GERRYBOSWELL
WASHINGTONSQUAREPARK
erry boswell burrows his hands in his jacket
and smiles, radiating warmth and a restrained
sadness. He had just left the South Tower when
the North Tower fell. He recalls being evacuated
by security and stepping outside to see people falling from the
sky in his peripheral vision. One of his close friends, Eamon
McEneaney, died that day. Eamon was the second friend Gerry
has lost in a fire: Mike Keeley, his roommate in Syracuse, died
in a house fire. They had worked together at RJ O’Toole’s Res-
taurant, these friends. Gerry’s the last one standing, and he
often wonders, Why me?
Gerry was born in upper Manhattan. “I’ve been to San Fran-
cisco, Chicago, Boston, the Caribbean, Europe. All over. But there’s
just something about the people here, the diversity in New York
that’s different from other places.” He worked as a broker for a firm
on John Street selling the euro, but soon after 9/11, the economy
tanked and he was laid off. A colleague’s sister worked at MTV. She
met with Gerry and suggested he try acting. He landed his first
gig—a commercial for a personal-injury law firm—a month later.
He has been acting ever since: movies, TV, commercials, voice-
overs, whatever he can get. The work’s not consistent, but he
makes do. “People walking around so bitter,” he says. “I want to tell
them, ‘You’re alive. You’re here. You can always do something to
make your life or somebody else’s better.’ ” Like checking in once a
week on his friend, a homeless man in his 80s who is too proud to
go to a shelter. “When I go to bed at night, I ask myself, ‘Did I do
anything to upset someone today?’ I try to keep my side of the
street clean.” regina porter