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Banjos and Big Dreams

Like so many New Yorkers, there was more to Darren Bohan than met the eye. By day he was a temp and for the past few months he worked on the 102nd floor of 2 World Trade Center, where he crunched numbers for the Aon Corporation. But Mr. Bohan would rather have been plucking a banjo or strumming his guitar, jamming with friends until late at night.

Alison Kelley, his girlfriend, said he hoped to parlay his musical talents into a full-time job, perhaps as a music teacher at a public school. "Music was so important to him," she said.

Ms. Kelley, also a banjo player, spent many hours playing with Mr. Bohan. Their repertory ran from Irish ballads to songs by the rock band Kiss to 19th-century American roots music. "We'd play just about anything," Ms. Kelley said. The two had been inseparable since meeting at a music jam in Brooklyn seven months ago.

Laid back, gentle and unpretentious, Mr. Bohan, 34, tried not to gripe too much about his day job, although he was not thrilled to be working 102 stories off the ground. "He didn't like being so unnaturally high up, in a place where something terrible happened before," she said. "But he'd just try to tell people it was a nice view."

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on September 25, 2001.