Thank you for sending this article it was good. Wow. I think I'm glad I wasn't
there. Oh boy. And I had thought about going there Saturday to visit people. I
think I'm glad I didn't. Because I would've been stranded over there and I
couldn't of gotten back to Stuyvesant town. What a mess. You know that's pretty
lucky that's not not more damage has been done to the building. But they've got
a repair all those windows and that's going to be costly. 15 apart apartments.
And thank goodness Malibu donated food. And the Red Cross helped out and I
think they were paid. And our mayor even came to. Even though one of my friends
in Ohio keeps insisting he's a communist and he keeps stressing New York. It's
a typical Republican that listens to Rush Limbaugh and stuff. And I'm really
getting tired of him trashing people that aren't Republican. It's really crazy.
I hope I don't have to end the friendship with him but I might have to.
Kathleen Polkabla
On Sep 21, 2016, at 12:20 AM, Devon Wilkins <theharness@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
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).
