September 17, 2001
I stepped out of the cab on Astor Place and Broadway, blocks from my old studio, in Union Square, where crowds gathered around candlelit memorials. It’s 9 pm Monday night, September 17th, the day after my 35th birthday, which I did not fell like celebrating.
The flight from SFO to JFK was full, despite my expectations of few travelers. The line at the airport missed expectations also, as I breezed through check-in and the security check in eight minutes, leaving me three hours to wait for the flight. My requested window seat gave no view of the devastation since the plane arrived at night.
I decided on my birthday that I needed to return to my home of the past three years and see for myself what happened to the city I consider to reflect myself most. United Airlines put me on a flight the next day, using 25k miles.
The next morning, I walked down Seventh Avenue to Houston, turning away at the West Side Highway to proceed down to Canal Street, then heading East. Along the way, my eyes sought out the two landmarks that normally dominated the skyline this far downtown. Nothing. Yet the lack of any debris in sight lent a surrealism to the view. No towers stood, but neither any evidence of their destruction.
The Mobil station on the West Side Highway at Canal sat behind tables of supplies and piles of clothes four feet high. Yellow plastic tape reading, “Do Not Cross,” stretched around the pumps and across the street like a strand of spider web. Police, camouflage clad Guardsmen, and NYPD Cadets stood behind the blue sawhorses, now ubiquitous throughout the downtown area, checking IDs.
I trudged East, each street heading South blocked by some combination of law enforcement, lines of people pulling hand luggage, wearing backpacks, and gesticulating with documents to the sentries.
Strolling past one group, I found myself behind the barricade, small knots of people wandering South, the streets bereft of any cars other than police cars, fire engines and black Suburbans with concealed sirens on some clandestine mission.
Making my way down Duane Street, my nose first caught the acrid scent of burning man-made material, talked about on TV ad nauseum. Stores and restaurants hid behind steel shutters, some windows bearing hasty flags or placards exhorting support. Dust piled in crevices and coated windows, papers of all sorts danced at street corners.
I emerged at Chambers and Greenwich Street, two blocks from ‘Ground Zero,’ where only three months earlier I took my friend from Beijing to the observation deck and rooftop of Tower Two for a sightseeing trip…my first time…and last time. I sat in the lobby of the WTC many times in May, waiting at TKTS for a chance to see Contact, or Fosse, or Chicago for half-price.
I stood and looked past a chain link fence at the wreckage. Behind me, a knot of hard-hat and fluorescent vest wearing workers stood at a makeshift McDonalds. The stand looked strange, sans cash registers. People in all manner of uniforms, BATF, Secret Service, FBI, DEA, NYPD, NYFD, moved past me as though I stood next to a moving walkway. After a while, I felt guilty just observing, like a rubbernecker at the crash of the century. Helpless. Useless. Maybe these people felt that way also.
Their eyes, glazed over, possessed the thousand-yard stare of war veterans. Dazed, only partially comprehending the input around them. Minds fighting to assimilate the enormity, seeing only bits and pieces at a time. Little grief showed, only shock. Later, in the mirrow, I saw the same in my eyes.
I kept busy the rest of the week, not allowing my mind to come to a rest, which meant trying to comprehend what was now incomprehensible. Around me, the city seemed to go through the motions, buying bagels, drinking beer, walking the dog. I spent morning coffee, lunch, afternoon coffee, pre-dinner drinks, dinner, and post-dinner drinks with all my friends I could contact. Relieved to do something that we did all the time, pre-WTC.
Conversations tended toward the subdued, like when one person is distracted or preoccupied. But now everyone was. Perfunctory greetings gave way to the hush question, “Is everyone you know OK?” Then we turned to the tales, each person remembering with perfect clarity…the moment. The moment they heard, saw, or were told breathlessly by another, that the World Trade Center had been blown up. A frozen instant.
The week evaporated in a moment, filled with a kaleidescope of scenes, visions, stories, but lacking emotions. I did not cry once. Why, I cannot tell you. But this experience was shared by most of my friends, each coping with the emotion like an unfolding flower, opening at its own pace.
I played golf Sunday with my old golfing chums, reliving the good ol’ days. Burgers on the Upper East Side afterwards capped off the day. The 4pm streets filled with cars, taxis, bikes, pedestrians, and dogs like any other Fall day in New York. My friends and I argued over golf rulings, as usual. For an instant, one could believe that none of this had happened.
My trip the next morning to JFK by cab seated me behind Singh Pandit, the driver. Of course we talked about the bombing and its aftermath. He talked of some discrimination and gestured toward the panel van ahead of us, its rear window filled with the turbaned mug of Bin Laden, “Dead or Alive” underneath. Speaking loudly through the plexiglass shielding him, we both lamented the WTC tragedy; but held onto the hope of a blossoming of greater compassion, understanding, and empathy among humankind.
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