Author: John Branston

Give Avron Fogelman credit for this much: At least he forced Memphis to face up to the consequences of standardized testing and put forward a clear, if politically unpopular, way to respond.

That’s more than Memphis City Schools Superintendent Johnnie B. Watson, the board of education, and some kibitzing state lawmakers did this week. Instead, they veered into the safe harbor of political correctness by bashing Fogelman, challenging the validity of standardized testing, parsing the meaning of the word “failing,”and blaming optional schools. In a key public test of his leadership on the testing issue, Watson straddled the fence.

As everyone now knows, Fogelman, an outspoken Memphis businessman and state board of education member, suggested the bar be lowered for Memphis City Schools on the Gateway tests required for graduation three years hence. Or else, he suggested in lightÇ of available evidence including recently released school report cards, seven out of ten students could fail.

At Monday’s board meeting, Lora Jobe submitted a letter to the state board objecting to Fogelman’s suggestion. Her colleagues unanimously signed on. But sometimes unanimous agreement is not what it seems.

Jobe wants Memphis students to pass the tests, period. With help, she believes, they can do it. The Class of 2005 gets three chances a year to pass Gateway tests in algebra, English, and biology. Jobe said it would be “an insult” to lower the standards for MCS.

Sincere as they come, Jobe is possibly not the best person on the board to act as spokesman for a hard-line position on testing. She and colleague Barbara Prescott come from the affluent, highly-educated Grahamwood Elementary and White Station High School optional school population that breezes through standardized tests. Inner-city schools with a high percentage of low-income families have a much tougher row to hoe.

Optional schools may even be part of the problem, suggested board member Lee Brown, because they are magnets for high-achievers. Brown, elected to the board last year, wants to take a fresh look at the 22-year-old program, acknowledging that his own children were among its beneficiaries.

Board member Carl Johnson questioned the validity of standardized testing which grades students and schools on a bell curve so that 50 percent are either “low-performing” or “failing.” Johnson said his problem is not so much with the tests as with the “interpretation” of the results, especially when some 75 percent of the students in MCS are on free or reduced-price lunch.

As Johnson spoke, Watson vigorously nodded his assent. Last week the superintendent seemed to react favorably to some of Fogelman’s comments, but by Monday he was preaching his familiar theme of “you can’t compare city and county schools” and warning of the dangers of “high stakes tests.”

What Watson, or anyone else for that matter, did not do was utter a single word in defense of such tests, which have been a well-established fact of life in Memphis and Tennessee for ten years. The tests themselves have been studied, revised, studied some more, and revised again. The grading has been fine-tuned. The Gateway tests are not graded on a curve; theoretically, at least, everyone can pass. A passing score in biology, for example, is a mere 22 out of 62 questions. And, yes, it is possible to flunk the course and pass the test and graduate.

Why should Watson rise to the defense of testing? Because for better and for worse, preparing for such tests is now a standard part of the curriculum in every city school. A case can be made that the curriculu m is test driven. Some optional students begin practicing for college entrance exams in the seventh grade. Elementary schools identify the specific skills that will be on the standardized tests and give students test-taking tips and practice. Watson himself unilaterally threw out his predecessor Gerry House‘s freelancing “reforms” in favor of a more standardized curriculum in elementary reading and math in an effort to raise test scores.

One of the calmest and most sensible comments at Monday’s board meeting came from the youngest member, Michael Hooks Jr. He suggested inviting Fogelman to come and have his say. If Fogelman will do that, and stick to his guns instead of bending to political pressure, he could prompt a useful civic discussion of such questions as why more than 60 Title 1 schools in Memphis are NOT on the failing list, why a school that raises its scores from a 25 to a 49 should be called a failure, and whether the handful of seniors who were denied diplomas this year will be multiplied by 100 or so in three years.

Maybe Memphis will have a graduation debacle on its hands in three years, or maybe everything will be all right. But the possibility of a train wreck is not unreasonable given past performance, and Fogelman should not be vilified for saying so.

Give Avron Fogelman credit for this much: At least he forced Memphis to face up to the consequences of standardized testing and put forward a clear, if politically unpopular, way to respond.

That’s more than Memphis City Schools Superintendent Johnnie B. Watson, the board of education, and some kibitzing state lawmakers did this week. Instead, they veered into the safe harbor of political correctness by bashing Fogelman, challenging the validity of standardized testing, parsing the meaning of the word “failing,”and blaming optional schools. In a key public test of his leadership on the testing issue, Watson straddled the fence.

As everyone now knows, Fogelman, an outspoken Memphis businessman and state board of education member, suggested the bar be lowered for Memphis City Schools on the Gateway tests required for graduation three years hence. Or else, he suggested in lightÇ of available evidence including recently released school report cards, seven out of ten students could fail.

At Monday’s board meeting, Lora Jobe submitted a letter to the state board objecting to Fogelman’s suggestion. Her colleagues unanimously signed on. But sometimes unanimous agreement is not what it seems.

Jobe wants Memphis students to pass the tests, period. With help, she believes, they can do it. The Class of 2005 gets three chances a year to pass Gateway tests in algebra, English, and biology. Jobe said it would be “an insult” to lower the standards for MCS.

Sincere as they come, Jobe is possibly not the best person on the board to act as spokesman for a hard-line position on testing. She and colleague Barbara Prescott come from the affluent, highly-educated Grahamwood Elementary and White Station High School optional school population that breezes through standardized tests. Inner-city schools with a high percentage of low-income families have a much tougher row to hoe.

Optional schools may even be part of the problem, suggested board member Lee Brown, because they are magnets for high-achievers. Brown, elected to the board last year, wants to take a fresh look at the 22-year-old program, acknowledging that his own children were among its beneficiaries.

Board member Carl Johnson questioned the validity of standardized testing which grades students and schools on a bell curve so that 50 percent are either “low-performing” or “failing.” Johnson said his problem is not so much with the tests as with the “interpretation” of the results, especially when some 75 percent of the students in MCS are on free or reduced-price lunch.

As Johnson spoke, Watson vigorously nodded his assent. Last week the superintendent seemed to react favorably to some of Fogelman’s comments, but by Monday he was preaching his familiar theme of “you can’t compare city and county schools” and warning of the dangers of “high stakes tests.”

What Watson, or anyone else for that matter, did not do was utter a single word in defense of such tests, which have been a well-established fact of life in Memphis and Tennessee for ten years. The tests themselves have been studied, revised, studied some more, and revised again. The grading has been fine-tuned. The Gateway tests are not graded on a curve; theoretically, at least, everyone can pass. A passing score in biology, for example, is a mere 22 out of 62 questions. And, yes, it is possible to flunk the course and pass the test and graduate.

Why should Watson rise to the defense of testing? Because for better and for worse, preparing for such tests is now a standard part of the curriculum in every city school. A case can be made that the curriculum is test driven. Some optional students begin practicing for college entrance exams in the seventh grade. Elementary schools identify the specific skills that will be on the standardized tests and give students test-taking tips and practice. Watson himself unilaterally threw out his predecessor Gerry House‘s freelancing “reforms” in favor of a more standardized curriculum in elementary reading and math in an effort to raise test scores.

One of the calmest and most sensible comments at Monday’s board meeting came from the youngest member, Michael Hooks Jr. He suggested inviting Fogelman to come and have his say. If Fogelman will do that, and stick to his guns instead of bending to political pressure, he could prompt a useful civic discussion of such questions as why more than 60 Title 1 schools in Memphis are NOT on the failing list, why a school that raises its scores from a 25 to a 49 should be called a failure, and whether the handful of seniors who were denied diplomas this year will be multiplied by 100 or so in three years.

Maybe Memphis will have a graduation debacle on its hands in three years, or maybe everything will be all right. But the possibility of a train wreck is not unreasonable given past performance, and Fogelman should not be vilified for saying so.

For years, it was one of those idealistic proposals that always looked so good on paper but never quite materialized: Tear down the housing

projects and replace them with low density neighborhoods where people of different income levels would live side by side in comfort, safety, and harmony.

Memphis is a giant step closer to turning that vision into a reality in a grassy, colorful project called College Park taking shape south of

downtown between LeMoyne Owen College and Elmwood Cemetery.

“This is the new face of public housing,” says Robert Lipscomb, executive director of the Memphis Housing Authority (MHA). “If you closed

your eyes and someone dropped you here you would think you were in the middle of HarborTown.”

To build College Park, MHA demolished 824 units in the LeMoyne Gardens housing project. MHA then leased the site to LeMoyne Redevelopment and

Edgewood Management to develop it, lease and manage the apartments, and sell the single-family homes.

The transformation is startling. The projects were dirty, crowded, run down and home to a gang called the LeMoyne Gardens Mafia. After MHA closed

them and relocated the residents and bulldozed the buildings, the site stood empty for a few years, with the rolling terrain and stately oak trees looking something like a golf course. The narrow streets and parking lots were replaced with a handsome apartment building for seniors that faces the front of the campus across the street. Behind the 68-unit apartment building is what looks like a suburban subdivision of winding streets, new sidewalks, street lights, underground utilities, acres of sod, and heavy landscaping.

The new two-story houses and apartments — a mix of single-family homes, duplexes, and quads — are brightly colored with white front porches,

individual yards, and common areas. There are a few homes partly built with brick but most are covered with siding.

When the project is completed a year from now, there will be 341 apartments and 70 homes. MHA and the developers hope the renters will become

home-owners. The amount of rent or the cost of the home is based on the occupant’s income.

Katherine Ashford, for instance, a 68-year-old woman who lives in the seniors apartment building, pays $150 a month for her one-bedroom unit.

“I love it,” says Ashford, who grew up in LeMoyne Gardens years ago and graduated from nearby Booker T. Washington High School. She has all new

appliances plus good bus service and a National Bank of Commerce branch bank

and a police station practically next door. The partially reconstructed Stax Studio, part of the Soulsville project, is two blocks south.

The developers are new faces, too, and probably not what most people would expect to find doing a big project in the inner city.

The key players in LeMoyne Redevelopment LLC are Molly Jones and Kimberly Franks, a pair of young working mothers who first joined forces three years ago. Jones, 31, a graduate of St. Agnes and the University of Memphis and mother of three children, is the project manager and handles the

financial side. Franks, 33, a graduate of Germantown High School and State Tech and mother of five, is assistant project manager in charge of construction.

College Park is a Hope VI project similar to the much larger Hope VI development planned to replace Hurt Village in North Memphis near St. Jude Children s Research Hospital and The Pyramid. MHA secured the key piece of financing, a $47 million federal grant.

“MHA has done a phenomenal job in putting together all the community support necessary to do this project,” says Jones.

Jones hopes the smaller apartments and homes will appeal to LeMoyne Owens graduates, families, and former residents of the housing project.

Current and former MHA residents have priority, providing they and their children can pass a criminal background check and a credit check. Already there have been some tough calls. One

family was initially disqualified because a teenaged son had a bad credit record because his parents had put their utilities in his name when he was just 13.

That story had a happy ending but others may not be so lucky. Developers are determined to avoid the old public housing stigma of poverty and crime. Jones describes the qualifications as “stringent,” and units cannot be subleased and the homes cannot have absentee owners.

“I want to move the people who are renting into my homes,” Jones says.

There will be a grand opening ceremony for College Park Monday at 10 a.m. For anyone familiar with the painful history of public housing, this bold step in a new direction has to be seen to be appreciated.

Just in time for basketball season, interest in property near The Pyramid is heating up. Developers, landowners, and the Riverfront Development Corporation (RDC) were all jockeying for position last week in a busy round of negotiations and deal-making that involved Mayor Willie Herenton at one point.

At issue are both a choice piece of Mud Island and the North Memphis area known as the Pinch. In a nutshell, here’s where things stand:

Developers Henry Turley and Jack Belz agreed to wait up to 60 days before rezoning property in the Pinch for the proposed “Uptown” redevelopment of public housing and vacant land. The RDC, supported by Herenton, sought the delay. Turley wants future Uptown residents “to get to go to the river, just like Harbor Town.”

The RDC sees the riverfront, including both sides of the slackwater harbor, as part of its own long-range development plan.

“Our whole emphasis is connecting to Uptown, too,” says CEO Benny Lendermon.

Homebuilder Kevin Hyneman is expected to complete the purchase this week of 14 acres of Mud Island north of the park and south of Auction Street. Hyneman has had an option to buy the property from the group building the Echelon apartments next to AutoZone Park. The RDC is also very interested in this property.

“If it isn’t handled the proper way it can really screw up what we’re trying to do,” says chairman John Stokes.

The RDC met for several hours last week with its consultants “to try to get a handle on the economics,” Stokes says. The most expensive parts of the plan include the proposed land bridge between downtown and Mud Island and the possible relocation of industry on the east side of the harbor.

Landowners in the Pinch district, including Circuit Court judge Kay Robilio and her husband, Victor, want more money for their land than the city is willing to pay to take it by eminent domain. The Robilios own a half-acre lot two blocks north of The Pyramid that has been in their family since 1866.

“All we want is the opportunity to come out with enough money to purchase another lot that is as nice,” says Kay Robilio.

The sides are headed for mediation. Kay Robilio says the city offered something less than $30,000 and the Robilios countered with a higher number she wouldn’t disclose. The lot is appraised at $6,700 but speculators have driven up land prices in the area, which has been very slow to develop since The Pyramid opened 10 years ago.

U.S. District Judge Jon P. McCalla had a reputation for no nonsense when dealing with the Shelby County jail case. Some even said he was the reason the five-year-old case got moving again.

So when he began a six-month suspension in August, there were some people who were concerned about how U.S. District Judge Bernice Donald, who is presiding over the case in McCalla’s absence, would familiarize herself with the more than 500 documents in the case file. These include jail monitors’ reports, jail compliance plans, documents from the Department of Justice, and several reports the county files on a monthly basis.

But during a status conference September 25th — originally scheduled by McCalla — the judge had each of the case’s minor players give her a summary of what has happened since the case’s inception. She also told attorneys of her recent tour of the jail and asked questions about it.

“I intend to enforce the orders of the court and to keep this case moving as if McCalla was here,” Donald said.

The judge also heard testimony from Dr. Arnett Gaston about gang activity, and Chuck Fisher, the court-appointed special master tothe jail. Fisher’s report,which was scheduled to be discussed in more detail at the conference, was delayed until after the jail switches two floors of the facility to direct supervision.

“The deadlines Judge McCalla imposed are still in full effect,” Donald said. “There is to be no backing away from anything.”

The county’s jail experts said they were still ont rack to switch floors five and six, which hold lower-classification inmates, to direct supervision on the fourth on October 4th.

The court set a date in mid-Dcember for their next status conference.

“I don’t want to wait until the first of the year to see if this is working,” said Donald.

The judge also seemed to be looking for some long-term answers but then remembered that McCalla will preside over the case when he comes back to the bench.

“I’d like to see where we’re going,” Donald said. “I may be concerning myself with things I don’t need to be.”

U.S. District Judge Jon P. McCalla had a reputation for no nonsense when dealing with the Shelby County jail case. Some even said he was the reason the five-year-old case got moving again.

So when he began a six-month suspension in August, there were some people who were concerned about how U.S. District Judge Bernice Donald, who is presiding over the case in McCalla’s absence, would familiarize herself with the more than 500 documents in the case file. These include jail monitors’ reports, jail compliance plans, documents from the Department of Justice, and several reports the county files on a monthly basis.

But during a status conference September 25th — originally scheduled by McCalla — the judge had each of the case’s minor players give her a summary of what has happened since the case’s inception. She also told attorneys of her recent tour of the jail and asked questions about it.

“I intend to enforce the orders of the court and to keep this case moving as if McCalla was here,” Donald said.

The judge also heard testimony from Dr. Arnett Gaston about gang activity, and Chuck Fisher, the court-appointed special master tothe jail. Fisher’s report,which was scheduled to be discussed in more detail at the conference, was delayed until after the jail switches two floors of the facility to direct supervision.

“The deadlines Judge McCalla imposed are still in full effect,” Donald said. “There is to be no backing away from anything.”

The county’s jail experts said they were still ont rack to switch floors five and six, which hold lower-classification inmates, to direct supervision on the fourth on October 4th.

The court set a date in mid-Dcember for their next status conference.

“I don’t want to wait until the first of the year to see if this is working,” said Donald.

The judge also seemed to be looking for some long-term answers but then remembered that McCalla will preside over the case when he comes back to the bench.

“I’d like to see where we’re going,” Donald said. “I may be concerning myself with things I don’t need to be.”

Sixteen months after he was kidnapped at gunpoint and thrown into the trunk of his car, attorney Kemper Durand watched with some regret last week as two juveniles involved in the case were given prison sentences.

Durand was walking to his car around 2 a.m. on May 25, 2000, after attending a par ty on Beale Street when a lone gunman walked up behind him, took his wallet, and forced him into the trunk. The abductor, Cleotha Abston, drove around and picked up friends then, after about two hours, escorted Durand into a Mapco station to withdraw money from an ATM. A uniformed Memphis Housing Authority officer entered, Durand yelled that he had been kidnapped, and the kidnappers ran away.

On Monday, Abston pled guilty just before he was scheduled to go to trial and was sentenced to 20 years in prison without parole. He had earlier turned down an offer of 15 years on the same charge but, according to Durand, told the court “he did not want to sign his name giving himself the time.” Abston has a long juvenile record of theft and aggravated assault.

It was the sentencing of the second defendant that gave Durand pause. Marquette Cobbins was 17 years old at the time of the incident. He was one of the friends picked up by Abston after he kidnapped Durand. His prior court record consisted of a truancy violation and a disorderly con duct charge.

“He was literally sitting on the porch when Abston came by,” says Durand. “Any kid who could grow up where he did and have only two miniscule run-ins I figure is probably pretty decent material.”

Durand wrote a letter to District Attorney Bill Gibbons urging probation for Cobbins if he would submit to conditions including supervision by a private probation service, high school graduation, repaying Durand $195 for the money in his wallet and towing charges for his car, and undergoing a mentoring program.

The proposal was turned down and Cobbins pled guilty to aiding a kidnapping. He was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years and will be eligible for parole in 18 months.

Durand says he feels bad about that and is also dismayed at the pace of justice.

“Cleotha Abston spent almost 16 months in jail before today,” Durand says. “Perhaps this is one reason why the jail is overcrowded.”

I.

On Wednesday of last week, FedEx founder and president Fred Smith was testifying to a House committee on the then-pending airline-relief act, to the effect that the transport monolith which he heads will be affected — as it was in fact affected during the several days that followed the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington – by any general across-the-board shutdown or slowdown of air traffic.

But, Smith added, the climate of uncertainty which might govern a commercial or recreational traveler probably would not extend to the shipment of cargo. Even so, Smith felt that the relief bill was needed and supposed that there might, at least ultimately, be provisions of special application to a transport carrier like FedEx.

In Memphis, company spokesperson Jess Bunn was echoing his boss’s essential optimism and making it clear also that FedEx would be joining the ranks of military enlistees. As Bunn put it: “We are an active participant in a program called Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which identifies mission-ready aircraft in the civilian, commercial air fleet that can be called into service in the event of a national emergency. The government can requisition the use of a certain number of aircraft.”

The amount of air stock which FedEx commits to such potential use is in the vicinity of 100 aircraft — mainly MD-11s and DC-10s — out of a total fleet of 650 to 700. These are not mothballed planes, but part of the company’s in-service fleet. During the Desert Storm and Desert Shield operations a decade ago, FedEx flew 576 cargo missions to the Gulf War theater of operations, from August 1990 to June of 1991. “We committed more lifts, operated more flights, and airlifted more tonnage than any other U.S. carrier,” said Bunn.

What would the economic impact of this be on FedEx? And would that impact be positive, negative, or break-even? Bunn was asked. “It’s hard to say,” answered Bunn. “It depends on such variables as what happens to fuel costs, how many missions are called for, how far the flights are, and so forth.” The company would certainly be compensated by the government, but perhaps at a rate which would not compare to what FedEx could charge a private customer. And flights in the service of a military effort would, of course, be planes not available to make civilian deliveries.

Another effect which the company might experience would be in the sphere of military-reserve callups. So far there has been no special (or at least measurable) impact on FedEx,but — since this is a company whose flight and support personnel include a good many military reservists , the impact upon the company’s workforce could turn out to be considerable.

And, of course, the company would be subject to the same economic turndowns as other industries if the war should bring with it recessionary tendencies.

In general, however, the issue of economic impact is, for FedEx, the same riddle-wrapped-in-enigma-inside a mystery that the nature of the as yet unwaged war is for almost everyone else.

II.

You can’t say that Marc Jordan, the president of the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce, isn’t upbeat.

Inevitably, the vigor and optimism of his — and the Chamber’s — response to the terrible events of September 11th come as a reminder that this is a man whose own ravaged vital center has recently been rebuilt. Jordan, who for years had been on the verge of death from the effects of a damaged heart, was the recipient during the past year of a heart transplant. Since then, he has rarely stopped moving, nor did the September 11th terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, bring him to a halt.

Talking to Jordan, you get a sobering dose of the Bad News first: “The most immediate impact on Memphis was in relation to commercial air service,” he confides. “We had marketed ourselves as a hub of Northwest Airlines, and we know we’re going to see some changes there. So we’ve got to adjust. It’s hard to quantify the impact in terms of what it means in [business] expansions and relocation.”

But quickly he segues, “Air service is a relative thing. The whole country has been impacted for the foreseeable future, and, relatively speaking, Memphis should come off better than most.” And then Jordan is off into a chronicle of — relative — good news. “We’re a distribution center, after all. You have to remember that Memphis International Airport has been the Number One cargo airport for nine consecutive years, and we don’t see that changing. Our traffic control operation was ranked Number One two years ago by the F.A.A..”

The bulk of the airport’s transport is, as Jordan notes, generated by home-grown FedEx, the monolith which has its international headquarters in Memphis, and UPS, the FedEx competitor which also has a hub at Memphis International Airport.

FedEx, says Jordan with a vicarious, near-proprietary pride that seems every bit the equal of Smith’s or Bunn’s, “was the first carrier back in the air after September 11th.” The company’s truck delivery system, which normally amounts to 300 trucks dispatched a day, went to 2700 trucks a day, he says. “They quickly shifted and went out and found the trucks.”

And that’s not all. “We’re still the second or third largest community served by Class A rail service. The main factors to reckon with for Memphis are changes in the economy in general, Jordan says. “Memphis therefore will be able to hold its own a little better than most other cities — because of the diversity of transport and because of our position as the prime distribution center in America. Goods and services have still go to be distributed.”

Jordan even invoked the old it’s-an-ill-wind-that-blows-nobody-some-good maxim. “An economic downturn forces economies, and whenever that happens, proximity to distribution needs becomes more important to companies looking for a place to locate.”.

On the day after the disaster, Jordan presided over a meeting of his board of directors and got reports from the airport, from FedEx, from the Federal Reservist system, from the nearby Naval Base at Millington, and from the local telecommunications industry.

Remembers Jordan: “In all the reports, it was encouraging to hear how quickly those respective groups responded. And there were no major problems, no hiccups in the system. Nobody made a run on the bank. The telephone lines were able to handle the increase in calls. Even at the airport, only 20 people out of several thousand stranded passengers were without lodging by nightfall. All of us worked together on that.”

At another board meeting this week, the Chamber board adopted a resolution which is notable for its determined expressions of optimism. The statement was even prescient in its inclusion of strokes of solidarity for “the many Arab American businesses that add value to our entrepreneurial spirit [and] love American deeply.”

There are some who profess a pessimism about the fate of the newly acquired Grizzlies NBA franchise — shifted from Vancouver this year in expectation of the construction of a downtown arena within the next three years. For political reasons, the construction formula was made to depend not on relatively secure property tax levies but on the relative intangibles of a hotel-motel tax and a car-rental tax at the airport. Jordan shrugs “That [the arena] is three years away. By then the factors should be there.”

On the whole, he ventures to say, “this” — meaning the disaster plus the already existent economic downturn, “is a blip.”

From her vantage point on the Triborough Bridge, a vantage point she would be forced to keep for a solid six hours, Memphian Pat Kerr Tigrett watched the Twin Towers crumble to ash.

In New York for work with her fashion company, Pat Kerr Incorporated, she was scheduled to fly out Tuesday and actually watched the first plane hit the World Trade Center as her taxi made its way to the airport. Late Wednesday afternoon, Tigrett called the Flyer from her cell phone to tell of what she saw.

“I saw the first plane hit on the way to the airport, but I didn’t realize what happened,” said Tigrett. “I turned to the cab driver and said, ‘Oh my God, look at that building!,’ He looked and then said, ‘That’s the Twin Towers!'”

When Tigrett arrived at the airport she learned that her Northwest Airlines flight had been cancelled, but not because of the attacks, just a normal airline cancellation. While she waited to board a US Air flight she saw, from a distance, one airline supervisor mouth to another that the airport was about to be closed. Tigrett says she grabbed all of her bags and dashed outside to catch a cab before the news of the closure was released and all the cabs were gone.

“We got back on the Triborough Bridge and from there I saw the first building collapse. I can’t even explain what that looked like. I was just trying to get back to the Carlisle [Hotel] – it’s like a second home – but they weren’t letting anybody into Manhattan.”

Tigrett, who now says that she won’t ever travel anywhere again without a map, told the Flyer that her cab got stuck in the Bronx and that neither she nor the driver knew where they were. Using her cell phone, she contacted friends and family who helped her navigate a way out.

“My taxi driver and all the drivers around us were screaming into their cell phones that all the tunnels and bridges were being closed, but here we were stuck on the bridge. We were only moving like an inch an hour. Eventually we were able to inch north. I’m north of the city now, in White Plains, New York.”

Tigrett says that she then called another Memphian, Federal Express’ Fred Smith, whose daughters Molly and Kathleen were also in Manhattan.

“One of the girls was at NYU and the other was at Saks. I told Fred that if he could talk to them and just get them to me then they could stay with me. So they’re with me now.”

Though Tigrett, Molly, and Kathleen all say that they’re fine, they don’t know how long it will be before they are able to return to Memphis.

“We’re fine and we’re really in no hurry to go anywhere. It’s all just so unreal. It’s just now starting to settle in. Everybody is walking around in disbelief. There’s just this eerie calm that’s taken over the whole city. But what I experienced was so incidental – so zero – compared to what others have gone through.”