When A House Can No Longer Be Your Home

For Patricia Moore, (Class of 1971), 9/11 became an 11-month continuing day from Hell and an odyssey through New York Cities bureaucracies. She is one of the residents whose homes are right on the perimeter of Ground Zero. These individuals have not had a chance to get back their property -- or their lives. Her home is also within the prime real estate acreage for the rebuilding process.
____In September, right after 9/11, she wrote the following email to Alumni President, Yvonne Fitzner:
____"You don't understand, I'm not locked OUT, my home has been destroyed! I have lived 400 feet away from the South Tower for 24 years. We are the closest residents to what used to be The World Trade Center. Our home looks as though a bomb exploded, which in essence IT DID! If ever, we will not be able to live there for 6 months to 1 year. Most of our possessions have been destroyed, but our building is still standing. All 50 of our residents escaped without long lasting physical injury, but of course with much tremor and stress."
____Time wore on and her apartment remained vacant, uninhabitable. Like an unholy memorial to that day, all of her possessions were covered with dust, a house that could not be a home. Thus she wrote:
____"We are hoping that the DEP will start to clean our apartments sometime after Labor Day. We can't believe that this has taken so long and the battle still goes on; it will be 1 year in 3 weeks.
____We received a letter from the LMDC last week saying that they would not condemn our block. We still do not totally trust them. We have learned that lesson among others this year. "
____As recently as August 4th, the New York Post wrote a heart-wrenching article on the plight of Pat Moore and her neighbors:
____The headline reads, "Residents Fume at Plans: We're Not 'Museum' Pieces". Here are a few quotes from this article by Nicole LaPorte, conveying the anguish and hopelessness that Pat has to face:
____"When Pat Moore saw maps of the six proposals for rebuilding the 16-acre World Trade Center site, she was quick to look at how her longtime home fit into the schemes. 'On one, we were a museum,' said Moore of the brownstone at 125 Cedar St., where she has lived for 25 years. The LMDC is releasing plans as though we no longer exist.' A spokesperson for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. denies that the agency favors dislocating people in the neighborhood of Ground Zero, but would not discuss specifics of the redevelopment plans."
____"Moore and her neighbors -- who had been living elsewhere since the attacks and only last week were taken on a walk-through inspection by environmental agents -- don't know how much fight they have left in them. We're all just physically and emotionally -- and financially -- exhausted,' she said." The article makes mention that the state could condemn the building using its power of "eminent domain". It also talks about the run around these residents are getting whenever they try to nail down exactly what is going to happen with their property.
____In order to get some kind of resolution, the article goes on to say "They've (the residents) sent a letter to the LMDC requesting a meeting with Chairman John Whitehead, and there is talk of starting a petition to save the block. State Assemblyman Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) has also expressed his support for the tenants' plight. "
____For Pat Moore and her neighbors the anniversary of 9/11 will be another miserable day of homelessness, just like the 365 days before!

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