Well my friend Ray Mahorney said that New York City should succeed from the
union and he said that our mayor was a communist. Anytime I don't agree with
him I get a lecture like you're in a classroom. I told him I said I thought we
were supposed to be friends I don't need a lecture. I Ninos crazy. Then he was
trying to tell me how I should how I should vote and all that stuff. I mean I
think I can make my decisions in terms of voting and I told him I don't
appreciate being lectured.
Kathleen Polkabla
On Sep 21, 2016, at 10:37 AM, Karen Delzer <catwacky@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Well, goodness, Kathleen, there are a lot of us who are "typical
republicans," and listen to Rush Limbaugh and make no apologies for that.
We're nice people, I promise. We just believe differently than you. And, part
of being republican or conservative or whatever label you choose does not
mean by any stretch of the imagination that we are communists, just the
opposite, in fact. So no worries there, either. :)
Karen
on 11:50 PM 9/20/2016, Kathleen Polkabla said:
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).
