Using the experience of living near the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack, the Independence Plaza North Tenants Association has developed “Neighbor to Neighbor: The Downtown Solution,” a 12-page booklet on surviving disasters and community healing.
The tenants association is distributing 5,000 copies to I.P.N. residents, various buildings in Tribeca and by a mailing to 1,000 households, said John Scott, vice president of the tenants association. The booklet is also available at www.ipnta.org.
“We wanted to share our experience and what we learned about how a community can mobilize for a disaster,” Scott said. The Downtown Resource Center, a Lower Manhattan support organization, helped pay for the printing.
The tenants association in the three-building high-rise I.P.N. complex was able to help elderly and infirm residents who had no electricity or running water.
The impetus for the pamphlet came last year when Diane Lapson, an I.P.N. tenants association board member, was invited to a Johns Hopkins conference on disaster preparedness in Washington D.C.
“Our purpose in putting out this pamphlet is to let all communities know that they themselves are the key to their own survival,” Lapson said.s
