New Yorkers Volunteer to Commemorate 9/11 -With Ed Welter

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Ladies and gentlemen, the next Brooklyn bound [00:00:04] Speaker B: train in Mount island, stand clear of the closing doors. [00:00:08] Speaker A: Please. [00:00:33] Speaker B: Transfer. [00:00:42] Speaker A: Hello everybody and welcome to the New Yorkers Podcast with me today. I have my good friend here, Ed Welter. And before entering the construction industry, Ed worked as a chief dialysis technician and an overdose detox specialist at Kings County Hospital at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. He later owned a construction estimating and management company for 40 years. That experience gives him a unique understanding of the construction of the Twin towers and the reasons that they had collapsed. Ed has also been a licensed New York City Tour guide for 13 years, everyone. And has volunteered at the 911 memorial since it opened in September 2011, later becoming a docent at the museum as well. Since 2012, Ed has donated his time to expertise to every project. He has completed 90 smart home projects for the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. In addition to his pro bono work, he has helped raise more than $300,000. But above all else, Ed is a New Yorker. Hey, Ed, welcome to the show. How you doing today? [00:01:47] Speaker B: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to meet you. [00:01:49] Speaker A: It's a pleasure to be here too. But we have met, you know, a few times before, but I know what you mean. [00:01:55] Speaker B: This is official. [00:01:56] Speaker A: This is official meeting. Yeah. So Ed is a plethora of New York City knowledge. He knows so much about the city, but let's start out from when he was just starting out as a young kid and where he was born and all about that. [00:02:12] Speaker B: Okay. Alphabet City. [00:02:14] Speaker A: Oh, nice. You're born in Alphabet city. Right here. [00:02:17] Speaker B: 11th between A and B. I don't remember much about it except for one very funny fact. [00:02:23] Speaker A: What's that? [00:02:24] Speaker B: We had a. I was a little kid and our tub was in the kitchen. [00:02:32] Speaker A: That's so funny. [00:02:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that's where my parents first started out. We lived with my grandparents. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Yep. [00:02:38] Speaker B: And my grandfather was in construction all his life as a bricklayer, a scaffold builder. And he would come home filthy. And when he came home, we all had to get out of the kitchen, go sit in the living room, pull this big. I still remember it was green. A big heavy green drape across. And the funniest part of it is he had this timed. He had one song. He's Italian, Salvatore Bobaccia. [00:03:05] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Yeah. [00:03:06] Speaker B: He had this timed. He played five. Record the same five recordings over and over again of Volares. [00:03:13] Speaker A: Oh, great song. [00:03:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And by the fifth time, he was out of the tub. [00:03:17] Speaker A: That's so funny. [00:03:18] Speaker B: That's what I remember. From. From living there and then, you know, later. [00:03:22] Speaker A: And how old are you at this time? [00:03:24] Speaker B: I'm like three. [00:03:25] Speaker A: That's so funny. [00:03:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember that, though. [00:03:27] Speaker A: Can you remember Volare too? [00:03:29] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Every time I hear that, so I think of my grandfather. [00:03:31] Speaker A: I love that. It's the lyrics in Little. Isn't it? Little Italy. The lyrics of Polari. Yeah, yeah. But that's. That's really cool though. That's funny. [00:03:39] Speaker B: It's a great. It's a great memory. When we went to visit the Tenement Museum years later, I felt like I was home. [00:03:45] Speaker A: That's so funny because I just recently went to the Tenement Museum, Ed. And the first thing I thought when you, you know, painted the picture of that scene, I thought of the Tenement Museum. [00:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah. I felt the first time I went there, I felt like mom back home in 1958, whatever year it was 59. So my dad had come home from World War II and they were getting ready to build a house, so we lived there in the. In the interim. [00:04:10] Speaker A: That's fascinating. [00:04:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it was great stuff. [00:04:12] Speaker A: Do you guys have pictures in general of just the place that you live back then? [00:04:16] Speaker B: Yeah, there's only a. [00:04:17] Speaker A: There's such a different time, though. [00:04:19] Speaker B: Yeah. By the way, we went to take my dad there on his 70th birthday. Just passed. He was 90, almost 98. [00:04:26] Speaker A: Oh, sorry to hear that. [00:04:27] Speaker B: And the whole block is still the same except that house that was the corner diamond and it got torn down to build a high rise on Avenue A or whatever. So that was gone. So we felt bad about it. But the rest of the block was still there. And there's pictures of the family, all very young. My father in his army uniform in the 1940s. [00:04:50] Speaker A: That's amazing. [00:04:51] Speaker B: My uncle was a construction battalion, same lineage in the Navy during World War II. He's wearing his sailor outfit. So that's amazing picture I have of that, but I have it hanging in my office. So. By the way, just to let you know, that 40 year construction career still ongoing. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's what I do in North Carolina when I'm not here. [00:05:15] Speaker A: It's amazing, you know, but you know, also real quick too, when you were painting that picture of. Of Alphabet City where you lived, it made me think of. Of course, now that I'm doing the podcast, I think can't think of the name of the movie with Robert De Niro, you know, A Bronx Tale. Did you ever see the movie? Love that movie. That's what I was picturing too in my Head. You know that scene as you. A little kid, your dad there. And he was. [00:05:36] Speaker B: Yeah, we weren't very well connect. We didn't end up to be connected, though. [00:05:40] Speaker A: Yeah, well. So for people who don't know what Alphabet City is or where it is. Can you explain it? Explain that to the audience, more or [00:05:48] Speaker B: less the lower listeners, the Lower east side. And there's a few. Avenue, Avenue A, Avenue B, Avenue C. And we were on 11th Street. And it's basically. It's all three story, I guess, three story tenements. And of course now they're worth a fortune. [00:06:02] Speaker A: Right. Super expensive. [00:06:03] Speaker B: In those days. We had to walk up and nobody wanted to live there. It's as much like so many parts of the city that. Yeah, you either didn't go to or didn't want to go to. And now you can't afford to go to. [00:06:14] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. [00:06:15] Speaker B: Simple as that. [00:06:16] Speaker A: Right. [00:06:16] Speaker B: I just remember the park and there was a. It's still there. I cannot remember the name, but there's a very famous Italian bakery there. [00:06:25] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:06:26] Speaker B: That's still there today. That people used to line up around the block on holidays. [00:06:30] Speaker A: Is it start with a V? Is it? Yes. Oh, geez. I know it too, so well. Yeah, it's. Oh, no. I can't think. [00:06:38] Speaker B: Father is looking down at me right now and saying, I can't believe you don't remember this. [00:06:42] Speaker A: We both can't. You know, you get to a certain age and I, you know, I'll be doing live videos still there. [00:06:47] Speaker B: And it's been completely renovated and was really high end. But you know, as a kid, remember waiting online with my dad to pick cannolis and things for holiday. [00:06:56] Speaker A: Exactly. I love that place. [00:06:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's huge. I mean, this is. But there was always a line around the. [00:07:01] Speaker A: Yep. [00:07:02] Speaker B: That's the one thing I remember. Do we have to go there? It's going to take an hour. [00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:06] Speaker B: Oh, the bakery name was Venero. [00:07:09] Speaker A: Yes, Good memory. So then what happened? After living in the Lower east side, in Alphabet City, so to speak, life [00:07:18] Speaker B: took a bad turn. A few years later, my mom got sick. She got kidney disease. That's how I ended up later on working in dialysis because I was forced to learn it at a young age. She got sick at 32. [00:07:35] Speaker A: Young. [00:07:35] Speaker B: She was in dialysis for 25 years. [00:07:38] Speaker A: Wow. [00:07:38] Speaker B: And she died at age 57. When she died, she was the longest surviving woman in the world on dialysis. But before she died early on, she founded an organization that helped kidney patients who really had no voice. And her and a few others also, by the way, no one paid for dialysis treatments. They used to have a death panel. And the only reason that she survived, was given an okay on that panel was because she had a seven year old son, which was me. [00:08:11] Speaker A: Wow. [00:08:12] Speaker B: They didn't. The government wouldn't pay for treatment, so if you didn't have the money, you died. [00:08:18] Speaker A: Gosh. [00:08:19] Speaker B: And they had so little equipment that they could only save a few people. And I was lucky because I was her only child and she was young. [00:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Very young. [00:08:28] Speaker B: So anyway, she founded this organization and today it's called aakp. American association of Kidney Patients. And last time I checked, there was like a hundred thousand members. She founded it with one other guy, I'm going to say, in the late 1960s. And it continued to grow. So her legacy lives on. And by the way, they went to the House of Representatives and they got the bill passed that everybody that needs dialysis treatments gets it without worrying about paying. Wow. Yeah. [00:09:02] Speaker A: That's fascinating. [00:09:03] Speaker B: We thought this conversation could be about me, but my mom's way more interesting now. [00:09:08] Speaker A: Well, your mom's just as interesting, you know. Yeah, that's. She'd be proud to be talking about this right now. [00:09:15] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, if she's hearing me, she. She would be. I'm very proud of her. [00:09:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:20] Speaker B: Well, that May didn't live a long life, but she lived a good. She lived a good life. She helped a lot of people. Her phone used to ring constantly because everybody knew how long she was on dials. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:30] Speaker B: Like new patients who were really afraid, like, what. What's going to happen to me Now I have to go on this machine. They used to call all the time. They had her number. Our phone was ringing constantly. She was always on the phone with people she had never met, you know, helping them out. And it changed a lot because when she started, there was three treatments. Three treatments a week, 18 hours. She used to have to stay at Kings county overnight. And now today, the last I checked, I haven't worked in dialysis in a long time. You know, it's still three times a week, but it's more like three hours. [00:10:05] Speaker A: Right. [00:10:05] Speaker B: Equipment is much better and the technology is better. [00:10:08] Speaker A: So we just think, you know, you're talking about her right now. Someone's listening and you're helping them too, through your mother, you know, with the information you're giving too. [00:10:15] Speaker B: Right now, following up on what she did. [00:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is amazing. I think it's. [00:10:18] Speaker B: So that was a. That was, that was There was. Then we had the dialysis machine at home. [00:10:23] Speaker A: Wow. [00:10:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's where I learned. She was one of the first people to have the machine actually in the house. So they had to train me and then. See, this is before you came to New York. [00:10:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:35] Speaker B: CBS News, they used to have a guy by the name Dr. Earl Ubello. He was the science reporter for our local cbs. [00:10:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:42] Speaker B: And they came and did a photo. They did a story on, you know, the, the seven or eight or whatever. I was eight years old. Who is operating a dialysis machine. I used to start the treatment with her. And then my father would come after he came home from work and he [00:11:00] Speaker A: was out of the tub. [00:11:01] Speaker B: He took her off. [00:11:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:02] Speaker B: This is after the, the machine was. At that point, it was a six hour treatment. The 18 hour treatments were always in the, in the hospital. [00:11:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:11:10] Speaker B: But yeah, they, they thought it was a great story. Like, you know, this little boy genius. As my friends were teasing relentlessly, they came and filmed that. And we were in our house and I remember all these big, big trucks outside and they just wanted to show me. [00:11:26] Speaker A: Right. [00:11:27] Speaker B: Operating this machine. So. [00:11:30] Speaker A: And you're eight years old. [00:11:31] Speaker B: I was eight years old. [00:11:31] Speaker A: Gosh, that's insane. Amazing. [00:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:35] Speaker B: So, yeah, it's. It's been a. It's been a funny. [00:11:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:39] Speaker B: In some ways you're right. [00:11:40] Speaker A: I understand. I understand. [00:11:41] Speaker B: I know I'd love New York. Worked in Manhattan. Worked with my dad in Manhattan. 38th street, right where we are today. [00:11:48] Speaker A: Really? [00:11:48] Speaker B: Yeah. 331 East 38th. Wow. Yeah. Believe me, that, that. [00:11:54] Speaker A: Did this bring back memories, walking here today? [00:11:56] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. [00:11:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:58] Speaker B: My dad met my mom in the same building on Easter. It's 38th between 1st and 2nd. Oh, wow. So this block, this whole 38th is huge memories. This is where I met my wife. Wow. I met her while I was working on this, you know, further down, but on 38th Street. So 38th is a big part of. Big part of my life. And then she was from Long island and we were set up and we got married and. And it was a good move at the time. Two boys. What the worst part of it was, it took me out of my element because she didn't like me. She was from Long island and she did not like New York. [00:12:33] Speaker A: Really? The city. She liked the city. [00:12:35] Speaker B: Not at all. We tried. She liked visiting the city. [00:12:37] Speaker A: Right. [00:12:37] Speaker B: Weekend. [00:12:38] Speaker A: Right. [00:12:39] Speaker B: But to stay, to live here. She didn't want to raise kids here. [00:12:43] Speaker A: Right. [00:12:43] Speaker B: Just took me. She. I blame her. She'll hear that she'll hear this, and she'll be smarter. We know each other over 50 years. Wow. Been married. We haven't been married for 30. We're very, very close, very good friends. We never had any issues, you know? But the good thing is, just took me out of my element. And so I was away for 30 years. I lived on Long Island. I would. You know, we'd always come to the city. [00:13:06] Speaker A: Well, I mean, Long Island City is. I mean, I'm sorry. Long. I do like Long Island City, too, but Long island itself is. It's considered New York, in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, like, how far of a drive were you? [00:13:16] Speaker B: I never felt. I felt like a fish out of water. Yeah. [00:13:19] Speaker A: I understood. [00:13:20] Speaker B: I was in Suffolk County. I liked the house. We had a nice house. It was a good place to bring up my boys. [00:13:24] Speaker A: Right. [00:13:25] Speaker B: Played a lot of hockey, you know, baseball, the usual stuff. A lot of football in the backyard. A big back. [00:13:30] Speaker A: Right. [00:13:30] Speaker B: A lot of football. [00:13:31] Speaker A: That's pretty cool. [00:13:33] Speaker B: But I. I always felt like I was just never. I was never at home there. And unfortunately, after 20 years or so of marriage, we basically ran onto things. Date each other. We'd known each other since we were kids. [00:13:46] Speaker A: Mm. [00:13:47] Speaker B: So we parted amicably. [00:13:49] Speaker A: Right. [00:13:50] Speaker B: But that gave me the opportunity to start thinking about coming back where I belong. [00:13:56] Speaker A: Right. [00:13:57] Speaker B: It took me a few years because the business that I have today back then was bigger than it is today. Just because technology has understood. [00:14:06] Speaker A: Yes. [00:14:07] Speaker B: Everything was manual, so I had an army of people that worked for me. So now we have a small group. Some people work remotely. We used to have big blueprints, physical plans. Now everything's on the screen. [00:14:19] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:20] Speaker B: So it took a long time, but the minute I realized I can go home, I did. And that was in 2009. And I moved to, like, my favorite. Not far from where. Where you are. And that is. I moved to Morningside Heights. [00:14:35] Speaker A: Oh, nice. I loved how you said that I could move, go home. [00:14:39] Speaker B: Everybody that knows me knows that this. [00:14:41] Speaker A: That New York is home. [00:14:42] Speaker B: It was home. [00:14:42] Speaker A: New York City, that is. [00:14:43] Speaker B: And even the years where I was out there working and we weren't together, I was. Now I was coming into. Back into the city every weekend. You know, it was really funny. The people on Long. A lot of the people on Long island, they. They live within an hour, an hour and a half. [00:15:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:00] Speaker B: And, like, how many times a year do you come into the city? Once. [00:15:04] Speaker A: Right. [00:15:05] Speaker B: When do you come? Christmas. [00:15:06] Speaker A: Yep. Exactly. [00:15:07] Speaker B: Come on. You have this amazing place so close to you. All the traffic oh, so what exactly the Long Island Railroad. I'm just end up in Penn Station, Right. Not that big of a deal. [00:15:16] Speaker A: Well, apparently in city every year. Every year, it doesn't matter. The year for every decade is falling apart. You know, for. For some burn. Certain people have to say that and [00:15:25] Speaker B: think that, but you know, city's always dying. Except everywhere you look, it's growing. [00:15:29] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Really perfectly said. I love that you said that. [00:15:32] Speaker B: I'm a construction guy. Even during COVID Good point. Even during COVID when everything was shut down, I was here. It was just my dog and I. Yeah. In lower Manhattan thing, we're the only two people there. But yet the buildings, they never stop, right? The construction was going on every day. It never stopped. [00:15:52] Speaker A: You know, it's interesting that you say that because time flies so quickly from the 15 years, almost 15 years I've been here just to see all the buildings that I've seen go up. Especially you know, for instance along the as if you're in Central park looking south, you know, you see Billionaires Row, so to speak and all the skyscrapers every, you know, residential buildings and office buildings, you know, going up every day. It's amazing. It makes me sad that I'm getting older because I'm not going to see all this amazing growth, you know, down the road. [00:16:24] Speaker B: Funny part of Billionaires Row. [00:16:26] Speaker A: Yes. [00:16:27] Speaker B: That the original Billionaires Tower is now probably the smallest. [00:16:31] Speaker A: Correct. [00:16:32] Speaker B: You know, I mean nobody wants to live. That's like living in the slums of west of 57th Street. [00:16:37] Speaker A: You live in Billionaires Row, you're a loser. [00:16:39] Speaker B: Now you want to live in Central Park Tower or 111 West 57. Real skinny. [00:16:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:45] Speaker B: Funny thing about the skinny. That real skinny Tower and the Steinway Building. [00:16:48] Speaker A: Right, exactly. [00:16:50] Speaker B: That the architect of that. Of that building shop, they're in the Woolworth Building. And the Woolworth Building as you know, is covered in terracotta. And so is you tell me that 11 West 57. [00:17:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:04] Speaker B: Not all terra, but there's terracotta accents all the way up. Really, really beautiful job. So you can see where that came from. The inspiration came from where their office is 113 year old building. [00:17:15] Speaker A: Wow, that is fascinating. [00:17:17] Speaker B: I get up to Morningside Heights, I live up there, you know. Re acclimating to living in the city. Love living up there. It's a community. Everybody knows everybody. You go to the store, they know you. You're walking in the street, they know you. I lived later on, I lived at Battery Park City. Beautiful area. I had a Great view of the Hudson and nobody knew me at all. Yeah, it was very different. But anyway, I had an opportunity. My apartment looked over at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Building was actually built on their property, was right on the corner. Had a great New York City address. It was one Morningside, one Morningside. [00:17:57] Speaker A: Pretty amazing. Yeah. You're close to the Central park. Right there. [00:18:00] Speaker B: Right there. Riverside park, one of my favorites. The other direction. [00:18:04] Speaker A: Yep. [00:18:04] Speaker B: So. And Morningside park is right next. Right downstairs. [00:18:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:08] Speaker B: Especially if you have a dog. That was heaven. [00:18:10] Speaker A: Is that Morningside park, like down below. [00:18:13] Speaker B: Right. [00:18:13] Speaker A: St. John the Divine, right in the back. Yeah, I know the name of it specifically. Yeah. [00:18:18] Speaker B: And so that was my. I used to go there and show, you know, people wanted to see it. They came to visit me. I was new, so I take people around. I learned a little bit about it and then I know somehow they. Somebody heard me talking or whatever and asked me. Wanted to be a tour guide there it's again volunteer. And I told them my background. So they said you'd be perfect for the architectural tours. Did that for a very short time. Because in order to become the architectural guide, you have to go through what they call the vertical tour. I don't know if you've ever done it. [00:18:52] Speaker A: No. [00:18:52] Speaker B: If you haven't, you really should. The vertical tour is inside a sealed staircase, circular, dark, extremely hot. It goes up about 150ft or so. So a lot of steps. And you stop at different levels of the cathedral. You stop at the Bishop's Walk. You stop at a. You get amazing views of the cathedral from. What did you never see when you're standing? You know when you first come in, right. And you go all your last stop is the roof. But my job was the sweeper. I've never even heard of this term before, so I didn't get to. [00:19:28] Speaker A: I've never heard of any of this. [00:19:29] Speaker B: I never got to do the tour. I was the sweeper. The sweeper is the person that's at the end of the tour so that if people are getting tired, I had to walk them down to the bottom and let them out and then walk back up and join the. And join the tour. I never got to say anything. I was just walking up and down the stairs. [00:19:51] Speaker A: The sweeper. [00:19:52] Speaker B: And it was literally a really hot day and we had a big group and there was one woman who was probably in her 70s with her grandson who was 20. She got about three quarters of the way up and we had warned them ahead of time, it's hot Right. And, oh, no. She's like, I can't. I need to go down. And I'm thinking, man, I don't want to go down. So I had to take her down. And I said to her grandson, are you coming? He said, no, no, I want to go to the roof. Go all the way down, down the stairs, back up, like, you know, 15 flights of stairs. And I meet up with the group. They're near the last stop, and the grandson turns to me and says, I'm worried about my grandmother. I need to go down. Like, can you at least wait till the tour is over? It's only another five minutes. No, I'm. I'm afraid I had to take him all the way down and then rejoin the. You know, rejoined the tour just as they were. [00:20:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:50] Speaker B: And then we all came down as a group. The funny part of that story is that was my last day there, by the way. I decided I'm not doing it. [00:20:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I understand. Yeah. [00:20:58] Speaker B: But when I got down, seriously, this is only in New York. I got down. I hear music playing in the cathedral. In the. In the front of the cathedral feature was empty. And I said, I recognize that voice. That's Eric Clapton. Why is he here? [00:21:11] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:21:12] Speaker B: And I said. I said to the. One of the supervisors, why is there a Clapton playing here? I said, oh, it's the Clinton foundation dinner tonight, and they're doing it during a sound check. So I said, yeah, go up there. Nobody was there. So walk all the way up to the stage. I have great pictures. I'm three feet away from Eric Clapton. He's playing. He did about three or four songs, and a few of them, they stopped in the middle, and then. And then they were. They went off. And I was. I turned around to go, and Eric Clapton said, bon Jovi's up next. So I stayed there, and Jon Bon Jovi came out with his band, and they played a couple of songs, and I thought, you know what? I'm going to leave on a high note. This is a horrible job. I'm never doing it again. Yeah, I'm leaving right now. And that pay was terrible. It was 00. [00:21:56] Speaker A: And then you got to go find that kid and his grandma. [00:21:59] Speaker B: So from there, the next thing that I saw, which is really the life change, and it's really what I think of all these things I've already said to me, this is the most life changing, life altering for me. I said this yesterday. I was on the memorial yesterday. I don't know, 12 hours or so. Joining the 9, 11 Memorial Museum, as in any capacity, but in my case, it was as a volunteer, was the single greatest thing I've ever done in my life. And I've done quite a few things. This was the best. And I joined. In 2011, I saw an advertisement on TV. They were looking for volunteers in 2011. 2011. In August of 2011, they were getting ready to open on the 10th anniversary, right? September of 2011, I went for an orientation. And I was ready, you know, it was ready to go. September 13th. Tomorrow. Yeah, would be my 15th anniversary. But I remember walking there for the first time. We have no idea what to expect. [00:23:03] Speaker A: Makes me emotional. Yesterday was no idea. [00:23:05] Speaker B: Everything was older back then. It was very different. The museum was not open. Everything was shrouded with a blue tarp, like the fence. And see in there, you had to get a ticket if you wanted to go in. And remember standing outside of the door where I was supposed to check in, scared. Felt like the first day of school, you know, like the first day of school, if you were going to a new school, right? Nobody knew you. I'm like, I do stuff like this. I work. I have a company. Everybody knows me. And I decided to go in. And lo and behold, I really did excel there. Yes, I really liked it. And I was doing a talk one day out on the memorial, and one of my good friends, Sandra, who was our. She was our supervisor, heard me, and she said, you should go and get your New York City tour guide license because you're really good at talking to people. I had never even thought about it. So I looked it up and then studied for the test, and then I got the license a couple months later, right? And I guess the next part and the part that is affecting everything today. The museum opens in 2014, and I'm doing a talk at Impact Steel, which is my forte, and I'm explaining how the towers were built, why they collapsed. I have to do it in a way that the average person can understand, and they do. And I had a lot of people that were skeptical, like, there some nefarious reason why they collapsed. I'm able to turn them around. I explained the biggest reason is a very simple word, and that word is called meth. And when I go through it with them, they're very relieved to hear there's a logical explanation for why this happened. So anyway, I'm doing the tour. The museum's only been open for maybe two months, and there's a woman standing there listening to me, a large group, 30 people or so. And everybody leaves and she stays. And I remember her because she was an older one, but very, very well dressed. And most tourists are not. [00:25:12] Speaker A: True. [00:25:12] Speaker B: Yeah, they're comfortable. [00:25:13] Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's, it's. [00:25:14] Speaker B: Yeah, you're walking around the city, you're gonna wear a dress. [00:25:17] Speaker A: And they're just like me right now. [00:25:20] Speaker B: So she introduced herself. So my name is Helen Curry. I had no idea who she was. And she asked me, have you ever been to the Woolworth building? This is 2014. I said, you're not allowed in there. I said, I passed it. [00:25:33] Speaker A: Right? [00:25:33] Speaker B: Not allowed in there. And she said, well, if you want to visit it, you can. She goes, because my great grant, my great grandfather's Cass Gilbert, he was the architect of the building. And she goes, we just started a tour company there. She goes, I'm allowed because of my relationship with the building. And she said, I'd like you to work for me. That was my job interview. [00:25:55] Speaker A: Right. [00:25:56] Speaker B: So we went to lunch and she said, I'll give you some reading material and you can shadow some different people. I go on their tours and hear what they have to say. And that was 2014. And another momentous thing that happened is I met my future partner in the Woolworth Building named Bob Gelber, who awesome guy too, expert. And then a long time tour guide and all around great friend. So the two of us worked for Helen and her brother Chuck for six years till 2020. And then Covid hit and that the tour company was shut down. Well, the tour company was still open, but the building, we didn't allow tours. [00:26:35] Speaker A: Correct. Yeah. [00:26:36] Speaker B: So. And it stayed that way for six years. And Bob and I always, we, we got us, we snuck a few tours in for free. I did 911 memorial volunteers families. [00:26:46] Speaker A: Right. [00:26:47] Speaker B: He did Gang Guys association of New York. [00:26:50] Speaker A: Right. You guys brought me in there and [00:26:52] Speaker B: I'm, you know, so we kept a good relationship with the building. And then unbelievably, about a year and a half, two years ago, got a phone call from Helen and her and her brother Chuck were retiring. And they decided they, if the company was to ever operate again, they wanted Bob and I to have it. And they gave it to us. [00:27:16] Speaker A: Wow. [00:27:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it was our company now. [00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:19] Speaker B: But it had no customers. [00:27:20] Speaker A: Right. [00:27:21] Speaker B: It had no building. [00:27:22] Speaker A: Right. [00:27:22] Speaker B: Six months later, the building is now under new, not new management, but some, there's some, some additional management brought in that really has a different view. Instead of the, instead of the Woolworths building being famous for two things. It's beautiful and you can't go in. They want it to be welcoming. They're doing a lot of things in there. Stores are opening a restaurant. [00:27:43] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:27:44] Speaker B: I didn't know this ice cream parlor. [00:27:47] Speaker A: Where downstairs or. [00:27:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Today there are. Today they're doing a fashion shoot there. [00:27:52] Speaker A: Very week. [00:27:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Very, very different. And they said, we want the building to have a bigger presence on social media. And one of the ways we thought of doing that is to bring tours in again. [00:28:07] Speaker A: Right. Smart. [00:28:08] Speaker B: So they asked us, would you guys be interested? Yeah. It took Bob and I about, I [00:28:12] Speaker A: don't know, three seconds [00:28:15] Speaker B: to say, yeah. So we obviously had to make a new company. We have the exclusive. And I always, when, when all the people I work with at 9 11, when they hear all these things because they've all been on the tour, I say everything, all these good things lead right back to the day of volunteering. You do something good, something comes back to you. [00:28:38] Speaker A: Right. [00:28:39] Speaker B: I'd never volunteered. And then also through, you know, through my time at 911 memorial, I met people from the Tunnel to Towers. [00:28:48] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:28:49] Speaker B: And got involved with them. [00:28:51] Speaker A: And then you just say what the Tunnels of Towers is where people show. [00:28:54] Speaker B: The Tunnels of Towers is the foundation in the memory of firefighter Stephen Siller. And they build, they do a lot of things, but what they're really famous for is building smart homes for catastrophically injured servicemen and women. Iraq, Afghanistan. They've since expanded it to paying off mortgages for thousands of soldiers who died in those two wars. Over 7,000. And their thing today is incredible. They're buying up older hotels around the country, completely renovating them from top to bottom and making them efficiency apartments for veterans who are homeless. They've done, they've. They've housed thousands of them already. Their goal is to end veterans homelessness. [00:29:45] Speaker A: It's amazing. [00:29:46] Speaker B: So when I got involved with them, they really weren't great at doing of constructing a house. They are now. And we laugh about it. And I asked them if I could help and I, I told him I wouldn't charge. So I was able to, you know, work on their plans meeting. I kind of straightened out some mistakes on the plans and, but also did all the material. This is what you need. These are the quantities you need and any expertise that I could offer. And I thought it was going to be, you know, one or two houses. Well, we just finished house number 90. [00:30:16] Speaker A: Wow. [00:30:17] Speaker B: And then we also, when I say we, we're talking about a. We have a team that raises money for the run that's coming up every. The last Sunday in September this is [00:30:28] Speaker A: the 25th year, and the run is [00:30:29] Speaker B: from where to where run is from is from Brooklyn through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, and you end up basically at the Trade center. It's a 5K. You run through the tunnel, which is no joke. It's 1.8 miles long. And you don't realize how far, when you're driving, how far down it goes, right? And then how far up. And then far. How. How far up it goes. So by the time you get out of that tunnel, you're sweaty, right? There's also 40,000ft of your best friends down there with you, aren't there? [00:31:03] Speaker A: You know, people in fire men's gear, 100 things. [00:31:07] Speaker B: And that is so emotional. You see London, Berlin, Paris, Sao Paulo from everywhere. And I'm thinking I'm sweaty and I'm walking because I have a bum knee and these guys are running the whole thing, and it's 100 degrees in there. The, the, the most amazing was I heard cheering a couple of years ago up ahead of me, and I'm like, why is everybody cheering? And then we finally catch up to this, and there was a young man who was on a respirator. [00:31:38] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. [00:31:39] Speaker B: A portable respirator that was being. We had a team with him, right. And he was missing an arm and, like, he had a prosthetic leg. He had traumatic brain injury, but he was determined to do this. [00:31:51] Speaker A: It's making me emotional. [00:31:53] Speaker B: It made everybody emotional. [00:31:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:55] Speaker B: And he was walking slow, but he was. He was doing it. So, you know, when you see that. And, you know, Stephen Siller's story was basically, he was off duty. He ran. He got to the firehouse to attend and to, you know, show up at the towers to help. And he missed his fire company. They had already left. And that's where the genesis of the story comes from. He put on his. His bunker gear, tried to drive to the tunnel. They wouldn't let him in because they wouldn't let anybody but first responders. He. Some parks his car somewhere, his truck, and ran the three and a half miles through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel up West street, turned into the. Made a right turn on Liberty and went right down to panel. If you're ever at the memorial and we did this with you a little bit, right, you go down to panel S28. All the name panels are numbered. That's where the doors were for the South Tower. He turned in there and disappeared and was never seen again and never found anything. And now that foundation, which started just with the family and they're still the ones that run it. That foundation today is doing billions of dollars of work. I mean, they're on TV every five minutes. [00:33:12] Speaker A: Right. [00:33:13] Speaker B: And it's an honor to have been started with them so many years ago when they were really, really small. This whole thing has been an incredible journey for me that just started right. Heading back to New York. I have a lot of family that still lives on Long island and don't come here or very infrequently. And I try to explain. I said if you come to this city and you have ambition, you're either going to feel that energy or you're not. [00:33:46] Speaker A: Right? [00:33:46] Speaker B: I said I feel it. The minute I used to come through the Brooklyn, the, the Queensman Town Tunnel or over the bridge, I felt it immediately. [00:33:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I completely understand. You know, just real quick, I want to talk about the Woolworth Building again real quick. It is, wasn't it the, it, the first skyscraper? Tell us about that. [00:34:07] Speaker B: Yeah, Woolworth Building, it wasn't the first skyscraper. There were others, but it was the tallest. It was completed in 1913 and it remained the tallest building in the world for 17 years. [00:34:18] Speaker A: Amazing. [00:34:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The only one that I know of that had a longer stretch was Empire state building in 1931 until World Trade center in 1973. Now it's switching every other. [00:34:31] Speaker A: Every day. [00:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah, every other day the Jeddah Tower is being built in Saudi Arabia and that's going to be, if you want to just get this in your mind, it's three Empire State built. [00:34:41] Speaker A: Oh, I've seen that. [00:34:42] Speaker B: Yeah. The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is two Empire State buildings. [00:34:45] Speaker A: Right. [00:34:46] Speaker B: When I do the tours of the Woolworth Building, I think it's really important to know that what Bob and I have cultivated there is not just, you know, the building is this tall or it's, you know, this is, it's a story. It's a story of how one man grew a company from nothing, from zero. Today he would have been a multi, [00:35:06] Speaker A: multi billionaire, I've said, had his Woolworth counter and had French fries and ketchup as a little kid. [00:35:12] Speaker B: Would have been a billionaire. And we call it the hub and spoke. The hub is the building and the spokes are always different. You know, we talk about the lunch counter. Yeah, that's what I. Yeah, yeah, the lunch counter. The good and the bad. We talk about City hall park, the newspaper row. All these things are connected. So no two World War tours are the same. [00:35:34] Speaker A: So I'm assuming the good and the bad, the bad meaning the times, the Decades that we've been in and what's happened and things like that. [00:35:40] Speaker B: Well, the bad for Woolworths really was Woolworth in the South. Everybody remembers the Woolworth counters and they love it here. But then we, we talk about, you know, the, the flip side of that is the, the, the. The Woolworth counters down south where they were segregated. [00:35:59] Speaker A: Correct. [00:35:59] Speaker B: Badly, unfortunately. You could work at the Woolworth building, but you couldn't eat a meal there. I went to that museum where that took place. It's in. That store is in Greensboro, North Carolina, as part of the research for the doing our wool. I went to that place and it's a museum. And they show you exactly where it is. And you learn one of those guys is actually in the service and they still wouldn't let them sit and eat. And it spread. Spread from four people to 70,000 until they forced Woolworths hand. So those stores are basically independent because up here in the north, there was no issue anybody could eat at the counter. But this was the Southern stores. And it's. Obviously things have changed, you know, for the better. But it's just one of the topics that we, we cover. And now we're branching out. So we're going to be doing. I went. I did a little bit with you. I'm going to be doing 911 memorial. [00:36:55] Speaker A: Well, real quick, how do people take your Woolworth tour? [00:36:58] Speaker B: So we have a website. Do you mind if I. [00:37:00] Speaker A: That's what I want you to tell people. Yeah. [00:37:03] Speaker B: So it's World War Tours, nyc.com. it's a really good. I love it because it opens with drone footage and we had to get a license for that. And it's. People very rarely have ever seen the top of the building. It's very difficult to see it, especially now that there are buildings being built all around it which covered it. So it starts at that, but it also shows our other tours. And tomorrow is the first. Gangs of New York. [00:37:28] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:37:29] Speaker B: Five points. Gangs of New York Immigration. [00:37:33] Speaker A: Amazing. [00:37:34] Speaker B: It's one big tour tomorrow. And we're also doing. To commemorate 9 11. We're doing a Woolworth tour. Same price. No, didn't increase it at all. Woolworth tour. And then we're walking over to the 911 memorial. And there is a connection. [00:37:51] Speaker A: Right. [00:37:52] Speaker B: Walking over there. And then last but not least is another subject you know about, and that is the spear. [00:37:59] Speaker A: Yes. [00:38:00] Speaker B: If you'd like, I could. [00:38:01] Speaker A: Oops, excuse me. [00:38:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I could mention that. [00:38:03] Speaker A: Of course. Please do. [00:38:05] Speaker B: So the spear is called a Koenig spear. Originally sat between the north and the south tower on the plaza and was virtually destroyed. But you could still see it. It was barely damaged, but you could still see what it was. It wasn't buried, let's put it that way. [00:38:21] Speaker A: Right. [00:38:21] Speaker B: So it was salvaged. It was brought to Battery park and was never re. It was reassembled because it was in pieces, but you could still see all the damage. I never tried to make it look as if it had never been damaged. And they had an eternal flame for a while long. And the short of it is they bring it back to Liberty park, which was completed in 2017, where St Nicholas Church is now up on the elevated park overlooking the two. The two pools. [00:38:50] Speaker A: Right. [00:38:51] Speaker B: And they put it up there. They did a great job, except for one thing. [00:38:55] Speaker A: What was that? [00:38:56] Speaker B: They never lit it. [00:38:57] Speaker A: Oh, correct. [00:38:59] Speaker B: They never lit it. Now I have an office at this point in 2023. Looking on the. Looking right down on the Trade Center. I. And I lived right across the street. I lived at Gateway. [00:39:11] Speaker A: Right. [00:39:12] Speaker B: So I used to walk my dog, especially during COVID when no one was around. I'd walk my dog on Liberty park and I would sit there and say, the most important and the only above ground artifact we have as New Yorkers from that day sits here in the dark that no one can see it. [00:39:31] Speaker A: That would be beautiful to see that lit up. Well, you have. [00:39:35] Speaker B: I got it lit. [00:39:36] Speaker A: What? [00:39:37] Speaker B: When I have, I got it lit. So this is. There's a story coming out on Tuesday from the Tribeca Tribune. [00:39:47] Speaker A: Oh, yes. [00:39:48] Speaker B: Yeah. That story is going to tell the story of how this got lit. And basically it was. It was me, I'm not gonna say, versus the Port Authority because I would never win that battle. [00:40:00] Speaker A: Well, it sounds like you did. [00:40:01] Speaker B: Well, I guess I did. [00:40:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:03] Speaker B: But I mean, at the end of the day, they had to be helpful. [00:40:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:06] Speaker B: But it was a struggle. And I just wrote them an email. I. First of all, it took me forever to find out who to email, but I finally, I did a. I did a talk in the museum with somebody that worked on the pile on during 9 11, an engineer, Peter Rinaldi. And I asked him that question. I said, I want to light this thing. He said, contact this person. Oh, thank you, Peter. I've been going around in circles for months. Wrote to one person, not going to mention their names. Wrote to one person, thought it was a great idea. [00:40:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:36] Speaker B: And said. I kept saying, why is it? Why hasn't this been done? And long and the short of it, as she moves on, a new person takes over. And we had a meeting at World Trade for summer of 2025. [00:40:50] Speaker A: Right. [00:40:50] Speaker B: And our CEO of the museum came. She loved the idea and they agreed to do it. And from July 2025, it took until January 2026. And it's beautifully lit. [00:41:04] Speaker A: It's lit now. [00:41:05] Speaker B: It's lit now. [00:41:06] Speaker A: I have never seen it lit. Yeah, it's lit every day. Every 24, seven. [00:41:10] Speaker B: No, it's late at night, obviously. But we were there last night. I'll send you a picture. I had a great picture of it with being lit with the, with the two beams, the tribute and light coming up behind. [00:41:21] Speaker A: Gosh. [00:41:23] Speaker B: So we finally got it done. It took three years. Took three years. One person who was a little thick headed, I guess that's me. [00:41:31] Speaker A: Good. Yeah. [00:41:33] Speaker B: And it got done. And now a lot of neighborhood doesn't realize it either because they don't always walk over there at night. But the whole area come Tuesday is going to know the gentleman who is the editor of the Tribeca Tribune and he actually helped them move the reassemble the sphere in Battery park in, you know, 2002. Yeah, he didn't know it was lit. He said it's lit. [00:41:58] Speaker A: I was just there a couple weeks ago, like September 9th or 8th. [00:42:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been lit since January. It's, it's ironically, when it sat at the World Trade center in its original spot, it was never lit. It was the, the entire area, the Plaza, as we called it, that whole plaza was lit, but it was never directly lit. This is the first time since it was installed in 73 that it actually has its own lighting. And I'm, I'm, I'm proud of it. I'm proud of it. Yeah, I want to say thank you too. [00:42:37] Speaker A: I mean, that's a big what you're doing for New York City. That's an amazing thing right there. [00:42:42] Speaker B: Go and see it. It's, it's beautiful. And it's going to be part of my tour tomorrow. We're doing Woolworth Building. We're going to walk over to the Memorial. It's going to go extra and I don't care. I'm not charging anything extra. [00:42:54] Speaker A: I say the same thing in my tours. We're going to go over. Sorry. [00:42:56] Speaker B: And I'm gonna do a little bit about the panels I did with you, [00:43:00] Speaker A: which I want to talk about in just a second too. Go ahead. [00:43:03] Speaker B: And then we're going to go up to the sphere and, you know, explain that to them as well. [00:43:07] Speaker A: Well, I want to say thank you real quick. Because. Because of you, I got to see the Knicks from the Woolworth Building. So I want to give you a huge. I haven't thanked you in person. [00:43:16] Speaker B: Okay. [00:43:17] Speaker A: And thanks to you, I was able to see the Knicks and their celebratory. [00:43:22] Speaker B: And you had a good view. You know, your pictures were great. [00:43:24] Speaker A: Parade. It was. It was awesome. So third floor, right? Yeah, it was incredible. So thank you. [00:43:30] Speaker B: This is the new management of the Woolworth. If I had called them seven years ago, they would. They would have hung up. [00:43:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:37] Speaker B: Now they said, what can I do for you? [00:43:41] Speaker A: Everybody was so kind. [00:43:42] Speaker B: And, yeah, it's been great for us [00:43:45] Speaker A: as it was wonderful. So thank you. It was an amazing day. [00:43:47] Speaker B: I couldn't be there, but I was living through you once again as. As hundreds of thousands of other people do. [00:43:53] Speaker A: Well, thank you. It was. It was amazing. It's all because of you. [00:43:56] Speaker B: Oh, thank you. [00:43:57] Speaker A: So, everybody, the footage I got of the Knicks. Thank you, Ed. Okay, so we got to tie it up in just a moment, but, you know, we could talk forever, you know, talking about New York City and 911 and everything. You told me an amazing story about a birdhouse. Oh, can you tell the story? [00:44:20] Speaker B: Sure. A few months ago, I have a family friend named Teresa, and she had never been to the memorial. She lives in City Island. It's almost like this oasis, right. People that live there, it's like, oh, I don't. [00:44:34] Speaker A: In the Bronx. [00:44:35] Speaker B: You're like, yeah, I don't go into the city. I have a little community right here. But we spent a day, and we didn't go in the museum. We didn't have time. So we went to the memorial. And I didn't know. I asked her, did she know anyone here? And she said, my uncle passed here, the South Tower. And I said, well, you know, I'm here all the time. Tell me his name. I'll look it up on the phone and we'll go find his name. And we did. I'll just say Paul. Paul was his first name. And we found his name, and she became a little bit emotional. And then we went to everybody's favorite bar, our version of Cheers. We went to o'. Hara's. [00:45:13] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [00:45:13] Speaker B: Met a bunch of my friends because that's the 911 community. Lives at O'. Hara's. Pretty much correct. [00:45:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:21] Speaker B: Amazing place. And she met them, and I haven't seen her since, but we did. We did talk, and I spoke to her before 911 and I said. I said, does. Does Paul have other family besides this is her uncle and she's not his. His wife has passed and, you know, his kids live in, I think she said Maryland or something like that. So I said, well, I'll make sure we'll put a flower. I said, it's always sad when you see all the tributes that are there, but you see a name or names that have nothing. And I didn't want his name to have nothing. So that was the original idea, I'll just put a flower. But that's not the way my mind works. So when I hung up, literally hung up with her, I googled him and I found some article written by the New York Times. They were writing articles about all the victims in 2002. And I found him. And one of the things we found, the main thing I found he had a very successful career. He was only there for a meeting that day. There wasn't even a full time employee at the Trade Center. Just bad timing and, you know, good family man. But his passion, his hobby was making birdhouses. And I don't know, I honestly, I mean, I didn't know the man. This is 25 years ago. I don't know whether he sold them or he gave them away, but he loved doing it and he was really a good craftsman. And as soon as I read that, I said, that's what we have to do. Because he was in the middle of making one that he wanted to present, of all things to Martha Stewart. [00:46:55] Speaker A: That's really funny. Yeah, I love it. [00:46:57] Speaker B: Yeah, he wanted, yeah, he was a big fan of Martha Stewart Living. And I don't know whether he had connected with her or not. I don't know that part. I tried to write to her recently, tell her this story and I haven't heard back. Maybe I will. [00:47:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:13] Speaker B: So my son Chris has a really nice wood shop and we made a beautiful little, beautiful little birdhouse. And I was there last night with a bunch of very good friends and told them the story, but they didn't know what I had. And I had a little, little tiny little shopping bag and then I took it out and, and put it in and we had a little, we had a little spoke on the bottom so it would sit right in his. Right in his name wouldn't move. And we actually cut the bottom of the birdhouse on an angle because the name panels are angled so it would [00:47:50] Speaker A: keep it straight right there on the north tower. [00:47:53] Speaker B: He's on the south tower. He's on S63. [00:47:54] Speaker A: Oh, on the South Tower. [00:47:56] Speaker B: Yeah, S63. And so many people who were just there were Thousands of people there last night, literally crowding around, taking pictures and wanting to know, why is there a little tiny birdhouse? So, Teresa, I sent her the images and now members of her family have been. I don't know who they are. They were writing, thank you. Thank you, Paulie. Smiling down. [00:48:22] Speaker A: I wish they would have seen it. [00:48:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a great moment. You know, everybody leaves tributes, but I don't think anybody's ever left the bird house. And I was going through security. I had it in the bag. I went through security eight times yesterday. Every time you walked out, right? [00:48:34] Speaker A: Oh, it was. [00:48:34] Speaker B: And every time I'd come back, it was a little bag. What's in there? [00:48:37] Speaker A: It's. [00:48:37] Speaker B: Believe it or not, this is the. Of all things you've checked today, this is your first bird. [00:48:41] Speaker A: Right, Right, right. [00:48:41] Speaker B: THEY ALL laugh. [00:48:42] Speaker A: You know, that's so. It's really amazing. I love that you did that. It's just. I wish I would have seen it, too, but this picture you showed me was incredible. Yeah. [00:48:51] Speaker B: And feel free to use the picture if you like. [00:48:53] Speaker A: I'll. I'll. Maybe we'll add it. Hopefully we can add it to the podcast so people can see and see it. You know, I was going to ask you, too, about the security this year at 9 11. Was that because of the 25th anniversary, or is that how it's going to be moving forward? No, because it was pretty. [00:49:08] Speaker B: No, I think intense. Yeah, I think it. I mean, I don't know. They don't share those. [00:49:13] Speaker A: Right. [00:49:14] Speaker B: However, you had multiple layers of security. First of all, they had a security fence. [00:49:18] Speaker A: Right. [00:49:19] Speaker B: Nothing like I've ever seen your site, which I've never seen either. Seen barricades, which they also had. [00:49:25] Speaker A: Right. [00:49:25] Speaker B: I've never seen a fence that you could not scale. And the security was intense because they. They had, you know, they had an ipd, they had Port Authority. They also had Secret Service, because don't forget, you had, what, four presidents? Five. [00:49:40] Speaker A: Right. [00:49:41] Speaker B: Everybody was there, but. But Trump and J.D. vance was there, and then Mayor, as we saw Giuliani and Mom, Dummy, Mandami was there and he was out front the whole time. Who was Mandami? [00:49:55] Speaker A: What do you mean by out front? I'm sorry. [00:49:56] Speaker B: They were all kind of together. [00:49:57] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:49:58] Speaker B: Including Obama. And he. He stood like the closest. He stood out of the. Out of the group by himself and never moved. Most of them left, which they always do. You know, they're not going to stay the whole time. You got it. The Secret Service has to get them all out of there. But he was. He was right out there. The whole. [00:50:15] Speaker A: The whole. What is that? [00:50:16] Speaker B: The reading of the whole. Of all the names. Oh, he stood in. They have, like, a separate area. Security area, and he stood at the very front of that the whole time, so. [00:50:27] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't realize. [00:50:28] Speaker B: I know there's a lot of, you know, good and bad, whatever opinions I'm talking about. I know what you meant, but I was right. I thought. I was very proud of him standing out front. [00:50:38] Speaker A: Nice. [00:50:38] Speaker B: You know, whether you like them or you don't. And we're not here to discuss that. [00:50:42] Speaker A: Correct. [00:50:42] Speaker B: But I just. I thought it was a good thing that he did. He's like, here I am, you know, right out front. I stayed the whole time. [00:50:49] Speaker A: I heard he said the whole time [00:50:50] Speaker B: he did and virtually no one else did. [00:50:53] Speaker A: Right. [00:50:53] Speaker B: They were all gone. But he was there. [00:50:55] Speaker A: Yeah. I think that's a great what he did, too. I've seen a lot about that on. Throughout New York City, the people that live here talking about it. But it was wonderful that he did that, but we have to wrap it up, Ed. Okay. I wish we could keep talking. Is there anything else you want to finish up with that you think's, you know, really important to tie up our talk today? [00:51:16] Speaker B: I guess just for me, is just to continue to do good work. The birdhouse is the tiniest little thing. [00:51:22] Speaker A: Love it. [00:51:23] Speaker B: It's. It's my. It's minuscule as compared to putting in two and a half thousand hours of volunteer time at the memorial or raising all that money. But to me, it. It really focuses on just doing something good for one person that you never met. [00:51:41] Speaker A: Right. [00:51:42] Speaker B: And it's. To me, that's all about. All about New York. There's so many amazing people here, and I've met so many of them like yourself. [00:51:50] Speaker A: Oh, well, thank you. You know, you're a. You're an amazing New Yorker. You are the epitome. And that's what I love about the guests on the podcast. You're all the epitome of what loving New York City is all about. And that's what our audience is all about, too, because I always say you don't have to live in New York City to feel like a New Yorker. You know, New Yorkers are born everywhere, all over the world, every day. And you get to tell them all about being a New Yorker. [00:52:16] Speaker B: I do. [00:52:16] Speaker A: And. [00:52:16] Speaker B: And. And I hope our. Our tour company continues to grow. And I. I'm sure it will. [00:52:22] Speaker A: Yep. [00:52:23] Speaker B: And I know the first time that you came and you did a little shoot. Yeah, our bookings exploded, so they really. They did. [00:52:33] Speaker A: I didn't even know that. [00:52:34] Speaker B: Yeah, Bob should have told you that. [00:52:37] Speaker A: Well, Ed and Bob are amazing. And book a tour with them, the Woolworth Building or any tour that they do. [00:52:42] Speaker B: Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to. Pleasure to be here. Yeah, really is. [00:52:46] Speaker A: It is a pleasure to have you on the couch today. [00:52:48] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:52:49] Speaker A: Thanks, Ed. This is the last stop on this train. Everyone, please leave the train. Thank you for riding with mta, New York City Transit.