'Dust lady' sells story
Bayonne WTC survivor in National Enquirer

By Steven Kalcanides journal
staff writer

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A Bayonne woman who narrowly escaped from the 81st floor of the World Trade Center's Tower 1 sold her story to the National Enquirer for an undisclosed amount and is donating some of the proceeds toward a Halloween party for local children today.

The money Borders received was more like a stipend, barely enough to pay one month's rent, a food bill, cable bill and one or two other bills, mag says Marcy Borders, who lives at the Bergen Point Gardens public housing complex on Avenue C, is featured on pages 26 and 27 of the Nov. 6 publication, which is on newsstands now. The National Enquirer pursued the feature article after it was discovered Borders was the famous "dust lady" - the unidentified woman caked in dust and soot while trying to make it to safety on Sept. 11 whose photo appeared in magazines, newspapers and on television several days following the tragedy.

"I started screaming for help. Out of nowhere a man grabbed my arm and began leading me," the 28-year-old single mom said in the article. "He led me toward a building to get shelter inside. That had to be when the photograph was taken."

Tom DiNardo, the National Enquirer reporter who retold Borders' tale of survival, said the woman is "giving what little she made toward the children of the community." But the controversial practice of selling stories to the media has long been frowned upon by certain members of news organizations.

DiNardo, however, said the publication paid Borders a "very, very small amount" for her story, without going into detail. He added that Borders is under "exclusive" contract with the paper, and cannot talk about her story until around the first week of November, when the embargo on publication placed on her comes to an end.

"We gave her money to guarantee the exclusivity of the story, but nothing that would make her rich," he said.

Regardless, Borders' haunting story is a tale of a mother who swallowed her fear and struggled to make it home to her daughter.

" `I've got to get out of this building!' I thought. `I've got an 8year-old daughter who needs me. I've got to go home!' "Borders recalled in the publication.

Borders had only worked for one month at Bank of America in Tower 1 and was late for work that day at the doomed tower when she finally arrived at her desk. When one of the two hijacked jets struck the tower, she said she felt it lurch underneath her and began to scream.

'Marcy, get out of this building,' I told myself. People were advising me to stay seated. Three guys said they were going into the bank's vault for safety. There were many different exits and nobody was sure where to go or what to do," she says in the publication.

She made it to an exit and began her ordeal to get out of the building before it eventually came crashing down, killing thousands including more than 300 firefighters, police and EMS people on the ground with it.
Borders said she slowly made her way down the stairs in the tower and watched as firefighters tried to find survivors by chopping down metal doors with their axes.

"I saw people coming down the metal, people with glass in their bodies and people with their scalps burned off," she told the reporter.
Borders said she asked God what to do to escape the disaster, knowing that her daughter depended on her.

It took more than an hour to reach the ground floor, which seemed like "forever," she told the publication. While trying to head toward the trains located under the tower, Borders said she fell, cutting herself on broken glass and landing in pools of water.

"Two guys grabbed me and dragged me outside," she said. ". . . Suddenly firemen raced toward us screaming, `RUN! DON'T LOOK BACK! RUN!'"

Tower 2 began collapsing in front of her eyes as she was being helped by a priest at the scene. The dust cloud and debris storm from the doomed tower engulfed her and others.

"I tried to run faster, but suddenly everything turned pitch black. The choking dust cloud slammed into me," she said, adding that the blast knocked her onto the ground, covering her in smoke, dust and rubble.

Borders said when she got home, her daughter was traumatized by what she saw. For two weeks after the event, Borders said she would not leave her apartment and she said she is still troubled by the ordeal.

She lost her job, she told the publication, because she won't go into Manhattan, and her mother had to help pay her rent for October. Her daughter, Noelle, is staying with another family member, she said.

"I used to tell my daughter I was tough," she said. "But that picture of me in magazines scares her. She knows now that the world isn't safe."

DiNardo, a Jersey City native and resident, said the money Borders received for her story was more like a stipend, barely enough to pay one month's rent, a food bill, cable bill and one or two other bills.

"We have spent millions to maintain the sort of network we have. Marcy probably was on the low end of that," he said. "She took what little money we gave her and did an incredible act of charity by putting it into this event for children."

DiNardo, who works in the New York office of the National Enquirer, interviewed the woman at her home in Bayonne.

"We had been putting out feelers to find her and she was trying to find us. We were both searching, and we came to find one another," he said.

DiNardo first became interested in the story when he saw Borders in the photo, which appeared in a special magazine, "The Day That Changed America," which was published by Florida-based American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer. Borders, who was not identified at the time, was pictured on page 85.

The photo, said DiNardo, was taken by AFP, a news agency, and its photographer was not identified either.

DiNardo, who has worked for the Enquirer since April 2000, said he wanted to know who was that anonymous, soot-covered woman, and what story she had to tell the world.

"To me, her terrified image is a haunting reminder of the tragic velocity of Sept. 11," he said. "She was a working class professional emerging from this inferno."

He says the reaction to Borders' story has been overwhelming. The publication has 14 million readers, he said.

"Her scary account is a horrible statement of the inability of relief agencies to reach survivors of the catastrophe. Regardless of what we've heard about millions of dollars in relief money, she has not gotten one red cent to aid her for her pain and suffering," he said.

Still, John O'Brien, executive director of the New Jersey Press Association in West Trenton, has reservations about the veracity of stories that have been bought.

He said there is no way to tell if the information is true or if the person being paid is just telling the media what they think they want to hear.
"Newspapers here don't want to touch that with a 10-foot pole,"

he said of the association, which lists the 19 daily papers in the state and more than 170 weeklies as members of the organization.

"We really never come in con tact with that because all of our member newspapers are legitimate newspapers that do not pay for news stories," he added.

Borders had originally contacted The Jersey Journal about her story and had agreed to meet with a reporter. However, she told the Journal staffer she had to "protect her own interests and had to talk with her attorney" be- fore the meeting could actually take place. She later canceled the appointment and appeared in the Enquirer article a short time later.

The Jersey Journal, which be longs to the NJPA, does not pay
for stories.

Story proceeds go for party

A portion of the proceeds Marcy Borders received for her story to the National Enquirer was donated to organize a Halloween party today in Bayonne from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Elks Lodge, 92 W. 20th St., for
costume-clad youngsters. The Elks have donated the hall for the affair, and a local DJ has volunteered to spin music. Other members of the community are contributing food and beverages for the event, said organizers.

In addition to Borders, Danny Musico, 33, a boxing champ, is also slated to attend the event today at 4 p.m.

Musico, a world super middleweight champion for the International Boxing Council, has appeared as a detective on the TV show, "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" and was the United States Boxing Association champ from 1997 to 1998. Musico is originally from Nutley and West Patterson.

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