said, “No problem. How many do you need?”

  “Well, we’re doing between three and six thousand meals a day. Probably two and a half thousand people for breakfast. I don’t know how long we’ll be at Stuyvesant, but if you send me ten thousand tablets, I’ll tell you how long it lasts.”

  “Fine,” she said. “No problem. What else do you need?”

  “I don’t know. What other products do you represent?”

  “Oh. Well, we do Chapstick. We do this and we do that …”

  God bless Whitehall-Robins. The next day, a truck came and I had a pallet of vitamins. From there, the word went out to Dr. Scholl’s that we had all these boots but no insoles, and they sent over a truck-load of those. I soon found out that corporate America would send us anything we needed; they just didn’t know where we were and they didn’t know who to contact. It wasn’t like we had a site posted on the web that said, “Call Ground Zero, Incorporated at this number to contribute.”

  That’s when I started calling ABC News and putting things on the little zipper tape that runs across the bottom of the TV screen. So very soon, everyone who watched television would see that we need Imodium. We no longer need bottled water, and we no longer need dog food.

  People thought the search and rescue dogs were starving. Let me tell you—those dogs ate better than a lot of people do. And they don’t eat normal dog food anyway, they eat specialized vitamin stuff—not Alpo off the shelves. We had, like, 5,000 pounds of dog food at Stuyvesant. That’s a lot of dog food.

  The canteen upstairs at Stuyvesant started looking like a Costco. We had cans of fruit and vegetables, bottled water, cans of coffee, bales of rice—boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff.

  I thought, what are we gonna do with all this? We had it stacked up in boxes so you could walk through with a hand truck and off-load whatever you needed.

  We’d get a food donation from Pier 40 and the driver would say, “Where do you want it?”

  “Fourth floor, please.” The Guardian Angels were stationed upstairs and they knew where we needed everything. They’d take care of it.

  It got to the point where we were self-sufficient. But it was still frustrating that we couldn’t always get what we needed when we needed it. We never knew where things were coming from. Also, the distribution centers started to get shut down as time went on. Chelsea Piers Market was shut down first, and then I think Chelsea Piers, and then Javits. Pier 40 was last, I think.

  Chelsea Food Markets needed to get back to business as usual; Chelsea Piers, too. As these sites shut down, we had less and less opportunities to get resources. Suddenly, I wouldn’t have a source for coffee anymore. Or medical supplies.

  We had phone lists ten pages long that read: “Bob: Coffee Guy” or “Mark: Soda Guy.” “Rick: Ice Guy.” If we figured out a person’s specialty, we didn’t need their last name. We had a phone number, and that was sufficient.

  I’d call them: “Hey, it’s Nicole at Stuyvesant.”

  “Right. What do you need?”

  The whole network was done in shorthand, like CB handles. You didn’t know any normal things about people on the list. Like: “Oh, Bob? Sure. He works in advertising. Five-nine. Dark hair. Tennis player.” Nothing like that. He was Coffee Bob. There was Leo the Driver.

  But as sites kept getting shut down, we had to find new ways to get supplies in from the outside. My friends were beginning to report things to me like, “We brought donations to this site, but there was no one there to receive it. Javits got rid of their receiving area to house the National Guard, who are sleeping on the floor.”

  Right around then, the DMZ contracted and moved from 14th Street to Canal. A little while after that, it pushed even further south to Chambers, and closer to us. Even still, a lot of donors found they couldn’t get through the gates to resupply us.

  People across the city took up collections at their offices. They donated medical supplies, boots, clothing, and backpacks.

  A friend of a friend passed along my emails to everyone he knew, adding commentary. “They have enough of this, they need more boots and in smaller sizes.”

  More women workers were starting to work at the site, but we had no sizes for women. Everything was in double-XL: old sweatshirts, T-shirts, sweatpants, anything like that. Anything that no one would be too upset about throwing away at the end of the day. Clean underwear and clean socks.

  People were sending us old used stuff, and it’s not that the thought wasn’t appreciated. But if the underwear had skid marks, we had to say no.

  People started bringing supplies to the Church of Scientology in Midtown, and suddenly there were Scientology members all over the place at Stuyvesant. They all wore bright-yellow T-shirts. We called them “The Chickadees.” Their shirts said, “Church of Scientology” and listed the organization’s address and phone number on the back.

  Someone explained to me that one of the tenets of Scientology is that you help in a disaster—everyone pitches in. They’re apparently very well known for lending a hand at disaster sites. I didn’t know this.

  If a toilet was backed up, I could find a yellow T-shirt, hand them a plunger, and say, “Listen, I’m really sorry. The toilet’s backed up.”

  They’d say, “I’d be happy to.”

  No job was too dirty or weird. It was just, “I’d be honored.” And not in a rote, robotic, zoned-out religious way—“I-would-love-to-clean-up-the-toilet-for-you-thank-you.” They honestly seemed to feel it was a privilege to pitch in. I found that 98 percent of the Scientologists were a real pleasure to work with. They were so even-tempered and gracious, so calm and soothing to be around. Even at the height of craziness, of, “Oh my God! We don’t have these items in supply!” They’d say, “Okay. Relax. I’ll find out about it.”

  I owe them a lot. They had some pamphlets and some books with them, but they weren’t pushing anything. They did a lot of nerve assists, which is where someone lies on a bed and a Scientologist traces the nerve endings across your back, arms, and legs. Just tracing through the nervous system to help soothe, calm, and relax someone. They would do this for five to ten minutes with folks who were jittery. They’d sit down and talk to you if you needed someone to talk to. Anything that needed to be done.

  The Scientologists also solved our drop site problem by saying, “Why don’t you have donations dropped at the Church? It’s a secure location. When stuff comes in with your name on it, we’ll call you. No, better yet, we’ll send a driver to pick it up.”

  So that’s what we started doing.

  When everyone down at the site started asking for cigarettes, we started calling cigarette manufacturers. I had started buying them myself and asking friends to donate them. Finally, I called Phillip Morris. But ever since the lawsuit settlement, they’re not allowed to give away cigarettes anymore, even for disaster site
s.

  I was adamant. “Guys. I understand you’re not allowed to give away cigarettes in bars or high schools, but this is a disaster site. Come in and back up a fucking unmarked truck full of cigarettes. Who’s gonna know?”

  “Oh, no. We can’t really. We really can’t.”

  “I won’t tell anyone where they came from, I promise. I’ll just hand them out and say they were donated. I’ll even say I paid for them myself. Just bring them down here. What’s it gonna cost you?”

  Well, they couldn’t or they wouldn’t do it, and neither would any of the other cigarette companies.

  But a friend of mine orders his cigarettes from Tobacco By Mail, a website catalog where you can order your smokes in bulk—exotic brands, too, things you can’t get at your local metropolitan chain stores. This friend put in a phone call and the next thing I knew, I was talking to a TBM representative who called me and said, “I understand you need cigarettes.”

  I said, “Yes, our workers request these three or four brands the most.”

  She asked, “How much do you need?”

  “We’re going through ten to fifteen cartons a day. I can’t tell you what to do. But if you want to donate a certain amount, I’ll let you know how long it lasts. Then I can call you in a few days and, if you want to donate again, it’s entirely up to you.”

  She sent me a crate packed with all different brands, something like 100 to 150 cartons. Tobacco By Mail could donate because they’re a catalog company—a reseller, not a manufacturer.

  Friends of mine were saying, “I want to pitch in. I want to donate something but I can’t take time off from work. I have nothing that could be of use. What can I do?”

  I said, “Can you pitch in five bucks for a pack of cigarettes?” Everybody could do that. I emailed everyone: “Ask all your friends who smoke if they can buy a carton of cigarettes. Put the cartons in a duffle bag or a milk crate and give me a call when it’s full, and we’ll send someone over to pick it up.”

  A few gals who worked in the art department at Martha Stewart Living put together backpacks, because they knew we needed packs to transport stuff. We had to have thick bags to keep things inside clean. Open bags gathered too much contamination.

  These gals asked every staffer to bring their old duffle bags to the office. Then they packed the bags with clothes and toiletries—Martha has raised these girls well. They put little American ribbons on every bag with notes next to them that said, “Good luck. We’re with you—Martha Stewart Living.”

  I wept. I don’t even think Martha knew that her art department did that.

  Cleopatra Records send down a big duffle bag full of CDs. They said, “We don’t know what else we can donate, but if some of those guys might need something to listen to, give them these.” They sent major labels. So I was handing out John Cougar Mellencamp, P.O.D., and an awful lot of Bon Jovi. Anyone from Jersey got a Jon Bon Jovi CD.

  During my first seventy-two-hour shift, I hardly stepped foot outside Stuyvesant. After that, I tried to make sure I got fresh air at least twice a day, but I was afraid to leave the site because I didn’t know if I’d be able to get back in. Security protocols changed so quickly that, even if you knew the cops at a checkpoint or the Army or whoever it was—even if you recognized them by sight, six hours later someone else would be in charge. The Air Force in charge. Police. Marines. It was crazy.

  I’m pretty sure the head of FEMA told me at one point that there were seventeen different government agencies involved at Ground Zero, including all branches of the military, the police, OEM, FEMA, the works. Communication within these organizations is difficult enough. But imagine having basically every American security relief volunteer and military outfit on active duty at once. It was amazing anything happened at all.

  It was particularly frustrating for us because we repeatedly heard people say, “No, you don’t have clearance. I don’t know who you are. No.” I would send runners down to the site where the food deliveries were coming in, who would never come back. We were hemorrhaging volunteers, which is one reason we all ended up sleeping at the site. We didn’t have passes, and if we left the building, we’d be unable to return. After three weeks, we were down to a skeleton crew.

  Right outside the building, we had this little smoking area where everyone would hang out on their breaks, chatting and drinking bottles of water. I remember I was there at one point and starting to hallucinate from fatigue. I looked at my watch, which said three o’clock, and thought, wow, the lunch rush was kind of quiet today. Huh.

  It took me a while to realize it was pitch-black outside. It wasn’t three o’clock in the afternoon; it was three o’clock in the morning.

  Working at Stuyvesant was like working in a casino. No windows, bad lighting, and all the clocks had stopped.

  Without realizing it was happening, I began to feel the stress take hold of me. At one point, I said to a young volunteer, “I need a break, can you keep things going?” I walked outside to Chambers Street, where at first I started shaking. Then I broke down crying. A couple of the guys I’d become close to—I was feeding them three times a day—came up to me and asked, “What’s going on?”

  I was way past my limit. I knew what had to be done and my brain wanted to do it, my heart wanted to do it, but the body couldn’t. So the triangle broke down, totally exhausted. At the same time, I was stuck. There was nobody to hand everything off to.

  A Sergeant Gaita from the Marine Corps was in charge of passes at that point. They’d set up their security headquarters in a little war room tent across the street from the school. The place was a tangle of maps laid out on tables, secure phone lines snaking all over the place, computer terminals, the works. These friends of mine who saw me break down escorted me into this tent, which petrified me. I knew I’d totally dissolved, and I knew this couldn’t look good. But all I could do was weep and think, I’ve lost my shit and they’re not gonna let me back in. Get a grip! It was like when you come home drunk to your parents and you try to sober up really quick.

  Sergeant Gaita gave me a hard look and said, “What do you need?”

  I said, “I need to get my people back on the site. I need to put together viable shifts so that we can have humane, sensible conditions for the volunteers. I’ve been here so long because I can’t find anyone to hand this off to. You’re locking out all my good people.”

  He said, “Our first concern is you. We don’t want you messed up. We want you to go home and rest up.”

  He was talking to me a little patronizingly, like you’d talk to a crazy person. And I guess I can understand. From their point of view, I was just this crazy civilian who was working too hard. But the NYPD and the fire department guys told the soldier, “You don’t understand. If she’s not here, we don’t eat. Give her whatever she needs. If it wasn’t for these people … please.”

  So they handed me forty all-access colored, numbered passes, and I had to give them the names, phone numbers, and social security numbers of every volunteer who received one. The volunteers would have to show their passes as they came into the site. If their name didn’t match the list, they’d be taken away, and it was my ass. I only gave them out to the most trusted workers we had, and whoever was in charge of a department at Stuyvesant got a couple of passes to do likewise.

  I said, “If you smuggle someone in, we all lose our passes. Do you understand this?” Everyone did, and that was that. The situation was going to work out.

  Sergeant Gaita handed me the forty passes and said, “Okay. You have twenty minutes to hand these out and then we’re escorting you home. You can’t come back for eight hours. Get some rest.”

  “What are you talking about?” They were treating me like a crazy person again.

  He said, “Look. We need you here. If you break down, there’s no one else to keep the machine going. You have to sleep.”

  That’s when I realized that they understood what I was doing. I’d become a very important idiot savant.

>   I walked back across the street to Stuyvesant with the passes, and some friends of mine there were like, “Hey, Nicole. How’s it going?”

  The police officers on either side of me said, “She can’t talk to you right now, she’s got to get some paperwork done and after that, we’re escorting her home.” They wouldn’t let me carry my own backpack. “No, ma’am,” they said. “We’ve got it.” They escorted me to the ladies’ room and stood outside the door. They put me into a squad car and drove me back to Brooklyn. One of the cops knew my neighborhood and said, “We’ll drop you off on the corner. We don’t want your parents to get worried.”

  I said, “How old do you think I am?” I didn’t have any makeup on or anything. They thought I was nineteen.

  I took a shower and really slept. And then I went back down to the site. I spent many more overnight shifts there, twenty-four and forty-eight-hour shifts. It’s what needed to be done.

  One of the things I learned working at Stuyvesant? What’s essential and what wasn’t. Laundry and getting your hair cut aren’t important. Neither is cleaning your house or cooking. Shopping, reading, watching television. Keeping up on your email. Going out to museums, going out to shows. Seeing your friends, putting on makeup. Not important.

  Every morning before going back down to the site, I’d re-assess things while getting dressed. Should I wear rings? No. Unimportant. A watch? Important. Nail polish? Not important. Nail file? Important—I don’t have particularly long nails, but if they got in the way, you’d cut them off. Hair barrette or a rubber band, get the hair out of the way, pull the bangs back. Is this jacket important? Yes, it warms me and protects me. A notebook? Not really. A cell phone? Yes. Everything had to earn a place in my pockets or my bag. It became an exercise in “what can I lose?”