I wrote the following on September 12, 2002.
I might as well share some thoughts on 9/11.
Yesterday I watched
a few TV things here and there, but I wasn't that interested in hearing
the same "national tragedy" spiel ad nauseam. It numbs the mind after a
while. And to be honest, I remember 9/11/01 well enough a year later --
I haven't lost any of the bitterness or confusion or sadness.
The
morning of 9/11, I was awakened by the clock radio, and the DJ was
introducing a new Bob Dylan song called "Summer Days." I thought "What
a cool thing to wake up to. What a wonderful song" -- and I hoped it
would set the tone for the rest of the day. Next thing I knew, the DJ
was saying "Turn on the news when you get the chance; apparently a
plane has hit one of the Twin Towers."
I was on my way to a
class, but when I left the house I wandered in the opposite direction
of the subway, down to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, where I could
see an unobstructed view of the burning tower across the river. A huge
group of people had already assembled down there -- they weren't
emotional at that point, they just wanted to see what was going on. I
stuck around for a few minutes, and walked to the subway.
I was
able to get down to the Court Street N/R platform with no problems, but
I knew something was wrong once I'd been waiting for my train for 20
minutes. Soon, all the subways were out of service. No way I was gonna
make that class, so I headed back to the Promenade to see what was
happening. The smoke was getting thicker, and blowing into the air on
an 11 o'clock angle. Went home and turned on the news.
I had
left the room for a second, and while I was in the other room I heard a
loud, startling thud outside. New York cable news station NY1 had live
coverage of the first attack, and as I ran into my bedroom I was able
to see the second tower being hit.
Back on the Promenade, people
were gathering, taking pictures (which I thought was tasteless),
staring in disbelief, screaming "Holy shit!!!" -- but despite the
vision of two skyscrapers on fire, things were still considerably under
control on our end. Until... the towers began to collapse and the
debris started flying.
The smell was AWFUL, like the most grand
mal, grotesque barbecue you could imagine -- an inescapable odor of
smoke, gas, and burning flesh. People were running for their lives,
covering their faces with their hands, trying to keep the smoke and
debris out of their eyes. The air was a greyish white. It was
impossible to see anything, and my clothes and hair became covered in
debris (my guess: reams upon reams of paper, some detritus from
the structure of the buildings, some soot, and maybe some fibers of
burned clothing). I went home, and I didn't go back out until the
afternoon, when the buildings had completely collapsed, and the smoke
was contained on Manhattan Island and the skies above it.
The
smoke didn't clear until days later -- but on the afternoon of 9/11, it
was so thick that it covered the entirety of lower Manhattan and much
of midtown. That afternoon, I just sat out on the Promenade, watching
the smoke clear in real time, treating the act as a meditative
exercise. By the time evening rolled around, I could actually sort of
see the negative space that once contained the towers, with the smoke
clinging to the buildings' angles like phantoms.
The days
following were awful. I was terrified of everything; I didn't wanna
take the subway for fear of a suicide bomber; I kept looking out the
window of my midtown classroom, wondering when the Empire State
Building (two blocks away) would come toppling down on us. Like
everyone else, I watched the news constantly, but there was no hard news, only expressions of shock and replays of the two planes crashing into the towers.
It
was an emotional time for me, because of the WTC, because of other
things I was dealing with (and I still look at 9/11 as kind of an
outrageously melodramatic metaphor for the shitty year I was having...
when I put it all in context, I was like "well, THAT fuckin' figures").
So it's tough for me to relive all that stuff now, in 2002.
I
did go down to Ground Zero yesterday. It was the first time I'd gone to
the disaster site; I'd just never felt the need to go, to gawk and
rubberneck and congregate with all the picture-snappers and t-shirt
buyers. Not my style -- I decided I'd rather mourn with my memory than
with my eyes.
Yeah, so I went down there, and it was all blocked
off by police barriers (the president was down there, so security was
kicked into the highest gear). Crowds were kept at bay and made to
stand several blocks from the site.
I didn't stick around; I
made it down to the river and walked north along Greenwich St.,
checking out the historic buildings and warehouses in the area, feeling
lucky to be a New Yorker, in such close proximity to some of the
world's most beautiful architecture, landmarks protected from ravenous
developers and pretty much guaranteed NOT to be a target for
terrorists. As I came up behind Borough of Manhattan Community College,
I discovered a whole row of perfectly preserved Federal-style houses
from the 19th century, tucked away on Harrison St., hiding in a tiny
cranny of the more modern, utilitarian surroundings of the college.
It
must sound corny to out-of-towners, but these are the things that make
New Yorkers passionate about their city. I began the day feeling a
little down. I don't usually drink in the morning, but I dreaded the
day and figured I'd polish off the wine I'd bought the previous evening
(a 2000 Rabbit Ridge Merlot -- very yummy and perfect for a drinking
binge). By noon I was feeling okay and I went out for a really
satisfying pasta lunch at a local Italian place.
If that's
what the pundits mean by "defiance" -- enjoying good food and wine and
other aesthetic pleasures on a day associated with terror and
victimization -- I'm in. I think I'll make this a tradition.
Recent Comments