Author: Stacy Horn

I took a bunch of shots.  This is from a pier near Perry Street, as the plane floated down the Hudson.  I just cannot get over the skill of the pilots.  I’ll talk about this later, but I took flying lessons in high school and one of the first things they teach you is how to land the plane if you lose your engines.  “Look for a highway!” my instructor told me (laughing).  But I learned in a tiny Cessna 150.  I just cannot get over doing this with a jet ON THE WATER.

For those who haven’t heard, a plane had to make an emergency landing on the Hudson, all 155 aboard survived.

There are seat cushions and other debris floating all down the river.

It’s hard to see but that’s the plane sticking out of the water, this is around Battery Park City.

More rescue workers.

I think this was a diver, but I’m not positive.  By the way, it was freezing.  FREE! ZING!

Another plane shot.  I couldn’t get close.  “Move back!  This is a federal crime scene!” 

They’re waiting for a crane, I was told.

I took this walking back home.

The never ending stream of rescue workers heading downtown, very reminiscent of 9/11.

A snowy morning has turned into a sunny afternoon (metaphor for my life!).  But this was how it looked downtown just a couple of hours ago.  This is the police memorial, shot from within the warm and cosy confines of the financial center.  Those people in orange are members of law enforcement who were taking a break from a run for Special Olympics.

Here they are, getting warm inside the Winter Garden.

I like the pairing of this ruffled shirt with this jacket.  Incidentally, I took this on West Broadway in Soho.  Not the window-shopping paradise it used to be, this stretch.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” -Eleanor Roosevelt.

Earlier this week I did something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but I’d always been too afraid.  I wanted to sit down and talk about something that happened to me a long time ago. The specifics of what happened aren’t really important to the point I want to make.  But I’ve been haunted by that night my whole life. In times of great stress I used to relive it, which was horrible, and even though that stopped happening years ago, deep down I feared it might one day return and I just wanted to confront it once and for all.  Had I been suffering from PTSD, can it return, etc.?  I wanted to talk it out with someone who knows about this sort of thing. It seems like such a little thing, I know, but talking about it, even thinking about it, always gave me panic attacks, so for me, sitting down and going over the whole thing was like climbing to the top of the highest building and jumping.

But I finally did it.  I’ve been floating in this bliss of peace ever since. I cannot describe how good this feels, but that Eleanor Roosevelt quote is pretty good. You jump, risking going splat on the pavement and instead land safely in a pile of down pillows and kittens.

And, because I don’t like to have a post without a photograph, here’s a picture I took yesterday, it’s a detail on a building on Bleecker Street.

A sign in the store that was destroyed by fire, the one I posted about a week or so ago.  The tenants have not been allowed back inside the building, which the City has declared unsafe.  I’m sorry it’s a little out of focus, but don’t you love these people? Such grace.