Stumbled into work this morning with very little sleep, purple fingernails, and a completely blissed-out attitutde toward life in general. Call it ridiculous, call it shallow -- but spending two hours within spittle distance of Bono will do wonders for one's general outlook on life. Especially if one is a red-headed midget with OCD tendencies exponentially larger than her own little self.
We had general admission tickets to last night's U2 show at the Wachovia Center in Philly.
Possessing such coveted tickets comes with certain obligations -- mainly getting to the venue wicked early to line up with other yahoos in hopes of getting prime standing location. We arrived at 3:00 for a doors open time of 6:00. We were conveniently in direct sunlight the whole time, had to bolt down some Wawa hoagies to sustain ourselves for the rest of the evening, and once inside, had five more hours of standing in a fixed spot to look forward to before the concert would be over. All the while we made friends with the other people who, while all very nice, insisted there was nothing abnormal about this behavior.
While I cannot vouch for the sanity of such an assessment, I will say that we did indeed score a great position three people deep from the right side of the ellipse (if the preceding sentence made no sense to you -- congratulations on having a life. To translate -- we done saw Bono right close, we did). The crowd at that proximity is delightfully wacko. Oh, they're polite, mind you. No slam dancing at a U2 show thankyouverymuch. But there is an extraordinary amount of hopping. After awhile the hopping becomes second nature, and before I knew it I realized I'd spent the bulk of the evening jumping straight up and down like a coked-up kangaroo. Slow songs offer little respite, as we were usually compelled to keep both arms suspended aloft in a manner not entirely unlike some strange Christian evangelist revival. I was strangely okay with this.
I shan't bore you with any more details of the show (though if I knew for certain that we were of like minds, oh how I could bore you with details). When we jumped in the car at 11:30pm to drive back to DC, my legs, arms, voice and head were decidedly on strike. I was stariving, dehydrated, soaked with sweat, and my contacts felt like sandpaper. Physically, I felt miserable. I resolved to do things differently for the next general admission show, for which we have tickets in October.
I will line up even earlier, I will. I will stand even longer, I shall. If arriving at the venue six hours before the band takes the stage only gets you in the third row, then clearly I must step up my game.
Robyn
Monday, May 23, 2005
Monday, May 16, 2005
Kindred Spirits
From the Washington Post
I'll Take Manhattan -- Every Time
By Maura Kelly
I was getting ready to take a two-year sabbatical from New York for an all-expenses-paid master's program -- the only thing that would ever get me to leave Manhattan -- when I rediscovered Joan Didion's book "Slouching Towards Bethlehem." I flipped to the final essay, "Goodbye to All That," written nearly four decades ago, after she'd dumped Manhattan for Los Angeles. "Everything that was said to me I seemed to have heard before," she complained.
"There were certain parts of the city I had to avoid." Worst of all, she whined, there were no "new faces" in the New York.
Joan Didion, you fool! I thought.
If I were in New York right now, I would listen to all the conversations. I would visit every neighborhood. I wouldn't avoid a single Upper East Side blue-haired society lady, a single toothless street bum, a single street-corner saxophonist. What I wouldn't give for the faces! For a downtown coffee shop scene. Here's what might happen if I went to Doma, my favorite cafe, off Seventh. The Berlin girl with dyed orange hair behind the counter would hand me a Chinese cookie fortune with my change: "To affect the quality of the day is no small achievement." I'd look up from it, eyes wide, delighted; she'd wink and say, "Next?" Smiling, I'd move to a window seat and eavesdrop on a huge, pale, dark-haired man talking to a petite well-coiffed blonde. (An Internet date?) "My family moved here from Russia during the Cold War," he'd say. "Kids called me 'Commie,' thought I had nukes in my lunch box. I was 5. Funny, right? So I became a comedian." A shirtless man would walk by outside with a huge pair of feathered white wings on his back. (An extra from the set of the "Dogma" sequel?)
But no. I'm in a small southwestern Virginia city. Know what I avoid here, Joan Didion? The Valley View Mall, whose very existence has destroyed the vista it boasts of. The Wal-Mart, with the gun department next to the jewelry counter. The omnipresent sports bars, where people in business casual talk about nothing but college football. This town ain't for me because there's no place that gives me the simple hope that I could meet someone here who will change my life. In the Apple, I always knew that, at any moment, I might bump into some bewitching stranger.
Of course, New York could have burned me, like Didion. It could have destroyed me -- almost did. (Anything worthy of being deeply loved should have that power.) I indulged myself with booze and drugs for a long time before finally saying goodbye to all that, after some close calls. Like the time the guy I was flirting with at Jet Lounge bit my cheek so hard that I left with a nasty purple welt. Or those days I woke up next to a stranger. Or the morning someone I couldn't remember had apparently been in my room the night before -- as evidenced by the pile of change and a black lighter he'd left behind on my desk.
But New York also helped me survive -- bringing me comfort in the form of its citizens, appearing like benevolent gods during my darkest moments. As they did when I was walking home from a party late one night -- drunk, alone and broken-hearted. Drifting through a shadowy, lonely part of Hell's Kitchen, I heard two thuggish voices behind me.
I began to think saving on a cab had been a very stupid decision.
"He's gonna go nuts when he sees," one guy said.
"He's not gonna believe what we did," another agreed. "I mean, damn! Look at this thing!"
A gun, I thought as their footsteps got closer.
My heart was thundering in my ears by the time they flanked me. Too petrified to move, I stopped and stared down at my scuffed black boots.
"A lady like you shouldn't be walking by herself,"one said.
"Where you headed?" the other said.
That's when I looked up.
They were holding an arc of variegated balloons over me.
"It's beautiful!" I shouted.
"For our little brother, in a wheelchair," the first one said.
Then, keeping the rainbow force field around me, they escorted me to my door.
There have been so many other strangers in New York who have blessed me, saved me, become friends. Those people, immortalized in my memory, make the city the poem it is. Like the cabbie who gave me a free ride one icy New Year's morning when I had lost my wallet, my friends and my way. The middle-aged businessman who yanked me out of an oncoming car's path, saving my life before disappearing back into the Times Square mob. Or gravel-voiced Willy: He helped me quit smoking by keeping my pack in his register at the Abingdon Square deli and doling out cigarettes to me, one a day. (He died in 2003 of emphysema.) Or Maureen, the old woman in a wheelchair with a face like it was made of cheesecloth -- yet what a new face! -- who called out to roomful of strangers in an ATM center, asking for a volunteer to withdraw money from her account. I obliged; we had breakfast; she told me she moved to New York after she became crippled because it was the easiest place in the world to get around. Or the hipster with a soul patch and Marc Jacobs suit who slid into my booth one night at the M&R Bar and informed me "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" was playing, so I couldn't leave. Dinner followed; then a romance; now a comradeship that's lasted for five years. And there's the bright-eyed writer I discovered at a Williamsburg art opening in the eleventh hour of my New York tenure; we've been corresponding about the meaning of life since.
Yep, I'd tell Joan Didion, "Too bad you didn't see the people who could help keep you strong -- even if only by watching them smile at you on the subway and letting the corners of your mouth curl up in return. Then you'd never have stopped loving the city."
In a couple of autumns, if you notice what seems like a rough beast slouching towards Manhattan to be born again, look again. It's probably just me, returning.
Robyn
I'll Take Manhattan -- Every Time
By Maura Kelly
I was getting ready to take a two-year sabbatical from New York for an all-expenses-paid master's program -- the only thing that would ever get me to leave Manhattan -- when I rediscovered Joan Didion's book "Slouching Towards Bethlehem." I flipped to the final essay, "Goodbye to All That," written nearly four decades ago, after she'd dumped Manhattan for Los Angeles. "Everything that was said to me I seemed to have heard before," she complained.
"There were certain parts of the city I had to avoid." Worst of all, she whined, there were no "new faces" in the New York.
Joan Didion, you fool! I thought.
If I were in New York right now, I would listen to all the conversations. I would visit every neighborhood. I wouldn't avoid a single Upper East Side blue-haired society lady, a single toothless street bum, a single street-corner saxophonist. What I wouldn't give for the faces! For a downtown coffee shop scene. Here's what might happen if I went to Doma, my favorite cafe, off Seventh. The Berlin girl with dyed orange hair behind the counter would hand me a Chinese cookie fortune with my change: "To affect the quality of the day is no small achievement." I'd look up from it, eyes wide, delighted; she'd wink and say, "Next?" Smiling, I'd move to a window seat and eavesdrop on a huge, pale, dark-haired man talking to a petite well-coiffed blonde. (An Internet date?) "My family moved here from Russia during the Cold War," he'd say. "Kids called me 'Commie,' thought I had nukes in my lunch box. I was 5. Funny, right? So I became a comedian." A shirtless man would walk by outside with a huge pair of feathered white wings on his back. (An extra from the set of the "Dogma" sequel?)
But no. I'm in a small southwestern Virginia city. Know what I avoid here, Joan Didion? The Valley View Mall, whose very existence has destroyed the vista it boasts of. The Wal-Mart, with the gun department next to the jewelry counter. The omnipresent sports bars, where people in business casual talk about nothing but college football. This town ain't for me because there's no place that gives me the simple hope that I could meet someone here who will change my life. In the Apple, I always knew that, at any moment, I might bump into some bewitching stranger.
Of course, New York could have burned me, like Didion. It could have destroyed me -- almost did. (Anything worthy of being deeply loved should have that power.) I indulged myself with booze and drugs for a long time before finally saying goodbye to all that, after some close calls. Like the time the guy I was flirting with at Jet Lounge bit my cheek so hard that I left with a nasty purple welt. Or those days I woke up next to a stranger. Or the morning someone I couldn't remember had apparently been in my room the night before -- as evidenced by the pile of change and a black lighter he'd left behind on my desk.
But New York also helped me survive -- bringing me comfort in the form of its citizens, appearing like benevolent gods during my darkest moments. As they did when I was walking home from a party late one night -- drunk, alone and broken-hearted. Drifting through a shadowy, lonely part of Hell's Kitchen, I heard two thuggish voices behind me.
I began to think saving on a cab had been a very stupid decision.
"He's gonna go nuts when he sees," one guy said.
"He's not gonna believe what we did," another agreed. "I mean, damn! Look at this thing!"
A gun, I thought as their footsteps got closer.
My heart was thundering in my ears by the time they flanked me. Too petrified to move, I stopped and stared down at my scuffed black boots.
"A lady like you shouldn't be walking by herself,"one said.
"Where you headed?" the other said.
That's when I looked up.
They were holding an arc of variegated balloons over me.
"It's beautiful!" I shouted.
"For our little brother, in a wheelchair," the first one said.
Then, keeping the rainbow force field around me, they escorted me to my door.
There have been so many other strangers in New York who have blessed me, saved me, become friends. Those people, immortalized in my memory, make the city the poem it is. Like the cabbie who gave me a free ride one icy New Year's morning when I had lost my wallet, my friends and my way. The middle-aged businessman who yanked me out of an oncoming car's path, saving my life before disappearing back into the Times Square mob. Or gravel-voiced Willy: He helped me quit smoking by keeping my pack in his register at the Abingdon Square deli and doling out cigarettes to me, one a day. (He died in 2003 of emphysema.) Or Maureen, the old woman in a wheelchair with a face like it was made of cheesecloth -- yet what a new face! -- who called out to roomful of strangers in an ATM center, asking for a volunteer to withdraw money from her account. I obliged; we had breakfast; she told me she moved to New York after she became crippled because it was the easiest place in the world to get around. Or the hipster with a soul patch and Marc Jacobs suit who slid into my booth one night at the M&R Bar and informed me "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" was playing, so I couldn't leave. Dinner followed; then a romance; now a comradeship that's lasted for five years. And there's the bright-eyed writer I discovered at a Williamsburg art opening in the eleventh hour of my New York tenure; we've been corresponding about the meaning of life since.
Yep, I'd tell Joan Didion, "Too bad you didn't see the people who could help keep you strong -- even if only by watching them smile at you on the subway and letting the corners of your mouth curl up in return. Then you'd never have stopped loving the city."
In a couple of autumns, if you notice what seems like a rough beast slouching towards Manhattan to be born again, look again. It's probably just me, returning.
Robyn
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Educating Mom
Considering her darling, brilliant daughter devotes so much time, attention and ducats to a silly Irish rock band, I thought it would be a nice gesture to take Mom along to the first of, er, several, U2 shows that I am lucky enough to attend this year. So, leaving the menfolk to fend for themselves on the mean streets of South Philly, Mamasita and I proceeded to the Wachovia Center last night to rock.
Props must be given where props are due, for Mom spent the preceeding weeks studying lyrics and assigned albums. She bragged to all her "kids" at the office that her daughter was taking her to a concert. Appropriate excitement levels were attained. I, for my part, was six kinds of stoked as well.
Nosebleed seats, but a decent view. A nice mix of folks in the stands, although we could have done without a pair of flatulent fellows in front of us, but all in all a fine vantage point. We arrived just after the opening act, so we wouldn't have to wait long for the lads to take the stage.
And then lift off.
Those who know me and know of my musical predilictions would be forgiven for discounting any of my personal reviews as biased. But they are very much the bee's knees. The cat's pajamas. I lost my voice and pranced about like a lunatic. Mom occassionally shouted out the random lyrics she knew (very cute) and was as entertained by my antics as those of Mssrs. Bono and Company. After the show, she remarked that he really was an incredible performer. She may not be a full-on convert, but I think she at least gets it now.
And yes, I have made the transition from not wanting to be caught dead with my folks to happily inviting Mom along to rock shows. I might just be a grown-up yet.
Robyn
Props must be given where props are due, for Mom spent the preceeding weeks studying lyrics and assigned albums. She bragged to all her "kids" at the office that her daughter was taking her to a concert. Appropriate excitement levels were attained. I, for my part, was six kinds of stoked as well.
Nosebleed seats, but a decent view. A nice mix of folks in the stands, although we could have done without a pair of flatulent fellows in front of us, but all in all a fine vantage point. We arrived just after the opening act, so we wouldn't have to wait long for the lads to take the stage.
And then lift off.
Those who know me and know of my musical predilictions would be forgiven for discounting any of my personal reviews as biased. But they are very much the bee's knees. The cat's pajamas. I lost my voice and pranced about like a lunatic. Mom occassionally shouted out the random lyrics she knew (very cute) and was as entertained by my antics as those of Mssrs. Bono and Company. After the show, she remarked that he really was an incredible performer. She may not be a full-on convert, but I think she at least gets it now.
And yes, I have made the transition from not wanting to be caught dead with my folks to happily inviting Mom along to rock shows. I might just be a grown-up yet.
Robyn
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Doo Doo Doo (Lookin' Out My Office Window)
A lovely day it was in DC -- a day such as one is very glad to have a big ol' window in one's office. So imagine my consternation when about lunchtime I heard a tremendous roar from two fighter jets streaking across the lovely blue sky. Having seen a lovely day or two marred by aerial malfeasance in my day, such an occurrance piqued my curiosity. I saw the F-16's go off to the north and west towards a hapless little Cessna. I then saw a big ball of light emanate from one of the jets, which then fired something off with a trail of smoke. This did not do much to allay my consternation, and I instructed our public policy director to fire up the old CNN. The jets circled the little plane, with one of them visibly dipping his wings a few times, before they flew out of sight, but still making quite a racket.
By then we all gathered in Nisha's office and eventually learned what everybody else knows by now, but for a few interesting minutes, we wondered whether or not to implement our trusty post-Bad Thing emergency plan. Eventually everyone went back to work, details to be learned on the evening news. Just a friendly reminder to anybody who thought about getting complacent about the state of things these days.
Robyn
By then we all gathered in Nisha's office and eventually learned what everybody else knows by now, but for a few interesting minutes, we wondered whether or not to implement our trusty post-Bad Thing emergency plan. Eventually everyone went back to work, details to be learned on the evening news. Just a friendly reminder to anybody who thought about getting complacent about the state of things these days.
Robyn
Monday, May 9, 2005
Savannah
I just got back from a weekend getaway to lovely Savannah, GA. I had only been there once before, on a very brief and wholly unsatisfying trip to the riverfront where rancid ice cream was purchased and not much of an impression was made.
Granted, the riverfront can be a bit of a zoo, albeit a zoo with wonderful candy shops (no rancid confections to be found) and cafes that have fabulous fried oyster po' boy sandwiches. The real draw of Savannah is beyond the riverfront, where the city is laid out in a series of lovely squares surrounded by gorgeous gothic houses and trees with Spanish moss. Many of the houses are open to the public as museums, including the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Lowe, founder of the Girl Scouts. So you often see a packs of Brownies traveling about the city as well as people in period costume and drunken college kids (open containers are oh so legal there).
It's a bit of a spooky city, and has a lot of ghost-story-oriented tours and histories which seem to drive a substantial amount of the tourist industry there. How much of it is real and how much is hype is unimportant. At the risk of sounding a bit morbid, they have brilliant cemeteries. We went to Bonaventure Cemetary overlooking the river (free tours on the second Sunday of the month!), which is a great park filled with really beautiful statues and an interesting combination of, er, inhabitants: Confederate soldiers, Pulitzer-winning authors, a healthy representation from the (surprisingly) robust Jewish community, Irish Catholics and Oscar-winning lyricists.
Aside from the spooky factor, I was also most taken by the chow. Savannah being a Southern port city, they specialize in fried fare and seafood. One establishment, The Lady and Sons, requires you to put your name in three hours in advance -- but has spectacular fare. We ate ourselves silly on this trip, which is a fine thing indeed.
Robyn
Granted, the riverfront can be a bit of a zoo, albeit a zoo with wonderful candy shops (no rancid confections to be found) and cafes that have fabulous fried oyster po' boy sandwiches. The real draw of Savannah is beyond the riverfront, where the city is laid out in a series of lovely squares surrounded by gorgeous gothic houses and trees with Spanish moss. Many of the houses are open to the public as museums, including the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Lowe, founder of the Girl Scouts. So you often see a packs of Brownies traveling about the city as well as people in period costume and drunken college kids (open containers are oh so legal there).
It's a bit of a spooky city, and has a lot of ghost-story-oriented tours and histories which seem to drive a substantial amount of the tourist industry there. How much of it is real and how much is hype is unimportant. At the risk of sounding a bit morbid, they have brilliant cemeteries. We went to Bonaventure Cemetary overlooking the river (free tours on the second Sunday of the month!), which is a great park filled with really beautiful statues and an interesting combination of, er, inhabitants: Confederate soldiers, Pulitzer-winning authors, a healthy representation from the (surprisingly) robust Jewish community, Irish Catholics and Oscar-winning lyricists.
Aside from the spooky factor, I was also most taken by the chow. Savannah being a Southern port city, they specialize in fried fare and seafood. One establishment, The Lady and Sons, requires you to put your name in three hours in advance -- but has spectacular fare. We ate ourselves silly on this trip, which is a fine thing indeed.
Robyn
Friday, April 15, 2005
Party Like It's 1999
Once upon a time there was a little idiot who went to New York to seek her fortune. It was a long ago time, when Paris Hilton was merely a luxurious hotel situated minutes from the Eiffel Tower. When September 11 was just...Saturday. And a small nebbishy bald man with horrible teeth and an even more horrible stage name was the great white hope of the future of music. It was September 1999. The little idiot was me. The orthodontically-challenged maestro was Moby, and oh how I loved him. Such strange and lovely music, like nothing I had ever heard before. It was new, it was exciting, and the best part was nobody back in my little suburban enclave had heard of him. Moby was my wonderful, avant-garde, oh-so-hip, New York secret.
Then about three weeks later Moby licensed every damn track on his CD to every commercial, WB teen melodrama and movie that came down the pike and traded quite a bit of his street cred with it. It was hard to be the vanguard of hip when your "art" was being used to sell shit at Nordstrom. The last time I saw Moby, when he was the uber-successful darling of the music scene, the concert hall was populated with somnambulant hipsters looking quite disinterested in the affairs, rather than the amped-up dirty hippie kids (read: fun people) at my first show.
Not easily daunted, I carried the Moby torch for quite awhile, but time, geopolitics, and something resembling maturity drew my attention away. When once I was going to Moby shows every three months or so, I recently discovered that I had not seen him perform in over four years. When he was to appear at the 9:30 Club in DC this month, I decided to buy tickets, but with a healthy share of skepticism. It couldn't possibly be the same. I was no longer the wide-eyed college freshman of yore, but a bitter old woman...an executive assistant. I doubted that I could heed Moby's poetic call to "rock the body, rock the body, uh-huh."
Oh but rock the body uh-huh I did. Alas, Moby is no longer as in vogue as he once was. But the fun people are back. It was like a convention of short geeky chicks with their tall boyfriends jumping about like mental patients. Many a Napoleon Dynamite shirt was to be seen. Everyone -- Moby included -- seemed happy with the proceedings. The critics hated the show, harping on the performer's fall from grace, as it were. The New York Post reviewed his show there with the headline "Moby Commands Geek Nation." I was delighted. I donned the blue eye makeup and waited for a (non-forthcoming) autograph as in days of yore and happily staggered into the office the next morning on too few hours sleep and a club stamp on my hand.
So much for maturity. So much for being on the cutting edge. So what?
Robyn
Then about three weeks later Moby licensed every damn track on his CD to every commercial, WB teen melodrama and movie that came down the pike and traded quite a bit of his street cred with it. It was hard to be the vanguard of hip when your "art" was being used to sell shit at Nordstrom. The last time I saw Moby, when he was the uber-successful darling of the music scene, the concert hall was populated with somnambulant hipsters looking quite disinterested in the affairs, rather than the amped-up dirty hippie kids (read: fun people) at my first show.
Not easily daunted, I carried the Moby torch for quite awhile, but time, geopolitics, and something resembling maturity drew my attention away. When once I was going to Moby shows every three months or so, I recently discovered that I had not seen him perform in over four years. When he was to appear at the 9:30 Club in DC this month, I decided to buy tickets, but with a healthy share of skepticism. It couldn't possibly be the same. I was no longer the wide-eyed college freshman of yore, but a bitter old woman...an executive assistant. I doubted that I could heed Moby's poetic call to "rock the body, rock the body, uh-huh."
Oh but rock the body uh-huh I did. Alas, Moby is no longer as in vogue as he once was. But the fun people are back. It was like a convention of short geeky chicks with their tall boyfriends jumping about like mental patients. Many a Napoleon Dynamite shirt was to be seen. Everyone -- Moby included -- seemed happy with the proceedings. The critics hated the show, harping on the performer's fall from grace, as it were. The New York Post reviewed his show there with the headline "Moby Commands Geek Nation." I was delighted. I donned the blue eye makeup and waited for a (non-forthcoming) autograph as in days of yore and happily staggered into the office the next morning on too few hours sleep and a club stamp on my hand.
So much for maturity. So much for being on the cutting edge. So what?
Robyn
Thursday, April 7, 2005
Think You're Having a Bad Day?
From the New York Times
With One Stuck in an Elevator, a Search Sweeps Up 3 Others
By MICHAEL WILSON and JENNIFER 8. LEE
While a Chinese-food deliveryman sat in a stuck elevator for more than three days in a Bronx apartment tower, the police searched the building with such fervor that one resident and his two friends were locked up and even questioned over a barbecue stain on one of their shirts that looked like blood, the resident and the police said yesterday.
The deliveryman, Ming Kuang Chen, 35, disappeared on Friday night after delivering three dinners to 40 West Mosholu Parkway. His bicycle was found locked outside the building.
What followed was an intense police search, which included Emergency Service Unit officers breaking down apartment doors in circumstances that required immediate action, Deputy Chief Michael Collins, a police spokesman, said yesterday.
One such circumstance arose on Saturday afternoon on the 34th floor, where all but one apartment had been searched, and no one was home in that unit, Chief Collins said. A neighbor had told the police that she heard screaming earlier in the hallway, so the officers broke the door down, he said.
Troy Smith, 21, arrived home with a friend and was shocked to find officers wearing helmets and flak jackets in his apartment.
"They cuffed me right there," he said. "I walked in, and detectives were guarding my door. The door was kicked in." They took him to a precinct and took his stained shirt, he said.
"I had sauce on my shirt from three days ago. They made me write, 'I'm Troy Smith. You can have my shirt for testing,'" he said, an account confirmed by Chief Collins. "They kept on coming back and saying, 'Where is the Chinese man and what did you do with him?' I said, 'I don't know.' "
And yet, the whole time, a small camera in a rear corner of the elevator car that held Mr. Chen, Car No. 2, relayed live signals to a functioning - albeit small and dim - monitor in the Tracey Towers security office, where security officers are always present and the police were a frequent presence during the search. No one could recall seeing Mr. Chen on the tiny screen.
He was found on Tuesday after he called for help over the elevator car's intercom shortly after 4 a.m. Firefighters lowered the car from where it had been stuck between the third and fourth floor of the 38-story building, and Mr. Chen faced a day of rehydration and reporters asking how he had survived for 81 hours in a 4-foot-by-61/2-foot box.
Mr. Chen has said that he called repeatedly on the intercom over the weekend, even speaking to security personnel on five or six occasions. A spokesman for the building's manager, Don Miller, said the first anyone was aware of him was on Tuesday morning.
New questions over the state of the elevator surveillance arose yesterday. For instance, even after Mr. Chen call for help was heard Monday morning, security personnel looking for him on the monitor could not see him, Mr. Miller said.
The video quality is far from superior, according to a reporter's brief examination of the monitors yesterday. There are three monitors in the security room, two of which are divided into 16 images apiece. One of those images, slightly smaller than a playing card, shows Car No. 2 in a dimly lit feed.
There is a blind spot of one or two feet in the corner under the camera, said Jennifer Givner, a spokeswoman for the city's Buildings Department.
When Mr. Chen sounded the intercom on Tuesday morning, a red light on a control panel indicated he was in Car No. 2, and yet, security personnel could not see him, Mr. Miller said.
Security for the complex is provided by Copstat Security LLC, a company based in the Bronx. A man at the Copstat headquarters who refused to give his name said that the company declined to comment on the events at Tracey Towers.
Whether Mr. Chen was ever visible on a monitor may never be known. While Mr. Miller said the footage was taped, and those tapes had been given to detectives, the police said no such tapes were made because the cameras are not designed to record, only offer live feeds. Tapes from other cameras in the building were given to officers.
Meanwhile, Mr. Smith's weekend went from bad to worse. After about two hours of questions about Mr. Chen's whereabouts, Mr. Smith was arrested on an unrelated disorderly conduct summons, and spent most of the next two days in a holding cell, awaiting processing. His two friends, a man and a woman, were released after five hours of questioning, Chief Collins said. The forensic test for blood on the seized shirt came back negative.
Mr. Smith knows Mr. Chen from his many delivery orders from the restaurant, Happy Dragon. "He's my friend," he said. "He's cool."
As for Mr. Chen, who spoke with reporters after his rescue on Tuesday, he was out of the public eye on Wednesday. He was convalescing at a friend's home, said City Councilman John C. Liu. Mr. Chen is an illegal immigrant, a fact that his family shared with the police and that was publicized during the manhunt.
"Is he worried? Yes. He's very worried. He has a family to support," Councilman Liu said yesterday, criticizing the police for effectively notifying immigration officials of Mr. Chen's illegal status.
Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said the police do not share immigration information of crime victims or witnesses with federal authorities. A spokesman for United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement said no contact had been made with Mr. Chen, and said it was unknown whether any would be.
"Anybody who is here illegally shouldn't be surprised if they're arrested by ICE and placed into removal proceedings. That's just common sense," said the spokesman, Marc A. Raimondi. "ICE prioritizes our enforcement efforts to target those who pose the most significant threat to national security and public safety."
But he added, "Being locked in an elevator doesn't give you a free pass to break the law."
With One Stuck in an Elevator, a Search Sweeps Up 3 Others
By MICHAEL WILSON and JENNIFER 8. LEE
While a Chinese-food deliveryman sat in a stuck elevator for more than three days in a Bronx apartment tower, the police searched the building with such fervor that one resident and his two friends were locked up and even questioned over a barbecue stain on one of their shirts that looked like blood, the resident and the police said yesterday.
The deliveryman, Ming Kuang Chen, 35, disappeared on Friday night after delivering three dinners to 40 West Mosholu Parkway. His bicycle was found locked outside the building.
What followed was an intense police search, which included Emergency Service Unit officers breaking down apartment doors in circumstances that required immediate action, Deputy Chief Michael Collins, a police spokesman, said yesterday.
One such circumstance arose on Saturday afternoon on the 34th floor, where all but one apartment had been searched, and no one was home in that unit, Chief Collins said. A neighbor had told the police that she heard screaming earlier in the hallway, so the officers broke the door down, he said.
Troy Smith, 21, arrived home with a friend and was shocked to find officers wearing helmets and flak jackets in his apartment.
"They cuffed me right there," he said. "I walked in, and detectives were guarding my door. The door was kicked in." They took him to a precinct and took his stained shirt, he said.
"I had sauce on my shirt from three days ago. They made me write, 'I'm Troy Smith. You can have my shirt for testing,'" he said, an account confirmed by Chief Collins. "They kept on coming back and saying, 'Where is the Chinese man and what did you do with him?' I said, 'I don't know.' "
And yet, the whole time, a small camera in a rear corner of the elevator car that held Mr. Chen, Car No. 2, relayed live signals to a functioning - albeit small and dim - monitor in the Tracey Towers security office, where security officers are always present and the police were a frequent presence during the search. No one could recall seeing Mr. Chen on the tiny screen.
He was found on Tuesday after he called for help over the elevator car's intercom shortly after 4 a.m. Firefighters lowered the car from where it had been stuck between the third and fourth floor of the 38-story building, and Mr. Chen faced a day of rehydration and reporters asking how he had survived for 81 hours in a 4-foot-by-61/2-foot box.
Mr. Chen has said that he called repeatedly on the intercom over the weekend, even speaking to security personnel on five or six occasions. A spokesman for the building's manager, Don Miller, said the first anyone was aware of him was on Tuesday morning.
New questions over the state of the elevator surveillance arose yesterday. For instance, even after Mr. Chen call for help was heard Monday morning, security personnel looking for him on the monitor could not see him, Mr. Miller said.
The video quality is far from superior, according to a reporter's brief examination of the monitors yesterday. There are three monitors in the security room, two of which are divided into 16 images apiece. One of those images, slightly smaller than a playing card, shows Car No. 2 in a dimly lit feed.
There is a blind spot of one or two feet in the corner under the camera, said Jennifer Givner, a spokeswoman for the city's Buildings Department.
When Mr. Chen sounded the intercom on Tuesday morning, a red light on a control panel indicated he was in Car No. 2, and yet, security personnel could not see him, Mr. Miller said.
Security for the complex is provided by Copstat Security LLC, a company based in the Bronx. A man at the Copstat headquarters who refused to give his name said that the company declined to comment on the events at Tracey Towers.
Whether Mr. Chen was ever visible on a monitor may never be known. While Mr. Miller said the footage was taped, and those tapes had been given to detectives, the police said no such tapes were made because the cameras are not designed to record, only offer live feeds. Tapes from other cameras in the building were given to officers.
Meanwhile, Mr. Smith's weekend went from bad to worse. After about two hours of questions about Mr. Chen's whereabouts, Mr. Smith was arrested on an unrelated disorderly conduct summons, and spent most of the next two days in a holding cell, awaiting processing. His two friends, a man and a woman, were released after five hours of questioning, Chief Collins said. The forensic test for blood on the seized shirt came back negative.
Mr. Smith knows Mr. Chen from his many delivery orders from the restaurant, Happy Dragon. "He's my friend," he said. "He's cool."
As for Mr. Chen, who spoke with reporters after his rescue on Tuesday, he was out of the public eye on Wednesday. He was convalescing at a friend's home, said City Councilman John C. Liu. Mr. Chen is an illegal immigrant, a fact that his family shared with the police and that was publicized during the manhunt.
"Is he worried? Yes. He's very worried. He has a family to support," Councilman Liu said yesterday, criticizing the police for effectively notifying immigration officials of Mr. Chen's illegal status.
Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said the police do not share immigration information of crime victims or witnesses with federal authorities. A spokesman for United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement said no contact had been made with Mr. Chen, and said it was unknown whether any would be.
"Anybody who is here illegally shouldn't be surprised if they're arrested by ICE and placed into removal proceedings. That's just common sense," said the spokesman, Marc A. Raimondi. "ICE prioritizes our enforcement efforts to target those who pose the most significant threat to national security and public safety."
But he added, "Being locked in an elevator doesn't give you a free pass to break the law."
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