Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

September 11

I have been trying to decide where to direct my One Day's Pay donation. I wanted something with a specific relevance to 9/11, and to Washington.

On that afternoon two years ago, I sat in my basement switching between news broadcasts for coverage of the Pentagon. It is not that I didn't care about New York, but the Pentagon is, quite literally, closer to home. I know people who work there.

One of the biggest effects here in the DC area was on the hospitality industry. National Airport was shut down longer than any other airport in the country, and workers in hotels and restaurants suffered through cutbacks and layoffs.

A professional association to which I belong has an annual meeting every fall in Crystal City (northern Virginia, just one subway stop from the Pentagon.) In 2001 the attendance was about half what it usually is.

(The hits continued in 2002: the meeting attendance was down again, and some people who did come did not venture out of the hotel, because the meeting occurred during the sniper attacks.)

This morning's Bob Levy column in the Post highlighted what hotel workers have gone through in the last two years. I've never seen a specific fund set up for the victims of the economic consequences of 9/11 here, so I am giving my day's pay to the Capital Area Food Bank, which distributes food to over 750 hunger relief organizations in Washington, Suburban Maryland, and Northern Virginia.

This window, constructed by Pentagon workers and family of those killed in the attack, hangs in the Pentagon chapel.

CORRECTION: The window pictured above was constructed by military chaplains last year. (I'm afraid I did some premature blogging there, without reading the full Post story.) You can read the story about the original window at dcmilitary.com.