The bomb that exploded in Manhattan’s Chelsea district on Saturday night was placed in a dumpster belonging the city’s only dedicated residence for blind people. Amazingly, none of more than 500 residents who live at Selis Manor at 135 West 23rd St were injured, despite windows facing the street being blown out and scaffolding and wooden construction barriers outside the building collapsing.
Many residents, it turned out, were mostly playing bingo in a conference room not directly facing the blast.
“Fortunately, no one was in the second, third and fourth floor apartments that had their windows blown out at the time of the blast,” said Nancy Miller, director of Visions, the charity that manages the apartments for blind people or visually impaired residents.
“It’s more anxiety-provoking because the tenants cannot see what’s happening on the street and they didn’t know what caused the blast,” Miller said. “They reacted just as anyone would because with the building shaking they didn’t know if it was an earthquake or what it was.”
Smoke from the blast filled the hallways, prompting emergency services to shut down the elevators. Power in the building was maintained so the residents were able to receive information, just as the general public did.
“There were a lot of rumors flying, because people didn’t know what had happened so they needed to tune into some kind of information,” Miller said. “This is a very independent, resourceful group of blind individuals – not a group of very dependent people.”
Some 205,000 blind or visually impaired people live in New York City, and Selis Manor is the city’s only dedicated residence for blind people. In the aftermath of the detonation, they did not lack for social service and government attention.
Miller said she was contacted by the city government, the department for the ageing, the commissioner of the mayor’s office for people with disabilities, the associate commissioner of the commission for blind people, the comptroller’s office, Manhattan borough president Gayle Brewer and city councilmember Corey Johnson. “All were in touch with me to find out if there was anything that could be done.”
One of the immediate concerns was for the guide dogs – there are about 100 in the building – because they, of course, need to go out. “At first, the police would not let anyone leave the building,” Miller said. “Finally, they prevailed on the police to let them let their dogs out to do their business.”
