Jimmy Carter and the Secret Service on Sixth Street

In which a Haitian sculptor friend of mine was handcuffed and then freed

By Matthew Russell Lee

I was living in an abandoned building in lower Manhattan when Jimmy Carter showed up down the block with a hammer and the Secret Service.

East Sixth Street on the Lower East Side was nearly entirely abandoned. On Saturday along with the Catholic Workers I cleared rumbled out of two vacant buildings, looking about over vacant lots toward the two World Trade Towers. During the week I lived in the empty shell. It was freezing in the winter, even with a kerosene stove bought on sale from a Sears in Brooklyn.

But it was summer when Jimmy came with Habitat for Humanity to work on another abandoned building down the block, 742 East Sixth Street. My friend Eli Mollenthiel, a woodcarver and lot-squatter originally from Haiti, told me that "Yimmy" as he called him was coming.

I must have forgotten, because I was woken up that morning by a loud hammering on the front door of the building - my building, I thought of it - five stories below. Workmen were putting corrugated steel sheets over the door, so that no assassin could jump out firing when the former president arrived.

"Hey!" I yelled down. "Hey, I live here!" But the hammering was too loud. I was ignored. No problem - I could jump off the fire escape in the back.

But Eli had been waiting. When Jimmy and his entourage arrived, Eli came running out of his vacant lot, his garden, with a hammer in his hand. "Yimmy! We can fix it!" Eli yelled.

Two Secret Service agents tackled Eli, right in the middle of Sixth Street, and handcuffed him behind his back.

"Yimmy!" Eli said plaintively. Jimmy to his credit looked into it; a woman who did fundraising for Habitat for Humanity and helped both Eli and me (she had driven my kerosene stove in from Brooklyn) vouched for Eli.

"Let him up," Jimmy Carter said. "Free him."

Eli was freed, and Jimmy Carter shook hands with him. "Yes," Jimmy said. "Yes we can fix it."

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