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Carmen Taylor Answers Questions
Topic Started: Apr 23 2009, 05:01 AM (14,295 Views)
YougeneDebs
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heidimarie
Nov 22 2009, 10:41 PM
Hi, ya'll. Would like to add a link as to my position on 9/11, which I get from a most excellent source. This may not be posted correctly, but hopefully somebody will fix it for me. For the sake of authenticity, it was sent to me correctly, but my computer skills are questionable!

<http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=south+ferry+nyc&fb=1&gl=us&hq=South+Ferry&hnear=South+Ferry&cid=0,0,1095226395593582403&ei=1TcJS-naFtGnlAf-l5GtDA&ved=0CAoQnwIwAA&ll=40.703082,-74.016912&spn=0.002174,0.004128&t=h&z=19&iwloc=A>

http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=south+ferry+nyc&fb=1&gl=us&hq=South+Ferry&hnear=South+Ferry&cid=0,0,1095226395593582403&ei=1TcJS-naFtGnlAf-l5GtDA&ved=0CAoQnwIwAA&ll=40.703082,-74.016912&spn=0.002174,0.004128&t=h&z=19&iwloc=A

This is where you need to look for a good idea where my ferry was located.

Am trying to get us connected with someone who knows what he's talking about. I good guy. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Best to everyone..

tgc c
Happy Valentines to you, too, Carmen. Please forgive me for moving our conversation over here from the Helicopter thread; it’s become more about your memory of the helicopter you made room for, and not about ‘helicopters’ in general. Is that okay?

I'm sorry, but I don't know how to photoshop stuff. Maybe Rasga or achimspok or seatnineb can help with that. I'm glad you're trying to describe the helicopter. Could you google for images of helicopters just to find one that's close in shape? That would be really helpful. Don’t worry about coloring or markings; the shape and style of the windshield would be key.

And thanks for this: "...the helicopter was to the right of the Towers and well within the uncropped frame..." This leads me to think that you were watching 3 things: the plane, the video display in the back of the camera, and the towers with the naked eye. Now. That video display thing in the back of the camera; can it rotate around to almost any angle? I don’t have a camera like that so I don’t know.

Changing the subject slightly, I quoted your previous post above because you said this: “Am trying to get us connected with someone who knows what he's talking about. I good guy. I'll keep my fingers crossed.” (sic) I’ve been on the edge of my seat waiting for an update (and I fell off twice!). Can you please tell us who this guy is and what your conversations with him were/are like?

And I’ve got more questions. I don’t like giving you a lot of questions at any one time (in my opinion, memories are delicate and need to be coaxed, not forced); but you don’t like me “being Colombo”, so here are a few more questions:

We don’t know exactly where you got off the bus in Battery Park. Here’s a pic showing a possible bus route coming down West St and turning left then parking in zone 1, 2,or 3.
If you can remember which zone, that would be splendid!
Posted Image

Also, you had purchased a tour pack which included a ferry ride. However! Did you have to get the ferry ticket separately once you got to Battery Park? If so, did you have to go to Clinton Castle and get the ticket? And, how did you ‘figure out’ which line to stand in?

Also, was the ferry you boarded the only ferry around?

And, did you notice any ferry coming in to dock just after the 2nd plane hit?

Finally, after the 2nd plane hit, and you took a picture of the Statue of Liberty, I’m sure you noticed the ferry plying the waters in that vicinity; Do you recall what happened to that ferry? I know you were busy with other things; I’m just asking. Thanks!
Attached to this post:
Attachments: BusStops02.jpg (129.91 KB)
Edited by YougeneDebs, Feb 15 2010, 12:50 PM.
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heidimarie

Debs: No problem moving our conversation. Appreciate your organization! Will take your questions/comments individually, but can only do a few now. Got to go to work!

1.Photoshop: I wasn’t thinking of anything elaborate—perhaps just blocks representing size of towers and a dot representing the size of a helicopter if it were as close as I remember.

2.Don’t think I could come up with any description/size/shape of helicopter other than if I didn’t think it was large or military, I guess I didn’t get the impression of those big, double-rotating ones. More like big blades on top, little set on tail. This particular statement is just as assumption of non-military because I’ve seen a lot of the military choppers in the air, and these didn’t come to mind.

3.I set up the shot by doing these things: Framing in the towers, chopper and enough surrounding area to establish location, keeping my finger on the shutter and holding the camera still. The only thing from that point on that I watched was 175 come in from my left. I thought of it as the only moving object. That is what I meant when I earlier said that the chopper seemed to be near the Towers and I didn’t think there would be any reason for it to move away. I was conscious of the display screen only in that as 175 got closer, I made sure I had not moved the camera and ruined my set-up.

4.The person I was asking didn’t provide much more information than is on this site. I’ll see what I can do. I was a bit disappointed.

5.Bus in Battery Park. Have no idea our unloading position. Don’t think any of us were paying much attention to that. Our bus was the first bus to arrive because it was the “express” tour bus and took the route that came directly to Battery Park so we could be on the first ferry to the Statute of Liberty.

6.Which line were we in? We got off the bus in a group. I was on the top almost above the driver, so I was near last to get off and just followed everybody else. There may have been a guide, but I just became part of the group and went along.

7.Everybody on our bus had a special ticket and for the ferry. I wrote an essay about this soon after 9/11. Within several minutes of Flight 11 hitting, our group was “rushed” onto a ferry. The ferry (or ferries) were more or less eye-level and most of us were looking up or talking to one another, so I don’t remember if there was another ferry or even IF we were put on the tour ferry versus the closest ferry. Nobody mentioned or tried to collect tickets. Don’t know what the normal protocol would have been.

8.The next time ferries came to my mind were when Doug and I were trying to get on one to go to Jersey City after the Towers fell.

9.The picture I took of the Statue was just to clear my mind and look at something big in the opposite direction.

10.There were a lot of boats in the harbor, all seeming to move quickly in “random” directions. The waters had been relatively smooth as I looked at the Hudson on the bus drive, but even as I sat on the ferry taking pictures, it had become so choppy with all the watercraft making wakes that our ferry was hitting up against the concrete and had a lot of movement. That is why I had to sit and wedge myself in with my feet and legs. I couldn’t hold on to anything since I had the camera in both hands.

11.I don’t remembers identifying the boats as anything in particular, but remember flags, numbers, insignias, etc., but nothing in particular about any of them…just moving fast, making wakes and they didn’t seem to have destinations. Confusion.

Thanks for your patience. tgc c
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heidimarie

Debs, in response to your question below:

"Changing the subject slightly, I quoted your previous post above because you said this: “Am trying to get us connected with someone who knows what he's talking about. I good guy. I'll keep my fingers crossed.” (sic) I’ve been on the edge of my seat waiting for an update (and I fell off twice!). Can you please tell us who this guy is and what your conversations with him were/are like?"

I'm giving you his response. Don't know how much it will help:


If you look at google maps aerial photo, there is a ferry docked in about the same location:

South Ferry Station
1 State Street Plaza
Manhattan, New York, NY 10004
Link: <http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=south+ferry+nyc&fb=1&gl=us&hq=South+Ferry&hnear=South+Ferry&cid=0,0,1095226395593582403&ei=1TcJS-naFtGnlAf-l5GtDA&ved=0CAoQnwIwAA&ll=40.703082,-74.016912&spn=0.002174,0.004128&t=h&z=19&iwloc=A>

http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=south+ferry+nyc&fb=1&gl=us&hq=South+Ferry&hnear=South+Ferry&cid=0,0,1095226395593582403&ei=1TcJS-naFtGnlAf-l5GtDA&ved=0CAoQnwIwAA&ll=40.703082,-74.016912&spn=0.002174,0.004128&t=h&z=19&iwloc=A

tgc c
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jmdewey60
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Here is a link to a picture that was taken from the upper deck of a boat that would have in the spot where Heidi
just gave the link to, of a picture that indicates where she believed it was.
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/2345293.jpg
If you compare the alignments of the buildings in this shot, with the Carmen Taylor shots, you can see that it
does not work out exactly. The height is good, but it is too close.
Also you can see a bunch of people walking off, who probably just off-loaded from the same boat, which might
be an indication of the path to the buses.
I made a montage to help locate Carmen's boat. This is the Russian Cessna photo, as it was pulling away from
the WTC, and looking back, over Governor's Island. There is what looks like a boat tied up at Battery Park.
If you line it up, in Google Earth, and draw a line, you can see where the photo fixes the location of the boat.
Posted Image
The page scrunched up my montage because I made it too big. You can directly link to it at,
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd56/jmdewey60/911/Carmenboatfinder.jpg
I should probably note that The top picture in the montage is a crop and has been doubled in size, for
illustrative purposes, meaning having something that is big enough to see and draw a line on.
My line goes through the center of the "boat" in the Cessna shot.
What Heidi linked to was basically a close up to the google shot in the left bottom of my montage,
and the boat seems to be moving, so not sure where she is placing it.
Edited by jmdewey60, Feb 19 2010, 11:55 AM.
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YougeneDebs
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Nice work, JM! The line of sight from Yury seems to run right through Ferry Station #4.

This might be a great time to introduce the map of Barry Drogin
Posted Image

The ferry station numbers are plainly visible. The lines are his. I spent a few hours in the archives trying to get a copy of the source map, but without success.
Attached to this post:
Attachments: batteryMap.jpg (122.37 KB)
Edited by YougeneDebs, Feb 24 2010, 10:03 PM.
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jmdewey60
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It's nice to have it delineated like this.
I was having to deduce it from photos that showed
the metal, flag type signs, with the numbers cut out.
Edited by jmdewey60, Feb 24 2010, 10:41 PM.
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Deleted User
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Yury's pic,nice one jmdewey. When I first saw them I wondered about Carmens boat and if it was in there,I'm so glad you were able to show this,bloody good job mate. :)
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broken sticks
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yeah, nice one jm
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heidimarie

Hi, ya'll ...I sent Jeff some pictures and the absolutely beautiful (yuck) sketchs of myself taking the picture which might help with positioning. He will post here or perhaps start a new section relative to just my location. Keep us the good work. tgc c
Edited by heidimarie, Feb 25 2010, 10:30 PM.
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jmdewey60
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heidimarie
Feb 25 2010, 10:27 PM
Hi, ya'll ...I sent Jeff some pictures and the absolutely beautiful (yuck) sketchs of myself taking the picture which might help with positioning. He will post here or perhaps start a new section relative to just my location. Keep us the good work. tgc c
I would be interested in those sketches.
I am in the process of making a 3D model of a Circle Line ferry for use as an object in X-Plane.
I have done a preliminary test, with the unfinished boat version, to see where it ends up in the
simulation. What I found out was that, like I also found out while placing the Castle Williams on
Governor's Island, is that the shorelines are approximations. Objects can be placed precisely by
using real geographical coordinates, and I think that has to be adhered to, and the shorelines
need to be ignored.
I made a tunnel vent and put it where the one is on the north end of Governor's Island, over towards
Brooklyn, and in real life it sits on what looks like a tiny man-made island, out in the water, hardly
bigger than the tower. In the simulation, I just set the thing on the water, and that works. What this
has let me to conclude is that the water surface acts as a base so anything placed on it has to be
made to take into consideration the height of objects in relation to a hypothetical water level. Which
leads me to a question; has anyone ever checked to see the tide level at Battery park at 9:00 am
on 9-11-01?
Placing the ferry model in the simulation has it sitting 100 feet off the shore so I need to make the
actual pier, if that is the correct term, where the boat ties up. If I knew how high the water was
in relation to the pier, that would help in the accuracy of the simulation. Then I will have the pier,
the boat, and if the sketch was posted, of the person (Carmen) on the boat taking the picture.
Posted Image
Edited by jmdewey60, Mar 9 2010, 11:22 AM.
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jmdewey60
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I am not a 3D modeler, more like a person with a lot of free time, so I do things by trial and error.
Here is an update of my progress on what I have devoted my time on for at least the last week.
Posted Image
I made a montage showing some elements of this recreation. Top left is the boat sitting in the water.
I have not made the dock, yet.
Center top is one of the Verrazano bridge towers that I made using Sketchup and taking the
measurements off of the model used in Google Earth. As you can see in this capture from the X-Plane
simulation, when I positioned it in real coordinates, it ends up in alignment with the road that was
already there in the scenery. Apparently the position of roads in this program is accurate, just that the
actual background scenery is very generic. You can see how important it is to add your own structures
where they are critical, like this bridge that should be easily spottable from a great distance.
Top right is a close-up of the figure model that I seated on the front bench in the boat. I did not design
this model, just positioned the parts, so I don't have control of the texture. X-Plane objects do not work
with more than one texture, so making this figure part of the boat object, gives it a general boat coloring.
The lower capture is the actual simulation I am trying to use to recreate the situation that Carmen found
herself in on that day. The camera, in this mode of the simulator program, is movable, but always points
at the plane. In this capture, the plane is just about to cross over the bridge, and is the little blob of colors
between the bridge towers, at about 1000 feet. The idea here is to determine how far Carmen would
have had to turn around to see the plane if it was in fact coming along that path.
Edited by jmdewey60, Mar 15 2010, 08:02 AM.
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jmdewey60
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heidimarie
Feb 16 2010, 09:32 AM
10.There were a lot of boats in the harbor, all seeming to move quickly in “random” directions. The waters had been relatively smooth as I looked at the Hudson on the bus drive, but even as I sat on the ferry taking pictures, it had become so choppy with all the watercraft making wakes that our ferry was hitting up against the concrete and had a lot of movement. That is why I had to sit and wedge myself in with my feet and legs. I couldn’t hold on to anything since I had the camera in both hands.
Some boats were in one of the videos.
I put together crops of some of the frames.
One large boat, that looks like a cargo ship, seems to be passing directly in front of the south
face of tower 2 as it was sustaining a large explosion.
I would like to identify it and add it to the simulation.
Posted Image
A large displacement ship like this would have been capable of making a strong serge that
would have rocked the ferry boat.
Edited by jmdewey60, Mar 15 2010, 04:55 PM.
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YougeneDebs
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jmdewey60~ That's some really great work! Thank you!
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jmdewey60
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Yougenedebs
Mar 15 2010, 09:21 PM
jmdewey60~ That's some really great work! Thank you!
I was using that set-up as an example of how this simulation can be used.
I don't know how many people on this forum think that the plane flew
directly over Verrazano, but I figured that would be a good place to start.
My theory, as I stated on another thread, is that the general route was
the least prone to failure, which would be a straight line perpendicular to
the south face of tower two, but that's just me.
About that boat; I looked up Matt's listing on post #286 in the "resolved"
thread, for "chopper 4" which places it directly over what looks like Washing-
ton Square. That is a little over two miles away from the WTC towers. Using
Virtual Earth, which still has the "Deutsche Bank building", I got the distance out
from the towers, in the water, by lining up the roof with the upper part of the
Downtown Athletic Club building. Crossing those lines gives me 40.694992°
-74.025532° which puts it about 1.25 miles from the s. tower. Calculating the
angle of the field of view from the camera and doing some percentage calcula-
tions, I ended up with the length of the boat being 267 feet.
I spent a few hours yesterday looking at pictures of boats taken in the NYC
Harbor area and I have to think that it is probably a boat that is used to bring
fuel to larger ships. The coloring of the hull acts as an easy reference to how
much fuel is in it, according to how much of the black is showing. This boat was
probably up-river fueling a cargo ship, and returning to a fuel depot out towards
the Narrows, going light and moving fast.
Edited by jmdewey60, Mar 16 2010, 12:40 PM.
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shure
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jmdewey60
Mar 9 2010, 10:47 AM
heidimarie
Feb 25 2010, 10:27 PM
Hi, ya'll ...I sent Jeff some pictures and the absolutely beautiful (yuck) sketchs of myself taking the picture which might help with positioning. He will post here or perhaps start a new section relative to just my location. Keep us the good work. tgc c
I would be interested in those sketches.
Posted Image
Quote:
 
This is the direction I was looking when I first saw the plane. I then turned my head back to the camera screen and then tracked the plane by just shifting my eyes, trying to watch both the screen (so I wouldn’t shake and lose the Towers from the screen) and the plane so I’d know when to press the shutter. When the plane hit, I was looking straight at the Towers, watching both the real image and the screen image.

Posted Image
Quote:
 
This is how I remember when I took the picture. There were probably people sitting next to the ones on my right and left, but I remember nothing about them.

We were sitting on some kind of metal “seat.” The back came up to about my shoulders. The curve of the end of the ferry may not have been has sharp as I remember, ie, a little wider U shape than I have drawn.

Also, you have the ferry at the dock, just turn it around. Think Spok and I were having language mis-communication. Isn’t his work great.

Thanks.

TGC C


Posted Image

-----------------------

Quote:
 
Jeff, I thought I sent these to you come time ago. Gulnara took these while we were trying to find my location prior to boarding the ferry.



The picture of the ferry is a “probable” position, but I can’t say for sure that it is in the exact position, but probably very close. The “front” end of the ferry does NOT correspond to the place I was sitting. The back end of the ferry seems more familiar, but the “box” at the end I was sitting on had a place for me to lean back on and it seemed that the railing was curved, but I feel less sure about the curve.



The landmarks on pix 119 and 120 might help a bit.


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http://www.pumpitout.com/images/ct/NYC_Jan_2005_106.jpg

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http://www.pumpitout.com/images/ct/NYC_Jan_2005_108.jpg

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http://www.pumpitout.com/images/ct/NYC_Jan_2005_109.jpg

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http://www.pumpitout.com/images/ct/NYC_Jan_2005_110.jpg

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http://www.pumpitout.com/images/ct/NYC_Jan_2005_111.jpg

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http://www.pumpitout.com/images/ct/NYC_Jan_2005_112.jpg

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http://www.pumpitout.com/images/ct/NYC_Jan_2005_113.jpg

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http://www.pumpitout.com/images/ct/NYC_Jan_2005_116.jpg

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http://www.pumpitout.com/images/ct/NYC_Jan_2005_118.jpg

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http://www.pumpitout.com/images/ct/NYC_Jan_2005_119.jpg

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http://www.pumpitout.com/images/ct/NYC_Jan_2005_120.jpg

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http://www.pumpitout.com/images/ct/NYC_Jan_2005_122.jpg

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http://www.pumpitout.com/images/ct/NYC_Jan_2005_128.jpg


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