Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: Polly's Notes re 9/11 My name is Polly Fischer. In June of 2001 my husband Martin and I bought a time-share apartment in midtown Manhattan because we no longer wished to make the drive back to Philadelphia on late evenings after a long day in New York, and by 9/11 we had spent many happy days in New York museums, theaters and restaurants, and had met some friends and relatives there. After 9/11, I mentioned to my husband that I already felt like a citizen of Manhattan and I felt an obligation to go there to pay my respects to those who had died and those who were working at ground zero. Since we were leaving for Europe shortly we went the following week, and immediately went downtown. My first shock was the realization that we could no longer take the subway all the way down and that we had to walk pretty far, and many emergency vehicles of various kinds kept passing us headed toward ground zero. As we walked, the air got "thicker" and I had to put my scarf over my nose and mouth to keep out the "dust." But as we got closer, I really saw the heartbreak and sorrow expressed on all the hand-made signs everywhere...a photo of a smiling young woman with long dark hair holding a toddler and wearing a pretty summer dress, labelled, "have you seen my wife? Please call ! ...another, a professional portrait of a middle-aged fellow dressed in a business suit..."have you seen my Dad?",..dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds of them posted close together, side by side and one above the other, as we came nearer to the site. Some people were handing out fliers advertising for their lost families, some just stood there holding their pictures face out for us to see. And as we got closer we saw one after another, stores with everything inside coated in a thick layer of a grey substance so you had to strain to identify the things underneath, dead places, like Pompei. And in the open doorways of many Of the stores sat silent melancholy looking people, perhaps the owners waiting for insurance companies to come help. It seemed to me that the most pitiful store of all was what had obviously once been an elegant beauty salon all coated in this thick gray stuff, hair-driers, perfume bottles, chairs, tables, vials and cans and tubes of cosmetics and lotions, and even the floor. How strange. When we finally arrived at the "end," as close as we could go, there stood a crowd of people, all ages, all colors, all classes, all styles, and all seemingly struck dumb, standing there absolutely silent, staring at whatever we could see of the workers and the work (they were dismantling a huge piece of the steel of one of the two towers) and the tiny church almost next door (said to be the oldest church in New York, St. Paul's, I think. When I could no longer stand, Martin and I walked silently away and the crowd parted silently to let us through. A few blocks away a young Frenchman with a bicycle rigged rickshaw picked us up and took us to the nearest subway entrance. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story6596.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-09-12 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 152.163.188.6