“Sell first, repent later.”

This chapter examines how Chelsea Piers facilities, located directly up the Westside Highway from Lower Manhattan, had served a major role in disaster response from the earliest hours of the 9/11 attacks. The piers offered water stations for people fleeing from downtown and became a key debarkation point for the waterborne evacuation, delivering more than 10,000 people off the island from its docks. Then, the following day, more than 30,000 people arrived to volunteer their help and connect with other New Yorkers. In the days that followed, thousands of uniformed personnel were fed in an events center at Pier 60, hundreds of rescuers slept and showered in Chelsea Piers facilities, and truckloads of donations and supplies were assembled and processed for delivery to the trade center site. By Wednesday, the flood of private citizens' donations had been supplemented with massive corporate contributions arriving in bulk. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard was confronted with two opposing missions: protecting potential targets of a second-wave attack and continuing commerce in a port that regularly handled approximately 6,000 inbound and outbound containers daily, the closure of which created complications worldwide.

“A sea of boats”

This chapter describes how, after both towers of the World Trade Center fell, Lower Manhattan had become an achromatic world churning with dust and paper. Desperate, ashy people pressed up against the railings along the water's edge. Though “a sea of boats” had already rallied — tugs, tenders, ferries, and more, pushing into slips and against the seawall to rescue as many as they could — more boats were needed. Now, just before 10:45 a.m., the Coast Guard formalized the rescue work already under way by officially calling for a full-scale evacuation of Lower Manhattan. At 11:02 a.m., the Coast Guard's evacuation calls were echoed by New York City's then mayor, Rudolph Giuliani. At this point, the mission grew exponentially. Now it was not only those caught in the immediate aftermath that needed transportation, but “everyone south of Canal Street.” In fact, workers were streaming out of buildings much farther north than Canal, all looking for a way home. While these people might not have been in immediate danger — though even that was unclear, given that the extent of the attacks was still unknown — they were still stranded, disoriented, and reeling.

“New York City Closed to all Traffic”

This chapter examines the transportation shutdowns that quickly ricocheted out beyond the New York area following the attacks of 9/11. Each subsequent event amplified the crisis unfolding at the World Trade Center, intensifying the fear and panic and increasing the numbers of people directly caught up in the catastrophe. With the avalanche of toxic dust and debris came terror. Bridges and tunnels were closed, streets were clogged with stalled traffic, and no trains were moving. Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of visitors, residents, and commuters found themselves trapped in Lower Manhattan, struggling to grasp what was happening and trying to answer one question: How could they get off the island? Passengers then arrived in waves at the World Financial Center ferry terminal.

“I need a boat.”

This chapter highlights the experiences of mariners during the waterborne evacuation after the 9/11 attacks. On the morning of September 11, mariners brought specialized capacities to all manner of diverse tasks. The on-the-fly, solution-oriented approach — along with the steadfast willingness to help — proved invaluable on that grim and forbidding day. By late morning, an armada of different vessels, from dinner yachts to tour boats to tugs, had responded to the disaster unfolding in Lower Manhattan. Hearing the pronouncement that a full-scale evacuation was now under way eliminated any doubts Spirit Cruises Operations Director Greg Hanchrow might have had about filling the Spirit Cruises dinner boats with passengers. In some respects these vessels, designed to load and offload large numbers of people quickly and efficiently, could not have been more perfect for the mission. Wondering where he could disembark so many people, Hanchrow called the general manager of the Lincoln Harbor Yacht Club in New Jersey, Gerard Rokosz, whom he had known for years, and learned that the New York Circle Line Sightseeing Yachts had already begun ferrying passengers to that location.

Trajectories of psychological distress among individuals exposed to the 9/11 World Trade Center disaster

Background Individuals present in lower Manhattan during the 9/11 World Trade Center (WTC) disaster suffered from significant physical and psychological trauma. Studies of longitudinal psychological distress among those exposed to trauma have been limited to relatively short durations of follow-up among smaller samples. Methods The current study longitudinally assessed heterogeneity in trajectories of psychological distress among WTC Health Registry enrollees – a prospective cohort health study of responders, students, employees, passersby, and residents in the affected area (N = 30 839) – throughout a 15-year period following the WTC disaster. Rescue/recovery status and exposure to traumatic events of 9/11, as well as sociodemographic factors and health status, were assessed as risk factors for trajectories of psychological distress. Results Five psychological distress trajectory groups were found: none-stable, low-stable, moderate-increasing, moderate-decreasing, and high-stable. Of the study sample, 78.2% were classified as belonging to the none-stable or low-stable groups. Female sex, being younger at the time of 9/11, lower education and income were associated with a higher probability of being in a greater distress trajectory group relative to the none-stable group. Greater exposure to traumatic events of 9/11 was associated with a higher probability of a greater distress trajectory, and community members (passerby, residents, and employees) were more likely to be in greater distress trajectory groups – especially in the moderate-increasing [odds ratios (OR) 2.31 (1.97–2.72)] and high-stable groups [OR 2.37 (1.81–3.09)] – compared to the none-stable group. Conclusions The current study illustrated the heterogeneity in psychological distress trajectories following the 9/11 WTC disaster, and identified potential avenues for intervention in future disasters.

Respiratory Impedance Measured using Impulse Oscillometry in a Healthy Urban Population

This study derives normative prediction equations for respiratory impedance in a healthy asymptomatic urban population using an impulse oscillation system (IOS). In addition, this study uses body mass index (BMI) in the equations to describe the effect of obesity on respiratory impedance.Data from an urban population comprising 472 healthy asymptomatic subjects that resided or worked in lower Manhattan, New York City were retrospectively analysed. This population was the control group from a previously completed case-control study of the health effects of exposure to World Trade Center dust. Since all subjects underwent spirometry and oscillometry, these previously collected data allowed a unique opportunity to derive normative prediction equations for oscillometry in an urban, lifetime non-smoking, asymptomatic population without underlying respiratory disease.Normative prediction equations for men and women were successfully developed for a broad range of respiratory oscillometry variables with narrow confidence bands. Models that used BMI as an independent predictor of oscillometry variables (in addition to age and height) demonstrated equivalent or better fit when compared with models that used weight. With increasing BMI, resistance and reactance increased compatible with lung and airway compression from mass loading.This study represents the largest cohort of healthy urban subjects assessed with an IOS device. Normative prediction equations were derived that should facilitate application of IOS in the clinical setting. In addition, the data suggest that modelling of lung function may be best performed using height and BMI as independent variables rather than the traditional approach of using height and weight.

Holy Cross on West Forty-Second and the Transformation of New York City’s Irish American Catholicism

Archbishop John Hughes created Manhattan’s Holy Cross Parish in 1852 to serve the thousands of Irish Catholics moving north of Lower Manhattan into what became known as Longacre Square (later Times Square) and the developing neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen. Holy Cross maintained a strong Irish American identity into the mid-twentieth century, and its path charted the transformation of the disciplined folk piety created by the “devotional revolution” in Ireland in the nineteenth century into an American Catholicism dominated by Irish American clergy who sought to defend communalistic Catholic distinctiveness amid the rapid urban growth and burgeoning individualistic capitalism of a historically Protestant nation. In the early twentieth century, clergy and laity at Holy Cross converted Irish Catholic longing for an independent Irish nation and ambivalence about American society into a powerful synthesis of Irish American culture and American patriotism. In subsequent decades, Irish American Catholics at Holy Cross also participated in an emergent reactionary critique of the changing sexual mores and increasing ethnic and racial diversity of urban America. The white ethnic Catholic stance on American social change would become a key rhetorical and ideological element of resurgent American conservatism in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.