Dress
- Description
- Barami-brand mid-thigh length sleeveless silk suit dress in a faded blue color with a back slit and zipper. The dress appears slightly discolored, particularly in the underarm area.
- Historical Notes
- Micheala Ferrigine witnessed Flight 175 impact the South Tower from across the street from the World Trade Center. She and a coworker evacuated uptown, where she eventually boarded a ferry to New Jersey. Her blue dress suit, soiled from her evacuation, was hosed off to "decontaminate" it. She later had it dry-cleaned but never again wore it, unable to throw it away as a testament to her experience.
Curator's Comment
On September 11, 2001, Micheala Ferrigine left her home in Monmouth County, NJ, early to begin her long commute to lower Manhattan, where she worked for a brokerage firm affiliated with the New York Stock Exchange. Her schedule that Tuesday morning had just shifted: instead of starting the day by attending a meeting at Fiduciary Trust in the World Trade Center South Tower, which had been cancelled, she was told to report instead to a sales meeting at her office at 111 Broadway.
Shortly after her arrival she heard a muffled thud followed by the odd sight of fluttering paper scraps out the window. She and several coworkers decided to investigate, and they walked to Liberty Plaza where they caught their first sight of a cavernous smoking hole in the upper floors of the North Tower.
Just past 9 a.m., Ferrigine heard a groaning noise that grew louder overhead. Looking up to determine its source, she watched as a commercial passenger jet banked at a steep angle, then disappeared into the nearby South Tower, spewing a gigantic fireball and steel shrapnel from the other side. The crowd around her immediately dispersed and began running away; she was nearly trampled.
Feeling dazed, and bleeding from an unnoticed injury sustained when she fell on the hard pavement, Ferrigine tried to focus on her newborn and other family who needed her at home. She and a pregnant coworker evacuated the area together, slowing making their way uptown.
Eventually, the exhausted Ferrigine reached the ferry in Midtown, which she to the Monmouth County waterfront; there, her husband and brother awaited her. Authorities at the dock first interviewed her as an eyewitness to the second hijacked plane strike. She was next instructed to undergo decontamination and was processed through a makeshift sanitizing station where her blue suit was hosed down. She showered there, receiving dry clothes in which to travel home. The wet, dirty, and foul-smelling suit was returned to her in a sealed plastic bag. She immediately threw the bag in a garbage bin. Unbeknownst to her, Ferrigine’s husband took the suit out of the trash and placed it in the trunk of their car, assuming she might want to have it cleaned, or saved as an artifact of her ordeal.
Some days later, Ferrigine brought the suit to a local dry cleaner. When she eventually returned to pickup the suit, the man told her that he had attempted to mend some tears and clean it of odor. He noted that the suit’s overall silk fabric had softened, its color mutating to a more somber shade. When she prepared to pay the owner for his services, he refused to take any money. Instead, he gave her a “big hug,” telling her to “wear it in good health.” She never again put it on, however, consigning the suit to her closet still in its plastic over-wrap. At some point, her curiosity was stirred by a piece of index card safely pinned to the plastic. Handwritten on it, in shaky script, was: “Girl from WTC.”
Shortly after her arrival she heard a muffled thud followed by the odd sight of fluttering paper scraps out the window. She and several coworkers decided to investigate, and they walked to Liberty Plaza where they caught their first sight of a cavernous smoking hole in the upper floors of the North Tower.
Just past 9 a.m., Ferrigine heard a groaning noise that grew louder overhead. Looking up to determine its source, she watched as a commercial passenger jet banked at a steep angle, then disappeared into the nearby South Tower, spewing a gigantic fireball and steel shrapnel from the other side. The crowd around her immediately dispersed and began running away; she was nearly trampled.
Feeling dazed, and bleeding from an unnoticed injury sustained when she fell on the hard pavement, Ferrigine tried to focus on her newborn and other family who needed her at home. She and a pregnant coworker evacuated the area together, slowing making their way uptown.
Eventually, the exhausted Ferrigine reached the ferry in Midtown, which she to the Monmouth County waterfront; there, her husband and brother awaited her. Authorities at the dock first interviewed her as an eyewitness to the second hijacked plane strike. She was next instructed to undergo decontamination and was processed through a makeshift sanitizing station where her blue suit was hosed down. She showered there, receiving dry clothes in which to travel home. The wet, dirty, and foul-smelling suit was returned to her in a sealed plastic bag. She immediately threw the bag in a garbage bin. Unbeknownst to her, Ferrigine’s husband took the suit out of the trash and placed it in the trunk of their car, assuming she might want to have it cleaned, or saved as an artifact of her ordeal.
Some days later, Ferrigine brought the suit to a local dry cleaner. When she eventually returned to pickup the suit, the man told her that he had attempted to mend some tears and clean it of odor. He noted that the suit’s overall silk fabric had softened, its color mutating to a more somber shade. When she prepared to pay the owner for his services, he refused to take any money. Instead, he gave her a “big hug,” telling her to “wear it in good health.” She never again put it on, however, consigning the suit to her closet still in its plastic over-wrap. At some point, her curiosity was stirred by a piece of index card safely pinned to the plastic. Handwritten on it, in shaky script, was: “Girl from WTC.”
- Accession Number: C.2022.3.1
- Dimensions: 35" X 18" X 1"
- Dimensions (Metric): 88.9 cm X 45.72 cm X 2.54 cm
- Source: Michaela D. Ferrigine
- Credit Line: Gift of Michaela DiBernardo Ferrigine and family
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