Report from Ground Zero
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Report from Ground Zero |
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It's been seven months now and it's spring, so it seemed like the right time. Spring is the best time to visit New York. My wife also has family in the area, so we arranged a Big Apple gathering of the clans for this past weekend with a trip to Ground Zero first on the agenda. You notice something's different miles before you even get to the city. The twin towers of the World Trade Center always dominated the south end of Manhattan. They were at least three times as tall as any other building in the vicinity. We approach New York by car from the New Jersey side, which offers a spectacular view of the skyline across the Hudson river. Now that view is lacking the twin towers. It's hard to believe until you actually see it. I'd compare it to shaking hands with a guy you've known for a long time and suddenly realizing his thumb is missing. Once you finally figure out the full impact of what's changed, you get the chills and the sweats both at the same time.
When we got into the city, we parked the car and took the subway to the scene of the crime. The trains that used to run to the World Trade Center are still closed, so we had to get off the subway and walk for a few blocks to get to Ground Zero. I should have anticitpated what we'd see in that area, but my naive and trusting attitude towards my fellow man continues to shock me, even at my advanced age. The sidewalk vendors were out in force, selling every form of World Trade Center memorabilia imaginable: T-shirts, hats, drawings, souvenir photo booklets, and even those paperweights filled with liquid and 3-D models of the towers that you shake to make it "snow". Instead of snow, it's little red, white and blue stars that get stirred up and float slowly down to the bottom. I half expected to see little people jumping out of the windows and hitting the ground with a splattering noise.
The ugliest items for sale were a series of garish men's ties featuring pictures of the towers with American flags in the background. My first thought was: What sort of flaming asshole would create and sell such outlandish crap? My second thought was: What sort of flaming asshole would actually buy and wear something like that? Wrapping a WTC tie around your neck is just begging someone to grab it and yank you six inches off the ground.
We finally arrived at our destination. I'm not sure what I expected to see, but Ground Zero is now just a big hole in the ground. It's huge, probably six or eight city blocks, much bigger than you might think from seeing it on TV, but it's still just a big hole. It looked like a typical construction site filled with cranes and equipment and hundreds of guys with hard hats. The only things that looked a bit out of place were the towering sets of floodlights they use for working at night.
In addition to the big hole in the ground, of course, there's a big hole in the sky, too. The WTC towers simply aren't there anymore. That takes some getting used to. There's sunlight where there used to be eternal shade. There are countless windows in the surrounding buildings that have much better views of New York Harbor than they used to. I looked up and tried to re-create in my mind the pictures of those jets flying into the towers that I've seen a thousand times on TV. Couldn't do it. There's no point of reference. Just a big hole in the sky.
They've built a green wooden wall surrounding the big hole and what struck me was how ordinary everything seemed outside the wall. There's no dust, debris, smoke or any of that other filthy stuff we saw covering everything in that CBS documentary about the 911 firemen. The only odors in the air are the standard New York City combination of garbage and urine. It smells just like it did on September 10. There are plenty of roadblocks and detours on the streets in the area, but no traffic tie-ups that I could see. The other buildings around the hole look OK. The New Yorkers, the ones who live and work there, go about their business, leaving only the wide-eyed tourists to think about what happened seven months ago. There's no chaos on display and very little open grieving going on.
As we were leaving, I was trying to figure out if all that normality is a good thing or not. Shouldn't someone be remembering the 3,000 dead people? Can anyone really walk past that big hole without pausing to consider all the misery and destruction that ocurred there? How can you guys be so heartless and cold? Doesn't anybody care anymore?
Life goes on. So it goes. Deal with it. Suck it up. Get a life. Whatever cliche you want to use, that's what's happened. New York and New Yorkers have dealt with it and moved on. There's plenty more getting over it to go and there's plenty more work to be done in that big hole. But we're running out of things to say about 911. That's the good news from Ground Zero.
The bad news is: Somebody out there is buying those WTC ties.