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CNN Live Saturday
Residents of 125 Cedar Street in New York Move Back Into Homes
Aired January 11, 2003 - 17:42 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: It's been more than a year but the residents of 125 Cedar Street in New York are moving back in to their homes. The building is next to the World Trade Center site and it's taken this long to get back home.
Whitney Casey is live from one of the apartments overlooking Ground Zero. How's it going, Whitney?
WHITNEY CASEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's going good for Pat and Andy here today because it's their first day back in their apartment. They've lived in this apartment just a stone's throw away, as you said Fredricka, from Ground Zero for 25 years.
They were out of their apartment for a year and a half and the cleanup was a prodigious one. They said that the debris in this apartment was about two feet high. They spent a year and a half cleaning it and about $10,000 to $12,000 of their own money, and they don't know if they're going to get reimbursed.
And, if you would have asked Pat and Andy about six months ago if they ever thought that they'd be moving back in here, they would have said no. But with the help of some government agencies and a whole lot of elbow grease, today was move in day.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAT MOORE, ARTIST: If most people our age had to go through this, they'd fall apart.
CASEY (voice-over): Fifteen months later she's still cleaning up but what a striking metamorphosis, white walls, new windows, clean floors, and a little more cleaning.
This was the beginning when the cleanup seemed insurmountable. The post 9/11 apartment of New York artist Pat Moore and Andy Jurinko just across the street from Ground Zero, the couple's apartment was shrouded in netting, coated with toxic debris, and unrecognizable.
But this week on move in day -- and there's a smile on your face.
MOORE: There's a smile on my face. You couldn't tell last time. I think I was covered by a respirator.
ANDY JURINKO, ARTIST: Did you ever hear the phrase slap happy.
MOORE: Yes, exactly. JURINKO: That's sort of what we're feeling.
CASEY: Blissful but still a bit weary from the battle now behind them, the couple fought bureaucracy after bureaucracy to get back into their apartment, get it professionally cleaned, and then get federal aid. This is how they started, donning protective suits in their own bathroom.
When I saw the shots of you guys getting your gear on walking into this bathroom...
MOORE: This was the changing room. We used to put our hazmat gear on in the bathroom.
CASEY: So, when you guys sort of touched this right here and you see this kind of...
MOORE: Plaster.
JURINKO: That's just plaster.
CASEY: Plaster, that's regular dirt?
MOORE: It's construction dirt.
JURINKO: As well as...
MOORE: We're very pleased with having construction because number one it means it's hazmat free, and number two it means that we're actually progressing. We're getting stuff done.
CASEY: What was that impetus that kept you coming back so vigilantly?
JURINKO: A certain amount of defiance, you know, belligerence, and also sort of kind of a dedication to, you know, what our neighborhood was and the people who died was (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
MOORE: Well, we can get quite blunt about it too. We were not going to let those people that attacked us win.
CASEY: We see the transformation of the kitchen, Andy's art studio, and finally Pat and Andy show us the room full of relics. Only a third of the couple's pre-9/11 possessions were salvageable, things like file cabinets and coat racks. Amid the randomness there are a few gems.
MOORE: This is my father and my little sister and myself when I was a teenager.
CASEY: Old photographs of the couple's families, and as Pat and Andy finally move back in nearly a year and a half since they were forced out, they say the memories of the great buildings that were once the landscape of their backyard will now be enhanced by the visions of what could be out the window of 125 Cedar Street, 16 acres of possibility. (END VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY: And we're back here in Pat and Andy's house and you can see they're moving in right here behind us. We're just going to take you right across their living room and really show you just how close Ground Zero is, the 16-acre site that they're looking out on.
Seven architectural teams have come up with nine different plans for this 16 acres and those plans, now that they're in, will be part of public discourse. On Monday, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation plans on holding a huge town meeting in all five boroughs here for, not only people like Pat and Andy, but also for the victims' families to weigh in on what they think should be on this 16 acres -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: Now, Whitney, what about the other residents in that apartment building?
CASEY: All of them have moved in slowly. As you can see, there's not a lot of furniture here. And, as I said, they only had about a third of their furniture that they could actually keep, so the people that are really moving in don't have a lot to move in. They have to sort of buy everything from the beginning.
WHITFIELD: But glad enough just to have the space to move back in there.
CASEY: Certainly.
WHITFIELD: All right, Whitney Casey thanks very much from Lower Manhattan.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Homes>
Aired January 11, 2003 - 17:42 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: It's been more than a year but the residents of 125 Cedar Street in New York are moving back in to their homes. The building is next to the World Trade Center site and it's taken this long to get back home.
Whitney Casey is live from one of the apartments overlooking Ground Zero. How's it going, Whitney?
WHITNEY CASEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's going good for Pat and Andy here today because it's their first day back in their apartment. They've lived in this apartment just a stone's throw away, as you said Fredricka, from Ground Zero for 25 years.
They were out of their apartment for a year and a half and the cleanup was a prodigious one. They said that the debris in this apartment was about two feet high. They spent a year and a half cleaning it and about $10,000 to $12,000 of their own money, and they don't know if they're going to get reimbursed.
And, if you would have asked Pat and Andy about six months ago if they ever thought that they'd be moving back in here, they would have said no. But with the help of some government agencies and a whole lot of elbow grease, today was move in day.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAT MOORE, ARTIST: If most people our age had to go through this, they'd fall apart.
CASEY (voice-over): Fifteen months later she's still cleaning up but what a striking metamorphosis, white walls, new windows, clean floors, and a little more cleaning.
This was the beginning when the cleanup seemed insurmountable. The post 9/11 apartment of New York artist Pat Moore and Andy Jurinko just across the street from Ground Zero, the couple's apartment was shrouded in netting, coated with toxic debris, and unrecognizable.
But this week on move in day -- and there's a smile on your face.
MOORE: There's a smile on my face. You couldn't tell last time. I think I was covered by a respirator.
ANDY JURINKO, ARTIST: Did you ever hear the phrase slap happy.
MOORE: Yes, exactly. JURINKO: That's sort of what we're feeling.
CASEY: Blissful but still a bit weary from the battle now behind them, the couple fought bureaucracy after bureaucracy to get back into their apartment, get it professionally cleaned, and then get federal aid. This is how they started, donning protective suits in their own bathroom.
When I saw the shots of you guys getting your gear on walking into this bathroom...
MOORE: This was the changing room. We used to put our hazmat gear on in the bathroom.
CASEY: So, when you guys sort of touched this right here and you see this kind of...
MOORE: Plaster.
JURINKO: That's just plaster.
CASEY: Plaster, that's regular dirt?
MOORE: It's construction dirt.
JURINKO: As well as...
MOORE: We're very pleased with having construction because number one it means it's hazmat free, and number two it means that we're actually progressing. We're getting stuff done.
CASEY: What was that impetus that kept you coming back so vigilantly?
JURINKO: A certain amount of defiance, you know, belligerence, and also sort of kind of a dedication to, you know, what our neighborhood was and the people who died was (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
MOORE: Well, we can get quite blunt about it too. We were not going to let those people that attacked us win.
CASEY: We see the transformation of the kitchen, Andy's art studio, and finally Pat and Andy show us the room full of relics. Only a third of the couple's pre-9/11 possessions were salvageable, things like file cabinets and coat racks. Amid the randomness there are a few gems.
MOORE: This is my father and my little sister and myself when I was a teenager.
CASEY: Old photographs of the couple's families, and as Pat and Andy finally move back in nearly a year and a half since they were forced out, they say the memories of the great buildings that were once the landscape of their backyard will now be enhanced by the visions of what could be out the window of 125 Cedar Street, 16 acres of possibility. (END VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY: And we're back here in Pat and Andy's house and you can see they're moving in right here behind us. We're just going to take you right across their living room and really show you just how close Ground Zero is, the 16-acre site that they're looking out on.
Seven architectural teams have come up with nine different plans for this 16 acres and those plans, now that they're in, will be part of public discourse. On Monday, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation plans on holding a huge town meeting in all five boroughs here for, not only people like Pat and Andy, but also for the victims' families to weigh in on what they think should be on this 16 acres -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: Now, Whitney, what about the other residents in that apartment building?
CASEY: All of them have moved in slowly. As you can see, there's not a lot of furniture here. And, as I said, they only had about a third of their furniture that they could actually keep, so the people that are really moving in don't have a lot to move in. They have to sort of buy everything from the beginning.
WHITFIELD: But glad enough just to have the space to move back in there.
CASEY: Certainly.
WHITFIELD: All right, Whitney Casey thanks very much from Lower Manhattan.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Homes>
