Thanks, Nancy. I have just forwarded this to a friend of mine in Fresno who
used to live in New York City. Devon.
From: ourplace-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ourplace-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of nancy Lynn
Sent: September-20-16 11:16 PM
To: "Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@freelists.org
Subject: [ourplace] Bomb Rattles Nerves but Strengthens ties at Building for
Blind
Some of you may not know, but the bomb that exploded on saturday night in the
middle of New York City was very close to an apartment building where a lot of
blind people live. I thought you’d find this article interesting.
Bomb Rattles Nerves but Strengthens Ties at Building for Blind. By ANNIE
CORREAL, SAMANTHA SCHMIDT and LIAM STACK; Jack Begg contributed research..
Roselyn Olivares was standing in her kitchen when she heard the explosion. A
living room window cracked. Glass shattered in the bedroom. Ms. Olivares, who
is blind, called out to her partner, asking her to peer outside their living
room window, which overlooks West 23rd Street in Chelsea. 'Tell me what you
see,' Ms. Olivares, 76, said.. Over the course of the next few minutes, her
partner, Carol Wixman, described firefighters and police officers flooding the
scene and a woman running down the street, screaming. For anyone on West 23rd
Street, the explosion Saturday night was jarring. But for the residents of
Selis Manor, a building directly behind the Dumpster where the bomb exploded,
the blast and the drama that ensued were particularly terrifying: Like Ms.
Olivares, most of the building's residents are blind or otherwise visually
impaired. 'If you don't see, and you hear something like that, it's scary,' Ms.
Olivares said. 'You don't know which way to go. She quickly got dressed,
wondering if she would have to run, dreading that her building might collapse.
(Residents were soon ordered to stay inside.) She said she heard so many
sirens, so many loud sounds, that she began to feel sensory overload. Selis
Manor, a 205-unit apartment building at 135 W. 23rd Street, was built by Irving
M. Selis, a blind newsdealer, and opened in 1980. In the decades since, it has
helped turn a small slice of Manhattan into something of a haven for the blind
and visually impaired. The building has been under renovation since 2014 and is
partly covered in scaffolding. On Saturday night, a device placed under a
Dumpster on the eastern side of the building exploded, bursting windows and
spewing glass and shrapnel that injured 29 people. The blast, called 'an
intentional act' by Mayor Bill de Blasio, is still under investigation. There
were no reports of injuries among the building's residents, according to its
managing agent, Tony Savarese, but the force of the explosion shattered windows
as high as the third floor, broke a door frame and obliterated a security
camera perched above the entrance. It also rattled residents of Selis Manor.
Andrew Atell had just left home when the device detonated. 'Luckily I walked
under the scaffold and I was almost at the end of the block when I heard a
pretty loud boom,' he said. 'I just see a little bit. I have some sight and
walk with a cane. It was a big boom. One loud boom. And then stuff started
flying. 'I heard the blast, and I heard little things coming down,' he said. 'I
don't know if it was glass or metal. It sounded like little pieces of glass.
Mr. Atell, 63, hurried to an F train station. 'Down in the subway, I heard
someone was trying to help somebody injured,' he said. 'I didn't stop. I got on
the train. No sense in turning back. He went to Brooklyn and returned around
midnight to find that he could not get back to his building: The block had been
closed. He waited at a McDonald's and was escorted home by law enforcement
officials around 3 a.m. If the blast interrupted what residents described as a
peaceful routine, it also activated the close-knit community at Selis Manor. 'I
went out to other people on the floor and said, 'What happened? What happened?
Jit Bhattacharyya said. Mr. Bhattacharyya, 70, is visually impaired and has
lived in the building for 25 years. He had been waiting for an Indian program
to come on TV when he 'felt it and I jumped,' he said. 'My knee hit the table.
I have never heard such a loud noise in my life. It felt like thunder was
coming through the window. He called the lobby and went to a neighbor with a
seeing home health attendant. On Sunday, residents with seeing-eye dogs
welcomed visits from dog walkers, to whom they recounted the night's events.
Kathy Mulvaney, 73, said just as the explosion happened, her seeing-eye dog, a
collie named Bella, had been curled up on a reclining chair. The dog
immediately jumped off and crawled to her owner's side. 'She knew something was
wrong,' Ms. Mulvaney said. Ms. Mulvaney has lived in the building for 32 years,
and has been blind for several decades and has chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease and asthma. The worst part of the explosion, she said, was the
uncertainty. 'There was nobody around to tell us anything,' she said while
sitting on her living room couch in her nightgown, clutching her cane. The
elevators were briefly shut down, so it was difficult for residents to visit
neighbors and discuss what was happening. Ms. Mulvaney stayed glued to the
radio, listening for updates. On Sunday, her dog walker, Karin Magnuson, a
volunteer through PAWS NY, arrived to take Bella out. Ms. Magnuson led Bella
and a black lab named Ava, her usual charges, through the lobby, which was
crowded with people waiting for police clearance to get out, and past the scene
of the explosion, where investigators were placing numbers beside pieces of
shrapnel and other evidence. 'I took the dogs for a walk and then made my way
back through the barricades,' Ms. Magnuson said. One of the main hangouts for
Selis Manor's residents is the Malibu Diner, just down the block. 'We have
menus in Braille, but the people don't use them because they know the menu
better than me,' said Jose Collado, one of the diner's owners. 'This is like
their home. On Sunday morning, the street was closed to traffic and swarming
with law enforcement officials, and the diner was closed. But as Gov. Andrew M.
Cuomo and Mr. de Blasio took a walk around the site, they asked Mr. Collado to
open his restaurant to serve the residents of Selis Manor, who had been told to
stay put. 'The blind people said if we didn't open, they couldn't eat,' Mr.
Collado said. He went into the kitchen and, with the help of two employees,
prepared 200 orders of eggs, bacon, ham, sausage and toast. The Red Cross
helped with delivery. Mr. Collado was not sure who would be footing the bill,
but he said, 'Sometimes money is the least of your worries. He said the
restaurant would be preparing breakfast for the building's residents again on
Monday.. PHOTOS: Above, a resident of Selis Manor being escorted back to the
building on West 23rd Street by a police officer on Sunday. Left, seeing-eye
dogs that live at the residence, which is home to many people who are blind or
visually impaired. An explosion on Saturday night occurred outside.
(PHOTOGRAPHS BY LOUIS LANZANO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES; KARIN MAGNUSON).
