Remember and Build On It

After working my paid standby position - waiting until 10am to see if the company will use me as a temp for the day, then leaving promptly from the building at 10am – I spent the day wandering the streets of New York, but not aimlessly. Julie suggested I go to Ground Zero and pay my respects, so with nothing but a rolling backpack and a half-smile – half happy from not working, Yay, and not making money, Boo - I headed down Fifth Avenue.

Coming from 47th Street, I imagined where the Towers used to be visible, all the way downtown. The Twins and the Empire State Building used to be my compass. I’d walk 20 minutes to school from Port Authority, green to New York in ’98, cross Fifth Avenue at around 30th Street, look up to see the Empire State, remembering my dreams and why I was here in New York, then look down Fifth to see the World Trade. That was my daily ritual and reminder. That’s why I chose Fifth Avenue, to remember.

Crossing 34th Street I looked up in awe of the tallest building in New York, the Empire State. As I watched a distant plane shining amid clear blue, my fears grabbed hold and I envisioned that plane drawing the same fate upon our remaining landmark. I shook it out of my head, literally shaking the horrible thought out, as it disappeared behind the building.

Keep walking, past the sample-sale shopping, past the Flatiron building, through more shopping a block over from Union Square, and down to Washington Square Park. Washington’s Arch, viewed from the north, used to frame the Twins when standing below its vaulting marble archway. All I could see now was the crystalline glass of Seven World Trade Center, newly rebuilt, and one of the taller structures surrounding the empty hole.

Past the students, past the speed-chess players and grizzly men selling weed – they don’t approach me like they used to, decked out in my corporate-wear – Fifth becomes Thompson and I walk below the trees, using Seven World Trade as compass to navigate.It feels like a neighborhood now, void of shopping, and lined with bohemian restaurants and the academic bars of NYU. A block down to the right, West 3rd Street is barricaded off to traffic, but not pedestrians. Groups of men in their dress blue uniforms and caps, gathered in front of Fire Patrol House #2 on between Thompson and Sullivan Streets. An elderly women in a light blue dress, with white embroidery, held flowers and a solemn face. Conversations flowed from the street into the fire house, as they held their own private memorial for their fallen brothers. A sign posted in front urged passersby to contact your local councilperson to help keep this fire patrol house from officially closing its doors on October 15th. Their website outlines the details: http://www.fpny123.net/.

I pause to reflect, and continue walking. These are real people with real lives, who were affected by an attack on our country, casualties of war, in the first battle of the 21st century. The affects are still felt here in this neighborhood street five years later. On Sullivan, I lose sight of Seven, but lead myself to Tribeca, finding Varick, then Hudson. Chambers lets me know that I’m close, and I turn right to the West Side Highway, looking left to see my first view of pilgrims and mourners. I feel the weight in my chest grow. I’ve been here every year since the attacks, but today feels different.

I follow flag holders, people in black “Investigate 9/11” t-shirts, uniformed police, and tourists in sunglasses, carrying cameras towards the pedestrian bridge, south along West Street. Approaching, I hear echoed names of the deceased being read off by family members, each set of names punctuated by personal pleas to their loved ones. I take the escalator up onto the bridge, crossing West Street along Vesey, and seeing the voices’ origins. Squeezing between others witnesses, I catch a glimpse of the multitudes of uniformed officers, firefighters and their family members, in a procession down the great ramp onto the dirt of Ground Zero.

The night before, President and Laura Bush placed wreaths in a pool at the footprint of Tower 1, now overflowing with flowers from the procession. I look around me on the bridge, and head down stairs for a better view. Telephoto lenses of roving press and regular photographers alike, line the stairway. Is this obscene? Last time I was here, without a ceremony going on, it felt disrespectful that so many tourists were taking pictures of this giant gravesite. But this is history today. I and everyone else there are witness to a remembrance of five years ago.

It has been five years. It’s hard to believe. I wasn’t even here. I’ve faced that guilt each year, that I wasn’t here when it happened. My New York, my home, and I wasn’t here. Not that I could have stopped them, nor do I have any EMT skills, but just to be here while my dear home suffered so much… I’ve never quite forgiven myself. Over time, Julie and I have shared these same feelings, not that it compares to the survivors’ guilt of the many firefighters being honored today. But over five years, we’ve come to realize that maybe we were fortunate by not witnessing first-hand, the terrible devastation. Insulated by distance and TV-filtered coverage, we could merely tour the aftermath, and delve within ourselves to make sense of it all.

Watching all the news coverage leading up to this year’s anniversary, seeing the children of 9/11 loss, and how they’ve coped without fathers and mothers, they speak of being lucky. Lucky to be alive, lucky at having known their families, and if they can feel lucky, then it’s okay to put things behind.

I pull out my cell phone camera, and I take a picture for my future children. I want them to know that I was there, a part of history, and I want to teach them about our times. That’s what shifts in me, and I continue across to Church Street. The name reading ends, and at the entrance to the PATH station, the true public event is taking place. Silent protesters, camera crews, people holding flowers, Iraqi vets, all nationalities, all cultures, with and without cameras stand without a view of the bottom, and listen to the official choir of the ceremony, filling the air with “Raise You Up.” Tears form in my eyes. Once a kitschy song to me by Josh Groban, in this context, I feel the need for purity and a straightforward, uplifting message through music. It’s followed by a lone trumpet’s rendition of “Taps.” Once again, movies have worn it down and I normally am not moved by this overplayed fixture of a dramatic mechanism, but in this moment, when the song suits its true purpose, solemn remembrance of the dead, I am stricken by more tears.

I follow the fence barrier. I hear deep, individual rings, and see three giant bells lining Liberty Street. Below each suspended bell are the names of those lost. People walk up, read the names, tug a thick rope attached to the clapper, and release. A man gives a short silent prayer, pulls the rope, rings the bell, and repeats three times. Three friends that he knew, and I decide not to take a picture of him. I regret raising my camera-phone. That was his moment, and I almost violated it.

It feels like all these people are violating this private moment of mourning for the families and friends, but this was a public event. It didn’t just happen to the 3,000, it happened to our country, and as countrymen and women, we can publicly mourn for their loss. And the mood around is not all mourning. There’s anger and confrontation between protesters and so-called patriots. There is a war going on because of this place, so people try to redirect their pain. And there are shoppers heading to Century 21, “New York’s best kept secret”, according to the building-wide banner topping the retailer’s façade.

A male news reporter fixes his wind-tossed hair, like a Pantene commercial, makes a joke about it, and I see his glowing ego shimmering in his pretty, brown hair. In his vantage point, sits a blue monster truck, at least two feet off the ground, bedecked in American flags, stickers, firefighter license plates, and magnets reading “We will never forget.” I can’t help but chuckle at the sight, and somehow it seems okay here since it’s owned by a firefighter. Why not be patriotic like that? It’s a nice contrast, but surprising to see in New York and not in some muddy, Southern pasture for off-road muddin’.

Along Liberty in the other direction, I continue circling the site, and I’m met by a collection of dress blues, followed by what seems to be the procession, entering from a gated area that leads from the Ground below. The procession converges on the newly rebuilt fire house of Engine 10, Ladder 10, and I finish my lap of the Hallowed Ground, by entering the World Financial Center. Inside the air-conditioned building, windows overlook the east, so I sit and take in everything, wanting to leave, but feeling the need to look, and look some more. I have an insatiable appetite for imagining the events, viewing the people, scrutinizing the remaining rock walls, holding back the Hudson from flooding the earth, and wanting to head home for comfort and rest. It no longer looks like devastation, as they repeatedly showed us on TV leading up to this day. It has a fully constructed PATH train to Jersey, a below ground facility for train entrance, and a clean dirt floor and walls. It will be rebuilt, and New York will be renewed.

I came here to remember and, also, to see the progress. I want the tallest building in the world back in our borders. I want the dream of New York back, as I enter the City from across the Hudson River, with Lower Manhattan bookmarked by the Freedom Tower. I want glowing glass, and human-lit sky to bare the torch of liberty, along Liberty Street. I want the Memorial built, and the dirt floor to be covered with man-made heights and accomplishments. Five years have gone by, and it feels like it’s time to move on, not just as myself, the individual, but as a unit, a whole, a City that deserves to be great again. That is what this day means to me, not like last year, not like four years ago, but what this present day means now.