It completely slipped my mind to include this back with my original Wamego post, but I felt like I had to post it. These three pictures also came from the Oz Museum. They left such an impression on me and I had to share them. The first picture describes the story, but in case you can't read it I'm going to basically give you the gist. Johnpaul Cafiero, an Oz collector gave these pieces to the Oz museum. He was friends with the manager of the Warner Brothers Store located in the World Trade Center. The store was scheduled to be closed sometime in 2001, and during his visit to his father who worked in the towers on August 27, 2001, he stopped by the store. The manager would often tell him about rare or limited Wizard of Oz pieces that would come in, which she did on that day. The store had received several 3 foot plush characters that were test market items and weren't going to be put out, so the manager offered them to Johnpaul who accepted. She said they would be mailed within the next two weeks. Of course, soon after came that fateful day of September 11, 2001. On September 12th Johnpaul called the Warner Brothers Store in Times Square to ask about the staff of the store in the towers and found out that fortunately they all managed to get out before the collapse. He wondered if the plush characters had ever been shipped....and the answer came the next day. They had survived that devastating disaster.
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| the 5characters & the original box they came in |
Below was something else that made it out that day...This is a New York Times newspaper dated June 23, 1969. It's folded open to Judy Garland's obituary. In case you can't read it from the picture, it says: "Conservationists say a worker on the original building site for the World Trade Center must have left it inside the structure of the buildings. It came through the attacks unscathed."
It's amazing the things that survive after disaster. Reading this story gave me such a feeling.
And the adventure continues...
Stay tuned...
