Helping Out, Any Way They Can

Reported by Tami Luhby, Karen Freifeld, Glenn Gamboa, Katia Hetter, Kathleen Kerr and Rocco Parascandola; written by Kerr.

September 13, 2001

The corpses were taken out one by one, passed along over the heads of a line of emergency workers that stretched through piles of ashes and rivers of debris.

"There were nine of them," said Ramone Ramirez, 28, normally the superintendent in a Bronx building, but now just one more worker among hundreds working in the Twin Towers rubble.

"We did a whole line, passing them one by one over our heads," he said. "There was a lot of blood, and dirt. It was horrible."

Ramirez had been in the city the day of the catastrophe and had helped out until authorities sent him home, worried about the safety of workers. Yesterday, he walked back in from the Bronx to once again lend a hand.

"I feel a little better now," he said. "You feel sad. Because of this, there are people now without fathers, mothers. ... The dead, they're innocent people who had to pay for something they didn't do. So I feel good that I helped out."

By foot and by train, from states north and west, amid military vehicles and police dog teams, the young and middle-aged - many who echoed Ramirez's feelings - came to Manhattan yesterday to help. Volunteers streamed into the Wall Street area and to Chelsea Piers to scoop up rubble, to donate clothing and food, and to search for missing friends.

One, Terry, a stockbroker from Merrick, took the train from Long Island to Flatbush and then boarded a subway to Wall Street. He declined to give his last name, saying he wanted no recognition.

Three Marines with rifles greeted Terry at Wall Street but let him proceed to Liberty and Church. He had worked at Morgan Stanley in the World Trade Center until 10 weeks ago.

Now he was searching for friends from the brokerage and a recently married neighbor who was having breakfast at the Windows on the World restaurant when disaster struck. She had phoned her husband just after the first jet hit the Twin Towers.

Eventually, Terry made his way to Fire Department Engine Co. 10, helping firefighters there clear piles of debris from their firehouse.

"It looks like you're walking through West Beirut," Terry said. "It's beyond my wildest nightmare."

In the end, he didn't find his neighbor.

At Chelsea Piers, where relatives gathered to ask about their loved ones, people donated food, T-shirts, pants, socks. By midmorning, black garbage bags filled with clothing covered the skating rink.

Lisa Limb, a martial arts teacher from SoHo, rolled a Samsonite suitcase in, filled with 200 T-shirts from her defunct martial arts Internet magazine. "You could be home watching TV and be helpless or you can just do whatever you can do at this point," Limb said.

Elsewhere on the piers, some rescue workers slept on gym mats, while other volunteers sorted clothes.

Laurence Kalinsky, a sports consultant from the West Village, brought bags of clothes. Kalinsky said, "To go to work just doesn't seem right. To see everyone out here eases the burden a little."

Christopher Lulaj, 7, and his cousin, Amanda Lulaj, 9, from the Bronx, ran along the West Side Highway handing out food and drinks to rescue workers. "We were running and running everywhere handing out drinks to the men in ambulances and the firemen," Christopher said.

"I feel kind of happy because we're helping the people who need help," Amanda said.

Why were they there? Their aunt Elsa Lulaj, a Bronx schoolteacher, said she "wanted them to see the good, not just the evil, and give them the sense that they can help."

Ajay Javeeri, a Manhattan jeweler, carried bags of food to the emergency workers. Others carried food and water down the West Side Highway to rescue workers who had come from all over New York and New Jersey.

And the Rev. Jeff Ethen, a Roman Catholic priest from Minnesota, comforted family members of the missing. "They all said they were brave and could handle it," Ethen said. "But when you sit them down, they needed counseling."

Back at the site of the Twin Towers rubble, Paul DiGiorgio, 41, a carpenter with the New York City Transit Department, helped to pull the body of a dead officer from the rubble at around 3 p.m.

"I was thinking about his family, about that person's family," he said. "This poor guy was just here yesterday, and now he's not here today."

The job was extremely difficult emotionally, he said, but "once you start working, it's just like a regular day at work. You just do the work. I kind of feel good about myself. I know I did something good."

Meanwhile, some 200 members of Ironworkers Local 40 yesterday began dismantling the remains of the buildings that they once helped to build.

"We put those buildings up," said Edward J. Walsh, the union's business manager. "The environment is very risky, and you never know what can happen."