Fallout: The Tram Stranding So, Mom and Dad, Come See My Great New Appartment... by Talley Henning Brown
(Reprinted, with permission, from the Rockefeller University community newsletter, BenchMarks)

For Ana Domingos, a postdoc in the Friedman Lab, the Tram was originally one of the appeals of living on Roosevelt Island. While other New Yorkers stuffed themselves onto crowded subway trains, she could float over the river in four and a half minutes.

But even before she could move in – in fact just days after signing her Roosevelt Island lease – her reliable means of transport jolted to a halt. With her on it.

Ana Domingos (second from left) was bringing her mother and father (he took the photo) to her new Roosevelt Island apartment on April 18.

As every New Yorker with a television knows, 69 people were trapped on the two Roosevelt Island Tramcars on April 18 when an electrical system failure caused the tram to grind to a stop 250 feet above the East River.

"There was a lady on the Tram who had lived on Roosevelt Island for six years, and she said it was normal," says Dr. Domingos, "like the subway trains stopping in the middle of the tunnel. So I didn’t worry about it. My mother, however, had a slight case of vertigo." Dr. Domingos was crossing the river with her mother and father, Leonilde and Manuel Domingos, visiting from their native Portugal, as well as her brother Pedro Domingos, also a Rockefeller postdoc, in the Steller Lab, and her four-year-old nephew Ruy. They were planning to stop by only shortly, so Dr. Domingos could show off her new apartment.

As the hours wore on, the backup plans worked out between the police and the Tram conductor all failed, and passengers’ cell phones slowly ran out of power. The family passed the time listening to Dr. Domingos describe her new apartment, and talking with the other passengers, most of whom she says were determined to be good natured, despite the cold and hunger that were steadily fraying everyone’s nerves. "We all broke up into small groups sometimes, everyone talking about something different, such as how New Yorkers pay taxes to make public services work and then they don’t work," says Dr. Domingos. "Everyone tried to be cheerful, though, even with the conductor. There was even a small group of Orthodox Jews who all knelt in the Tram for prayer when the sun was setting."

There were also a few outbreaks of panic. "The tensest moment was when one lady who was very upset at the beginning, took the conductor’s cell phone out of his hand when he was talking to the police and demanded to know what was going on."

It was after sunset before the rescue plan, to send baskets up to the stranded Trams and ferry people back to the ground, was finalized. "There was a lot of speculation about what was actually going to happen, even after they told us that plan, because the conductor was pointing to the rescue basket at the end of the cable line and none of us could see it. Some people thought he was making it up, just to keep us quiet," says Dr. Domingos.

When the rescue basket was proved to be real – when it finally pulled into view around 11 p.m. – there was immense relief. "The police brought us blankets and water, but what I really wanted was something sugary." The basket was positioned as close as possible to the Tram, but because the floor of the basket was nearly adjacent to the ceiling of the Tram, each passenger had to be bodily lifted by the emergency services team into the basket, which then made several trips to get everyone to safety. "My mother had been very quiet about her vertigo the whole time, but she worried a little when the police tried to lift her into the basket." Dr. Domingos herself was in the last group to be lifted from the Tram. "I don’t remember when I finally had my feet on the ground, but I do know it was after three in the morning when I got to bed."

Dr. Domingos, who has lived in New York since 2000, when she became a visiting student in Leslie Vosshall’s lab, continued to be excited about her June 1 move to Roosevelt Island. "I still wanted to go there. It really is very convenient to where I work, compared to my last place, in Inwood Park. The electrical buses on the Island make me feel like I’m in Europe again." But with the Tram down for repairs until at least the fall, she’ll be commuting by subway.

[Editor’s note: Domingos also wrote a first-person account for the Rockefeller University student newspaper, Natural Selections. It contains some outdated and inaccurate information (for example ascribing operational responsibility for the Tram to the MTA), but also offers her opinions on the "drama" of the rescue and the state of Tramway maintenance. It is available on line at http://selections.rockefeller.edu/cms/editorials/roosevelt-island-tram-goes-to-hollywood.html.]