A Taped Battery Door and Incorrect Glasses

That mid-August day in 2009 was bleak for The Journal News’ advertising and news departments. We were called into a meeting and fired from our jobs, then told we had to reapply — except we weren’t told the shift, location or specific job.

My heart fell to my stomach. I began working at the city desk — back then it was The Reporter Dispatch — while in college and carry journalistic wisdom learned from my first editor. After freelancing there on and off during the years, I was hired part-time two summers before the restructuring.

The risks of applying to unknowns were too great so I opted for a buyout; many of my colleagues were rehired. Soon after I followed several editors and reporters from the newsroom to Patch, a then-new hyperlocal news model, and began writing for its community platforms.

As I had no camera — the photo department loaned me one for assignments — my former editor, now at Patch, told me about the Nikon Coolpix L22. That powerhouse had 12.0 megapixels, a 3.6 zoom lens and a 3-inch LCD screen and could compete with the best of cameras.

Through the years I’ve replaced my original red L22 with the same preowned model and color and sometimes taped the easily-breakable battery door. It’s proven itself time and again on every assignment and road trip.

And as I’m inept with more complex cameras, this point-and-shoot was perfect for me. Extra batteries always came along for the ride.

Eight Augusts later I was covering the ceremonial opening of the new Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge’s westbound span. Except I couldn’t see.

The previous day I’d picked up my bifocal prescription glasses from a local optical shop and realized too late it only filled one of the two prescriptions, leaving me with midrange lenses and no reading glasses.

I was scheduled for the first of two cataract removal surgeries – left eye first – the following month yet until then I needed bifocals.

So I did the best I could as I was unable to see/change the setting on my camera. It would have to stay on Easy Auto Mode.

Media walked around the span we’d written about for several years prior to that day. I was fascinated to see the structures up close and kept pointing, waiting and pressing the shutter-release button.

Prior to the ceremony we were told we’d get the best photos of then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s inaugural drive across the span with the late Armando “Chick” Galella, a WWII veteran and a Pearl Harbor survivor, if we stood on the back of the nearby rack truck that would move ahead of them.

I climbed up and surveyed the scene. Photographers near me carried huge cameras that cost more than my first car.

Because of my location I had an unobstructed view of the ceremony and speakers despite the glasses error. I remember holding up the camera and letting Easy Auto Mode do the work, same as I’d done earlier.

The L22 chose the right scene mode, adjusted the exposure and activated the Electronic Vibration Reduction (EVR) to help steady my distance shots.

When the speeches were completed, and the ribbon was cut, the truck began to move slowly. As Cuomo and Galella waved to us from the front seat of the 1955 Chevrolet Corvette, I realized if you can’t change the settings, then you have to trust the view.

I’d like to know what you think.

Copyright © Janie Rosman and Kaleidoscope Eyes 2026

From the Archives: So Much Easier to Say

Image source: Risk to Business Archive

Workplace bullying made me feel isolated and presented an uncomfortable choice: report what’s happening and risk being disbelieved or that nothing will change, or remain silent and hope it stops. I had another choice: I left.

Years ago I worked as a secretary at Texaco, Inc., to supplement my income while I built a network of freelance writing clients. The marine department was a fun group; I learned to send and read telexes and felt an important part of the team.

One of the managers was a former sea captain and told fascinating stories.

My coworkers and I got along well, and I enjoyed working there. The first year my supervisor gave me a beautiful scarf as holiday gift; I cherish that scarf and enjoy wearing it. What happened afterward was very different.

Texaco relocated its marine department to Port Arthur, TX. A few colleagues accepted the company’s relocation package while others left to find other work. The administrative staff stayed in Harrison, NY; I was transferred to a small, four-person department.

Heading that group was the private pilot for Texaco’s president and CEO. I wanted to be helpful so I corrected the grammatical and spelling errors in his reports. He reproached me, was disrespectful and spoke down to me.

My immediate manager was a woman who smoked; her gravelly voice made her behavior more intimidating. Another employee often walked around to my cubicle and asked if I was doing my work or writing freelance stories.

I wrote at night and on weekends, never during the work day. She didn’t believe me and reported me for doing personal work on company time. A fourth employee planned her wedding during work hours and took two-hour lunches. No one said a word.

After documenting the employee who kept asking me what I was doing I filed a report with human resources and asked to be transferred to another department. The result? I was reprimanded for telling lies and given no work as punishment.

Imagine sitting for hours at a time with nothing to do. I brought books to read and thought I’d be fired, which would have been a blessing.

My outside phone line was restricted so I was not allowed to make calls — a friend in the next department often let me use her phone — and software was removed from my computer. The coworker who reported me watched me closely to see if I took one more minute than allowed for lunch or breaks.

No new software was installed on my computer when the systems were upgraded.

I held on because it was a paycheck and quietly looked for other work, then finally left. A friend working at a local weekly newspaper helped me secure an interview there, and I began writing a weekly column.

Some might point out companies have antidiscrimination policies. Yet what happens when those policies are ignored?

Though I chalked Texaco up to a harsh experience in the corporate world something about it felt very wrong.

Well . . . there is also karma.

A few years later the “Texaco Tapes” — recordings exposing top executives using vile racial slurs and openly mocking Jewish holidays — were leaked to the public. While it was small consolation that the company reached a $176 million court settlement in 1996, I suspected this systemic corporate culture was the despicable reason behind my coworkers’ abusive and toxic behavior.

So much easier to say, “She’s doing personal work on company time.”

Always speak up if or when someone mistreats you. Everyone deserves a personally safe and respectful work environment.

I’d like to know what you think.

Copyright © Janie Rosman and Kaleidoscope Eyes 2026

Tarrytown Man an Integral Part of 9/11 Project

Photo by Donaldroszz / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

My article about one Hudson Valley resident’s personal story of this horrific and tragic aftermath, and his part in our nation’s healing, was initially published in 2013 and was updated to reflect the landmarks’ completion. He was sworn in as Chief of the Tarrytown Fire Department in April 2026.

After living through the nightmare and subsequent aftermath of September 11, 2001, Ray Tuohy learned his boss had a contract for construction on the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, part of the World Trade Center (WTC) complex. Tuohy, who has worked construction in New York City since 1997, requested to be part of that job — and was made foreman.

“It’s what I do,” the Tarrytown resident humbly said, four years into the project. No stranger to the WTC, Tuohy worked there from 1990 to 1993, leaving his job before the building was first attacked on February 26, 1993.

“It sounded like a freight train with the devil riding on it,” he said when the North Tower crashed into the clear September 11 morning. “There was dust everywhere, and it looked like something out of a bad Godzilla movie.”

Television depicted the visual and auditory; one could only imagine the emotional impact of being there. “I saw shoes everywhere, in the street, it was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen,” he said.

The steel towers twisted as they fell into the Manhattan streets. One woman fell, he said, and another person picked her up.

“Everyone came together, no barriers of race, religion, beliefs — we were all one that day, and for a few months,” Tuohy said quietly. “I miss that. I’d like to bring back the feeling when people were friendly to one another.”

Making his way home that day was no easy feat, he said, despite acumen and training as a proud member of Tarrytown Volunteer Fire Department. Once back in Tarrytown, he joined the entire department on standby for the duration of the day.

The next day, Ladder 37 was called to the Bronx for mutual aid to cover FDNY Truck 37’s calls, and Tuohy joined the crew. Two days later, he went to work on the site.

“My brother, Andrew Tuohy, was in town; my father, Matthew Tuohy, though retired from Engine 85, the Bronx, said he ‘needed to be with his boys,’” he said. Despite ending his own 15-hour tour with the TVFD, Tuohy set off with them.

One of the amazing experiences, he recalled, was that people reached out to help one another, like those on the West Side Highway handing water bottles to emergency personnel and first responders. Thousands of people lined the highway, cheering those headed for lower Manhattan to help search for friends, loved ones, colleagues, and bodies.

The community rallied support for its own and for those less fortunate, taking up collections, organizing fundraisers and drives. Diane Tuohy assembled 10 family members to help trucks at the American Red Cross in White Plains. Tuft’s boot drive raised $6,000 for the Andrew A. Fredericks National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, honoring one of the 343 firefighters who died that day rescuing others.

One landmark built at the WTC site is the transportation hub, known as the Oculus. Its retractable skylight opens each year on the morning of September 11, allowing a beam of pure sunlight to fall directly onto the floor inside. Nearby, visitors pass behind the bronze panels of the reflecting pools.

Two of the nearly 3,000 names engraved in the bronze panels edging each pool — victims of the 1993 and 2001 attacks, and symbolically grouped together — are Tuohy’s cousins, Port Authority officer Paul William Jurgens, and Supreme Court officer Thomas Edward Jurgens, 26.

Set in the footprint of the former Twin Towers, and dedicated on September 11, 2011, they symbolize a void and also healing, he said.

The new One World Trade Center, north of the memorial, stands 1,776 feet tall, its 200-foot dimension is the same square footprint as the Twin Towers. Its observation deck is 1,362 feet, the height of Tower Two; the glass parapet, reflecting light in it like a kaleidoscope, is 1,368 feet, the height of Tower One.

“We’re building what the hate tore down,” Tuohy said, his voice quiet.

Copyright © Janie Rosman and Kaleidoscope Eyes 2026