Betty Ann OngE 65th St between 2nd Ave and 1st AveHeart Three · Location 328 · Drawn July 2003Hover over or select the image to reveal a hidden view.PhotographsDownload photograph 1Download photograph 2Download photograph 3Download photograph 4Download photograph 5Download photograph 6Download photograph 7Download photograph 8Download photograph 9Download photograph 10Video podcast0:00There's an entrance at 300 and a half East 65th Street, east of 2nd Avenue, that serves as a good beginning for finding this drawing's location.0:11Once you've found this small set of stairs leading down, look to the right.0:16There's a semi-complicated, ornate stone and mirror display.0:21But to the right of that is an alcove about the size for one person to stand in, embedded into the building.0:30It is framed on the right and on the top by metal electrical piping.0:34The alcove itself is all brick, minus the lower right-hand corner,0:38which has been filled with concrete for years.0:41This is Betty Ann Ong.0:43She was drawn in July of 2003.0:47Her drawing is counting ten people.0:53Niches.0:54It is such a treat when I get an opportunity to draw someone in a place of honor, the niche.1:00I have had the opportunity in my life to be in some wonderful, grand buildings all over the world.1:06Large government palaces, museums, mansions, and churches all have a special relationship for the niche.1:13When you carve a space out of a wall, you declare that anything that occupies that space is, by its very proximity inside the wall, a part of the building, institution, and all it stands for.1:28Niches are most often occupied by the busts of great leaders, saints, and angels.1:35Walking around the streets of New York on that rare occasion when a carved out space presents itself, I will seize the opportunity to work in it.1:44So, for the time being, Betty Ann Ong will be a patron saint of this street.1:56Betty Ann Ong, 45, of Andover, Massachusetts,2:00was a veteran flight attendant who displayed extraordinary heroism2:04in the face of terror aboard American Airlines Flight 11.2:07After the plane was hijacked September 11,2:10Ong grabbed a phone and called her ground supervisor,2:13relaying what was happening,2:15even while hijackers began stabbing passengers and crew.2:18She remained on the phone right up until the plane crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.2:25We're very proud of her, said her sister, Kathy Ong Herrera.← Location 327Heart Three · Location 328Location 329 →
