An Encino Realtor Talks About Her Boston Marathoner Friend

Realtor Nicole Grey was in the Encino office of Pinnacle Estate Properties on Monday when she heard the terrible news about the explosions during the 2013 Boston Marathon.

“My ex-husband called and told me what had happened,” said Grey, who’s originally from New York. “It brought me straight to 9/11 and I was very sad.”

Moments after she got off the 1:30 p.m. call, Grey ran into her manager, who told her that one of her realtor colleagues, Marlene Landaverde, was in Boston and had ran the marathon. “I said, Oh my God,” Grey told Encino-Tarzana Patch. “I didn’t realize when I heard about the bombing that she was there.”

Two of Landaverde’s daughters who work on the front desk at the Pinnacle office then told Grey that they had called their mother in Boston moments ago and that she was safe. But by the time they tried to call her a second time, however, the cellular phone connections to Boston were down. “Obviously, it was chaos over there,” Grey said.

Grey has known Landaverde since 2006, the year when Pinnacle opened its Encino branch on Ventura Boulevard and Grey was recruited to the company from Prudential Real Estate.

“She’s a lovely person—she’s fun, she’s funny, she’s definitely got a passion for running,” Grey said of Landaverde, who lives in Tarzana. “When she’s not working, she’s in her running gear.”

Related: 2 Tarzana Residents in Explosions-Marred Boston Marathon

Stay tuned: Encino-Tarzana Patch is trying to get in touch with Marlene Landaverde to hear her story about her trip to Boston and how she coped with the horrific aftermath.