I didn't know about that trolley disaster. The article you linked to is so complete, so haunting--excellent journalism. The way it brings the passengers to life, it gives me a reason to mourn these distant victims and be grateful for the survivors.

I looked up just in time to catch a wing of seagulls lifting over the roofs like a fountain of blown white paper; they kept blowing out into the darkness and I kept watching them wheel and drift and slowly disappear over the roof behind me; they made a snowglobe of the ice-black strip of sky --beautiful

Glad you escaped Seaport--it sounds very Camazotz-y.