Steven Laise Interview Page 2

CHUCK SMYTHE: I kind of interrupted - but you were out doing a kind of inspection outside the building. … Was the building itself damaged at all? Did you notice any cracks or anything?

STEVEN LAISE: I didn't notice anything immediately except that a window was broken on Wall Street and two windows were blown open on the second floor. But I later did look at our … a building crack that had started apparently back in about 1929 when the subway was dug adjacent to the West side of the building under Nassau Street. And in doing that, although they underpinned that side of the building, a crack began that runs the entire length of the building on that side and all the way from the sub basement to the attic. So there's a differential settlement between the West wall and the rest of the building. That crack had been monitored for the last four or five years. We had gauges placed in several locations and we knew that it wasn't expanding noticeably at all over that period of time. But after September 11, we noticed a significant increase in the size of those cracks. And also, the crack became visible in places where it had previously not been visible. So we know that there had been some - some changes.

CHUCK SMYTHE: So it even expanded somewhat?

STEVEN LAISE: Yeah, no question about it, it expanded.

CHUCK SMYTHE: What were the feelings of people as they expressed them when they came in here? I suppose initially they were, you know, panicky. Could you describe, you know, statements that people made, or -

STEVEN LAISE: Well, some people were crying. Some people were complaining about superficial injuries. Some people had been struck by falling debris. And, you know, one gentleman was very upset his head was bleeding. And so we put some - first of all washed it with water and some of our staff kind of patched him up, they put a Band-Aid on him. But it was a minor injury, but he was very upset about it. And then the next question was, where am I? Because, you know, people - even those that worked down town for years don't know that Federal Hall is a national memorial, a unit of the National Park System and they hadn't come up the front steps to the main entrance. They had entered from the side and so it didn't register really exactly where they were. So they wanted to know that. Then they wanted to use the telephone and of course the bathrooms. And then I had the opportunity to go around and kind of reassure people by saying that, you know, this a very secure spot to be. In fact, during the Cold War the lowest floor of Federal Hall was designated an air raid shelter. So if you were in danger of an atomic bomb falling on you or something, this was a good place to be in their opinion.

CHUCK SMYTHE: That reassured some of the people?

STEVEN LAISE: It did. Yes, people kind of got a chuckle out of that. And they said, oh, okay it must be pretty safe. And it is. It's a solid masonry structure built of granite and marble and has stood here since 1842. … That was the real question was the uncertainty, you know. What does this mean? What happened, and what will happen next? Will there be more attacks and what kind and so on? And so just talking with people and a lot of people wanted to see where they were, what floor they were on, or what they had seen or what they heard. People wanted to talk about it. That initial period was one in which there are no barriers between people under those conditions. They are - you know, tell you, you know, how they're feeling or what they thought and if they're very upset they'll tell you that. And they'll - you know, they are - people are very - at that point they're sharing a lot of emotional, you know, stress with each other.

So our job is - you know, it was our job. I think that's how we felt about it that working in the National Park Service you feel a strong tradition of service. It's been that way ever since 1916 when the Park Service was created that rangers are there to help people. If it's deep in the wilderness and somebody's lost. Or if it's in Lower Manhattan and somebody's seeking shelter. That's our job. That is what a park ranger does. And so this was an opportunity where we all felt a good deal of satisfaction really in being able to help people at a time when they really needed it and in a variety of small ways. I don't mean we did anything very dramatic. But to give people a little bit of sympathy and a little bit of physical relief and shelter and reassurance. That was our main function.

CHUCK SMYTHE: This is really interesting. So it felt right? It felt like you were doing what you should be doing.

STEVEN LAISE: Yeah. Yeah. It's true. I think all our staff kind of felt that way. And a couple of things come out of that. One is a renewed respect for each other and a pride in our staff. If you don't see people performing under stress you don't really know them. And this was a case where you really got to know them. And I was very, very proud of our staff and how they performed. And the other thing is when the disaster played over and over and over endlessly on television and you saw the same planes hit the same buildings 50 or 100 times more and you couldn't do anything about it - that I think is a very depressing kind of experience. But when you're here and something's really happening and you can intervene you can do something positive even if it's a small thing. I feel and I think most people would feel much better about it. You know, you're able to do something active and you're able to contribute some little something. And to me that was really something I held on to for, you know, for weeks that when I watched all this unfold over and over on television and the magnitude of the disaster became better known in terms of the lives lost and all of that. You know, I felt a little bit of satisfaction that at that time I and the rest of us here had been able to be of some small help. And I know that helped me sort of keep a better perspective. … And it only happened once - well, twice if you consider both buildings going down. But on television it was just endless, endless.

CHUCK SMYTHE: Yeah. So - so along about 1:30 or so people had left and then you made the decision to let the staff go after that, or how'd that go?

STEVEN LAISE: Well, by that - well, our staff - our staff had - some of them had left earlier. Some of them left when the last of the visitors left. And a few of us, a park superintendent, Joe Avery, was here by that time and Chris Keenan and I and perhaps a couple of others remained here because as I said, we wanted to do that inspection of the building as soon as possible. We didn't really know, I mean, if the building was compromised seriously or not. So we looked around pretty carefully. And then we had to get out some emergency information. We had to contact our regional office and we had some e-mails and so on. You know, interestingly enough we had telephone service, we had Internet access, e-mail, we had electricity through the whole thing, you know, we never lost - lost any of that. So we were answering a lot of questions and returning calls and inquiries. But we left here about 5 o'clock or little after I guess. And I was home surprisingly by about 7 that evening. It's surprising because I take the Staten Island ferryboat to go home. And during the course of the day - I didn't know it at the time, but the ferries had stopped running and they were evacuating people on the ferries. But by evening, when I was ready to go home there was a ferryboat that was running to Staten Island. So not knowing any worse I went home.

CHUCK SMYTHE: Tell me how you made your way home. I mean, when you went outside it was dark then?

STEVEN LAISE: Yeah. Well, it was not totally dark. But as I say, there was a thick layer of ash. It was summer - you know, still light. There was a thick layer of ash so, you know, all the clothing that any of us had on that day was, you know, thoroughly coated and had absorbed this dust by the time we were finished thrashing around. And that pair of shoes - I still haven't been able to wear that pair of shoes. … I gave up trying to wash those and shifted to another pair. But anyway, walking down from here to the ferry terminal which is maybe a 10-minute walk, and through the canyons of Lower Manhattan there's nobody there but police and fire and emergency people. And everything was covered in dust. And by the time I got to the ferryboat as I say it looked, you know, quite normal down there. There's a boat waiting … but I do remember how quiet everyone was. I mean, we were all I think sort of stunned by this experience. And I know I sat up near the bow and looked out the window and watched the sun set as we were going across the harbor. And that's always a beautiful site. I did not look back toward the World Trade Center site or back toward Manhattan. I enjoyed the sun set, but neither I nor anybody on the boat had anything much to say, you know. It was just a very overwhelming kind of an experience. And I don't think anybody had quite absorbed it by that time.

CHUCK SMYTHE: So did you come to work the next day then?

STEVEN LAISE: Not the next day, but the second day after I came back. And again the reason was mainly for purposes of communication because we needed a few people here to contact our staff, let them know what was open, what was closed, when we were - where they were going to be reassigned, and so on and so forth. And by that time we were learning that the army was going to be occupying Battery Park and so Castle Clinton would be closed indefinitely. Federal Hall we knew would be closed at least until it was cleaned up thoroughly. Beyond that, we didn't really know … And I thought I was taking it all fairly calmly considering. But then that first day I was back which was the second day after, I went to an ATM to withdraw some money and I couldn't remember my PIN number. Now, I've been using the same PIN number for a long time … but I was just so thoroughly distracted that I couldn't remember that number for anything. And so I assumed at the moment that "Gee, something must have happened to this ATM machine, it just won't respond to my PIN number," but I was putting in the wrong number. … And then I realized the next day after that what had happened to me and it all came back. …

And also I was walking around trying to see more of the extent of the damage and the changes and what was open and what was not open and so on. At that time there was still some concern that other buildings were not stable beyond the perimeter of the World Trade Center. So one question was whether Liberty Plaza which is a skyscraper on a couple blocks from us whether that was stable and if it wasn't, if that fell would that have an impact on Federal Hall because it's much closer to us. So there were a lot of unanswered questions at that time. And it was only after really inspecting those buildings carefully that it was determined that they really weren't in any danger even though maybe the facade had, you know, some pieces had fallen, but the building was sound structurally.

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