I saw it back in November 2001 when some morons in my apartment building were trying to jack everyone up into a rent strike because we didn't get as big a rent discount as did the poor people who literally live(d) right over the WTC site -- being 5 blocks away, we got a 10% concession, while those in the buildings right over the smouldering ruins got 25% off from the same management company.
They actually formed a Yahoo group to try to figure out how to game the landlord. When I pointed out that demanding a decrease in rent because of "dangerous air quality" doesn't make sense, because if the air is really *that* bad, then they shouldn't stay at *any* price, this one guy chimed in thusly: "I have not determined yet (call me slow) that the environment is bad enough for me to go through the hassle of finding another apartment given my schedule." OK...
Anyway, I was here (outside, actually) when it all happened and I moved back here 12 days after -- and I have yet to meet anyone who lives or works down here who had any actual respiratory problems (other than the very temporary discomfort those of us caught in the debris clouds had that morning). Interestingly, the one person whom I knew who bitched loudest about the "air quality" lives on the Upper West Side and adamantly refused to believe that what she'd been smelling at home (in late 2001) was not from 7 miles south of her, but from a recent major fire at a church much closer to her neighborhood.
Anyway, this demand for the gubmint (read: we, the taxpayers) to pay for the cleaning of homes and offices in *Brooklyn* is beyond asinine. I'm five freaking blocks away, and have yet to find one speck of WTC dust in my home. Why these people can't just count their blessings and be grateful that they weren't killed and that their apartments weren't destroyed (I know people who lost virtually everything they owned), I don't know...
OK, and in the morning, I'll see if this rambling rant still makes any sense to me!