Surrounded by Mud After one week, we have been allowed back into the 02138 offices here at 110 E 42nd Street. Somewhat disconcertingly, our windows here on the 13th floor are covered with mud and God knows what else.

(Some of you will say that this is a wonderfully appropriate metaphor for the environs in which journalists labor. Who am I to disagree?)

In the meantime, we have been instructed not to open our windows.

Looking across 41st Street, I see a large black building, mostly glass. A number of its windows are covered with duct tape; they must have been cracked in the explosion. The damaged windows go as high as the 30th floor.....

Some people who heard the news accounts of this incident don't quite get what it was really like. "A steam pipe," they say. "How bad could it be?"

I wish they could look up to the floors twice the height of the one I work on and see the cracks and scars above....  ¶ 5:05 PM