Sixty seconds to spare

The end of this project was decided by no more than sixty seconds. A single stoplight or stopped car would have blown it apart for us. But we made it out of New York in time.

We bailed after I took pictures at the ANSWER protest during Bush's convention speech Thursday evening. We hopped a cab to Bill's house in Brooklyn, grabbed our bags and spun right back to the Penn Station/Madison Square Garden epicenter, hoping to catch the 10:35 train to Philly. It was nearly 10:30 when the cab dropped us several blocks from Penn. There were barricades and cops everywhere.

We ran north one block and asked an officer the quickest way into Penn Station. He said to take the red subway line one stop north. We pivoted down the stairs and missed the 1 line by about 20 seconds.

We waited endlessly. Finally the next train came and dropped us off in the bowels of Penn, filled with every sort of law enforcement official. In the huge station, we sprinted around people, swinging duffel bags wildly. The New York ticket desk directed me up to the New Jersey ticket desk, and I ran up to ask the attendant:

"Did we miss the 10:35 to Trenton?"

She said: "You boys got one minute."

No time to purchase tickets, so we sprinted, and I took a wrong turn for several feet. I wheeled around, skipped down escalator steps to the platform. The first car we saw was dark, and I yelled, "Conductor!!" We saw a couple guys looking out from farther ahead and ran towards them. "Can we get on?" I asked.

"Well, the door's open, isn't it?" one replied.

And that is how we squeaked out of Manhattan with not a minute to spare.

The drive took 22 hours back from Philly, and altogether, a whopping 2495 miles. Hooyah!

Posted by HongPong at September 4, 2004 03:29 AM
Listed under Ground Zero or Bust .