Editors of this issue:

Gail Hendler, Ehrman Medical Library, New York University Medical School, 550 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016, S-10, E-mail: hendlerg@yahoo.com,

and

William Self, The Medical Library Center of New York, 5 East 102nd St., 7th Floor, New York, NY 10029 S-1, Phone: 212-427-1630, Fax: 212-860-3496, E-mail: wself@mlcny.org.

Writing this reflection is one of the hardest tasks I've had. Words of wisdom fail me so I will just tell what I witnessed on September 11, 2001 and how I chose to commemorate that witness on September 11, 2002.

On September 11, 2001 I went to the polls early in the morning with Dotty Schwartz and Mary Doherty (three medical librarians in our building in Brooklyn; must be a record). I waved goodbye to them at the subway and returned home preparing to go to Rutgers that day to talk to my advisor. I had the television on and heard the Today show interrupted for news of a crash or fire at the World Trade Center. I saw the Towers fall on television and then, horrified, went to the balcony of my apartment to look out at lower Manhattan but could only see smoke. And later, all day long, I watched people from the balcony of my apartment as they walked up Flatbush Avenue, closed to traffic but filled with the thousands of people who walked home from the City that day.

On September 11, 2002 I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge into the City to commemorate all those who walked home that terrible day and all those who would not walk home again.

    - Kathel Dunn

Walking downtown toward the bridge with Dorice Vieira through the most swollen New York City streets I have ever experienced, the endless sound of emergency sirens, the dazed and ash covered people walking toward us and my desperate yearning to be home with Joel and Dino.

    - Richard Faraino

I was finishing my breakfast at the St. Vincent's Hospital cafeteria, when the announcement came over the loudspeaker system that a plane had hit the WTC. I thought oh one of the disaster drills, held periodically. The year before the scenario was that a helicopter had crashed at the Chelsea Piers. I knew that as soon as I got to the library if I heard sirens, this was the real thing and so it was. I turned on the little radio we kept in the library and of course it was on all day. The library became a safe quiet place where people could come and talk, be quiet, pray or sleep. I think all of us librarians did great service on that day.

    - Dennis Gaffney

How does one sift out only a few memories of 9/11 to share with colleagues? For most of us, the memories are still too fresh, too close and too poignant. Pictures that might previously been considered too graphic for movies laden with violence, have become our local news reports in our daily newspapers and on television.

Today, I share with you the goodness of our neighbors. Every day, I get out of the subway at First Avenue and 14th Street. Last Sept. 11; I climbed up the stairs to be assaulted with the sight of burning towers, the smell of uncontrolled fire and First Avenue devoid of anything but emergency vehicles.

Went I reached 14th Street and Avenue A, law enforcement officers from all over - New Jersey State Police, Turnpike Authority, National Guard, Westchester Police were manning the barricades at the corner. Chico, our local street artist, surrounded by spray paint cans, was painting over the wall painting he had done of Princess Diana and Mother Theresa. Now a more tragic event claimed the wall.

Later the first week, a neighbor told me about the little boy in a stroller who had given his toy plastic shovel to the fireman at our local house on 14th Street. The child heard that they needed shovels.

Christmas came sooner and much quieter than any other I could remember. On Christmas morning, everyone in my church got a present. The good people of Wisconsin had sent our Church hundreds of hand made angel ornaments. They wanted us all to know that we were not forgotten. This was my most treasured gift this year.

Last week, parked on Second Avenue and 20th Street was a gleaming, new police car. The lettering on the door said, "Gift to the people of New York City from the people of Ohio."

We are all neighbors.

    - Elizabeth Franck