Stacy Horn

I thought I would show how One World Trade Center is coming along. The comparison view is not the same alas, but you get the idea. I took this yesterday from the cemetery behind St. Paul’s Chapel. You can see the different by comparing 1WTC to the building on its right.

This was in August, 2011.

For people like me, the release of the 1940 Census data is like Christmas to the infinity power. (More information from the National Archives here.) When I was working at the Census in 2010 and people asked me, “why do I have to answer all these questions,” it was so easy to answer! I would tell them all that I’d learned about my grandparents and great-grandparents from Census reports, and pretty soon they’d be asking me how they could access the reports themselves.

I’ve gone back to Census reports for every book I’ve written. For my book about singing for instance, I needed to track down Herman Melville’s apartment near Grace Church, and to confirm various facts about the sad story of Alexander Hamilton’s granddaughters. It’s endless!

Apparently the 1940 Census had a bunch of extra questions and I just can’t wait to see what I can learn both about my family, and all the famous and interesting people living in New York (and all over American) in 1940.

The New York Public Library is having an all-day program/event on March 24th. Response has been so tremendous they had to move it to a bigger venue so hurry up and reserve now if you’d like to go.

I was down at St. Paul’s Chapel this afternoon for their fantastic Bach at One series. You get to hear the world-class Trinity Choir and Trinity Baroque Orchestra for whatever you wish to donate. It’s a great deal.

I took this shot out front and …

… this was inside while we were all waiting. I love that Oklahoma sign (from the 9/11 days). I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Oklahoma because of that sign. (I have a million soft spots in my heart for other signs and other gestures from all over the country and the world.)

Last week I posted about a man named Steven Santiago who pulled a drunken guy from the train tracks and who later died from injuries sustained in the rescue. According to the stories I read, the man rescued, Jonathan Parisen, never thanked Steven or his family, or visited him in the hospital. I posted Parisen’s tweets following the accident. They were not the tweets of a man who seemed to be given Santiago any thought.

Well, a couple of days ago someone anonymously posted another version of this story on Huffington Post. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s certainly plausible, and the people who reported this story should follow up on it.

Here is the post, my take on it follows:

“This story is chock full of mistakes and bad reporting. There were only three people on that platform when the accident occurred. Parisen and his friend explained that Jonathan fell onto the tracks, he didn’t jump. When Steven and Jonathan’s friend helped the filmmaker onto the platform he was never in any imminent danger as the train was nowhere near the station. In fact Steven was struck by the train a few minutes after helping Parisen up onto the platform. Parisen and his friend weren’t even near Steven when he was hit, they were on the other side of the platform. Also what was never mentioned was that Parisen’s friend performed C.P.R. on Steven until the ambulance arrived. It is sad that Steven died but he was also intoxicated and that likely played into why he stumbled over. it was nice of him to help Parisen onto the platform but he certainly didn’t risk his life doing so. The news is so full of crap and they make up blatant lies to juice up a story to sell newspapers.”

I suspect that was posted by Parisen himself (or at the very least, a friend of his), and there is still a certain callousness to how this side of the story is presented. It’s a little unseemly how the poster is making an effort to portray Santiago not as a hero, but a nice drunk whose fate was his own fault. If Santiago hadn’t been there to help, perhaps Parisen’s friend would not have been able to get him off the tracks in time before a train did come. Either way, since there’s really no way of knowing how helping Parisen played into Santiago’s accident afterwards, there just seems to be such a lack of feeling about his death both in the post and in all of Parisen’s tweets later. Parisen was lucky Santiago was around to help him, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of sympathy for Santiago, who was less lucky. It’s too bad no one was there to pull Santiago back and say, “hey buddy, that’s getting a little too close to that oncoming train.”

That said, if this is true, Parisen is not the monster he’s been made out to be. If the post is a little self-serving and more about Parisen than Santiago, it’s understandable. The media, people commenting, myself included, have really been going at the guy. He still comes off as unfeeling, but as I posted earlier, everyone reacts differently to terrible things. We can’t really know what’s going on inside the guy.

Again, I don’t know if any of what the poster wrote is true, but I wish the reporters who broke this story would follow up on it.

Discarded Christmas trees. This shot is obviously a few months old!

I started compiling a list of cat websites and blogs to prepare for promoting the ebook of my memoir Waiting For My Cats to Die, and this caused me to go back to the website Kittenwar! In 2005, I’d posted the shot of Finnegan below, thinking no one could possibly beat this picture both in terms of cuteness and in weirdness.

I mean, look at it. Finney was on top of the armoire and I caught him just as he stuck his front paws down and his hind legs up and stretched. How is a cat pose like this even possible?? How can his back legs do that?

Here’s how he has done in the Kittenwars he’s entered into since. He’s won more than he’s lost, but still. I guess this is more weird than cute, but I still think he looks pretty adorable.

And yet another book I’m jealous about not getting to write myself! But I’m sure Richard Zacks did a great job, and I can’t wait to read Island of Vice. He’s getting some great reviews.

“Here is young Teddy Roosevelt as the reformist New York City Police Commissioner confronted in 1895 with a cabal of unaccountably wealthy police officials, whole neighborhoods of brothels, and the paws of the Tammany Tiger in everything. A delicious municipal history, impeccably researched, excitingly told.” —E. L. Doctorow, award-winning author of Ragtime.

Louis CK is filming two blocks away from me as I type. I need to get back out there and watch. If it’s not too late already. I found out as I was walking back from swimming and that was hours ago. Where has the time gone?? But they were at Hudson and Grove Street.

One of the banners I was considering using to comply with Facebook’s new look. I may use later.