Celebrating New York - Part I

Sept. 11, 2002

8:30 a.m. I board the No. 1 subway from Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn and head toward Manhattan. The subway is full and I stand against a door and start reading Here is New York a 1949 essay by E.B. White now in book form. The inside cover says the New York Times at some point declared it “one of the ten best books ever written about the grand metropolis.” My original plan was to take the new Tom Friedman book and haul it around with my camera in a backpack all day. But the Statue of Liberty Web page warns me no backpacks are allowed, so I stick to my purse and opt for the more compact tome.

I’m on the subway, worried that 8:46 will come and go and that no one will notice.

As it turns out, the loudest person on the train boards at the next station and stands next to me. She continually bumps into me and/or my book even though she has plenty of room to not do so. She doesn’t notice she keeps bumping me. She doesn’t notice 8:46 comes and goes as she continues to squawk about someone she doesn’t like at work.

I am worried. Are there actually New Yorkers who don’t understand the gravity of the morning?

9 a.m. I exit at the Wall Street station. It’s the first stop in Manhattan and the mood is different as soon as I step onto the subway platform. I look up into the faces of other people existing the train and see most have the same look.

So here I am on Wall Street. The mood is very somber but the street is full with people. People who are supposed to be there. These are not tourists. These are people dressed for work. They are wearing badges around their necks, a group of traders in green jackets walk by; cops are all over but relaxed. There are a lot of American flags, and a group of uniformed girls singing something on the south side of the street. I walk up the steps of Federal Hall, behind two police officers who are in turn behind the statue of Washington, who took his oath of office in this building. From there, I raise my camera – filled with black and white film today – and see the officers, Washington, TV crews and the huge American flag covering the New York Stock Exchange half an hour before the opening bell. People look serious.

I walk the last block up the street – the south side is now closed for security purposes – toward Trinity Church. I’m about to cross Broadway when I see a couple, about my parents’ age and wonder if they might be tourists. Something about them. I walk toward Trinity Church where a steady stream of people is filing in and out. My purse is searched.

I file into the back of the church and hear musicians are playing up front. Something beautiful. Something appropriate. It may be a quartet, but I can’t see them from the far left. Almost all the pews are full, almost entirely with people dressed for work. As people get up to leave, people in the standing-room-only area take their seats.

I exit the church and notice the T-shirt hawkers and WTC postcard sellers are absent. I wonder if it’s too early in the morning for them or if they chose not to come today or if they were shooed away. Three men get their shoes shined at an impromptu shoeshine stand at the edge of the ancient Trinity cemetery. Half a block away I see an elderly woman, dressed for a funeral, with a formal black hair net covering her head. She is being steadied by someone who may be her son. Now I understand what it was about the couple on the other side of Broadway. These are relatives who have left the ceremony at Ground Zero.

I walk another block or so over and I’m near the southeast corner of the site. Names are being read. The sidewalks are packed with people. People who work nearby. The roof of Century 21 supports a tremendous amount of media equipment. I walk a block west. People are standing next to the fence of green fabric that shields the site. They look forward or down, as in prayer, although there is nothing to see from here. They listen to the names. No one is talking except for the voice that is fuzzy enough that I can’t exactly figure out where they are in the alphabet.

From there I walk south to catch the ferry to Liberty Island.

10 a.m. I am an the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. By the time the boat leaves, I have been through an airport-type security checkpoint and the wind is starting to gust. We pass a gigantic Coast Guard ship as we head to Liberty Island. I pick out maybe two American couples and a group of about a dozen Mormon kids dressed in white shirts and ties for the boys, dresses for the girls. All the others are from elsewhere. I hear Japanese, Italian, Spanish. As the boat heads toward Liberty Island, everyone rushes to the back of the boat to see Manhattan recede.

Liberty Island is open though the statue’s interior and museum remains closed. Still, I think it’s a better place than most to sit quietly with a cup of coffee and dark glasses and contemplate. I wonder if I’ll hear the bagpipes, the bells toll or if the Park Service has something else planned.

I walk across the island to a spot facing Manhattan. I walk along the edge of the pathway, still at Liberty’s back. I find a patch of sunlight and sit down, hoping the mass of talkative tourists will pass me and leave me to think.

But as the group passes, I see there’s a reporter with his photographer walking along. And I think, oh no, I should get up and walk away. Because if I was him, I’d stop and talk to me. But I like my spot in the sun. And he stops. “You don’t want to talk to me. I’m a reporter,” I said. But he’s in a bad way, he says. He can’t find anyone good. He says they’re all tourists. “They don’t get it,” I said, sympathizing with his predicament. He’s with the Post and he cajoles me into talking. I figure my own reporter’s karma will be poxed if I don’t at least give him something he can stick at the bottom of a story. I’m very careful not to give him anything that sounds like a lead quote. His photographer asks if she can take my picture. I say no. Wisely, she says my quotes are more likely to see print if there’s art with it. “I know,” I said and smiled back.

For some reason I’m telling him that I lied to my grandmother the night before. She called up late at night and made me promise I wouldn’t go into any tall buildings, over any bridges, to any places that might be targets. But I’d already decided on my route for the day and knew she’d worry – so I lied. The reporter laughs at the idea that my grandmother would tell me these things. The photographer smiles. “I got the same speech last night,” she said. I think she said she heard it from her dad.

They leave and I walk around to the front of the monument, looking up at the front of the statue. There are no more than 25 or so people along the walkway. The Mormon kids are taking pictures of each other in front of the statue as they alternately hold up pictures of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. No one’s being loud, but then again, no one’s being silent.

I’m sitting far away from the other groups of people as Manhattan is marking the moment the second tower fell. On Liberty Island, I hear no bells, no birds and yet, no silence either.
- posted by Amy @ 9/12/2002 09:39:00 PM