Midnight Oil

[Powderworks] Ground Zero, VNMOC, very long also

Randy Van Vliet bigdaddyrv@yahoo.com
Tue, 23 Oct 2001 20:13:59 -0700 (PDT)


I'm from California and business took me to the east
coast.  Last night I visited Lower Manhattan, “Ground
Zero” for the Sept 11 terrorist attack.  Colleen asked
me over the phone how it was and I couldn’t explain it
so I had to write about it.  Sorry, but it’s probably
going to be long.   If you don’t want to read this,
feel free to delete it. 

Approaching Newark Airport, you cross southern NY and
about at the Tappan Zee Bridge (north of the Palisades
and Yonkers) you turn south and follow the West bank
of the Hudson to the airport.  If you are sitting on
the left of the plane, as I was, you have a nice view
of the NY skyline as you land.  Because I was looking
for it, I really noticed that the WTC was not there. 
If you see New York every day you would certainly
notice, but if you are visiting and aren’t looking for
it, you might not notice the hole in the skyline. 
Lower Manhattan has it’s share of skyscrapers and one
or two less doesn’t lesson the impact that you are
looking at the financial center of the world.  Driving
north to Hoboken to take the Path train into the city,
it was easier to notice the hole in the skyline but,
again, if you hadn’t seen it every day or weren’t
looking for it, you likely wouldn’t notice that it was
missing.  From Path I got on the subway and the
closest I could get was the Chambers/Church stop.  It
is one block west of Broadway even with City Hall.  
Church street is closed so you have to walk east to
Broadway and then south.  I arrived about 6:30 so it
was just getting dark.  From Church street you can see
the work site (you’re about 8 blocks or so away) and I
noticed the dust and smoke and lots of light.  Turning
east to Broadway and then south, all of the streets
west are blocked off and NYPD is on site to restrict
people like me who would walk straight up to the
bulldozers.  At first, it seemed like not a big deal,
all I could see was the lights from the work site. 
I’m walking south along Broadway and there is
scaffolding on the side walk but that’s everywhere in
New York.  Across the street is City Hall park and it
seems like a fairly normal Autumn night in the city.
Until I got to Fulton Street.  South of Fulton is
where Lower Manhattan gets real old with narrow and
irregular streets.  It was then that I noticed the
dust and smoke in the air.  I had noticed a few people
wearing nurses masks and such and I’m thinking
“wimps”.  But now I understand.  You can feel the dust
and stuff in your throat.  As you go further south,
you can see more and more, and the dust becomes more
irritating.  
A few more blocks is St. Peter’s Chapel, an Episcopal
church.  They have converted into a rescue/relief
worker aid station, providing coffee, hot meals, a
place to rest, etc.  From that point south, you can
see every kind of tribute imaginable.  There are the
usual candles, flags, flowers, teddy bears, etc. but
there also are many community/school tributes sent in
from all over the world.  I noticed tributes from all
regions of the US plus several foreign countries.  One
of the most moving was hand prints from a school in
Virginia I think.  The entire school gave the rescue
workers “high fives”.  I noticed some from what looked
to be very poor sections of Africa, Asia, and South
America.  There really is a global effort here.  Then
at Cedar street you can see the most eastward building
of the WTC.  It’s about 5 stories now and just a mess
of twisted steel.  From the corner of Broadway and
Pine you can get a glimpse about 3 stories or so of
the North Tower façade.  This is the way that I have
seen the WTC most (from AIG’s side of town).  There is
what appears to be a large public plaza but it’s
really the void where the buildings used to be.  At
Wall street is Trinity church, an Episcopal church
chartered in 1697.  The building was damaged so it is
closed.  Next to it is the Church Cemetery which is
still covered in dust and debris on some areas, about
1 inch thick in places.  The trees still looked white
from all the dust on the leaves.
Turning West at Rector Street you can walk down by the
where the trucks are coming and going.  Looking up
Washington Street is where it really started to hit
me.  I saw the “full” façade that I had glimpsed
earlier.  Just standing there, leaning at a crazy
angle, about 100 feet long by about 30-40 feet high. 
That’s all that’s left of two 110 story buildings!  I
felt like Obi Wan Kenobe when Alderan was destroyed. 
He felt as though “voices were crying out and were
suddenly silent”.  Over 5,000 people died here, most
of them instantly.  I’m there watching them remove the
rubble truck by truck.  It made me think a little of
Uncle Gary’s plane when it crashed, all that was left
of a B-52 could fit into two dumpsters.  All that is
left of WTC is being trucked out, bit by bit.  It
started to make me think of the destructive power that
we all have (or could have) if we were not rational,
disciplined people.  To desire to cause such mass
destruction must certainly be wrong.  I really had to
check myself and make a conscious decision to not be
hateful.  
Walking back up Broadway I noticed some things I had
missed.  There were people at almost every
intersection observing.  Almost all of them were very
respectful, almost reverential.  I also noticed by St.
Peter’s Chapel there is a row of Porta-Pottys. 
Nothing new there, but there were many flyers advising
out of town workers and volunteers where to find room
and board, sometimes in private homes.  There was also
many grade school age drawings thanking all the rescue
workers, one for “cleaning up the terrorist mess”. 
There still are many missing persons flyers hoping to
find loved ones.  One in particular was from
grandparents looking for their 20 something
grand-daughter who worked on the 96th floor.  There’s
a lot of people feeling a lot of loss here.  I also
noticed a few stores along Broadway that hadn’t been
reopened.  One was a Hallmark that had all of the
stuffed animals spilled out onto the floor as well as
the calendar stand.  There was a pet bed with some
food there by the door and a note that if you saw the
cat to please call so the owner could be reunited. 
There was another shop that had display windows and a
recessed entry.  The display window had broken and you
could see the shards on the ground behind the grate
with several layers of dust piled on.  It looked
almost like a dry lake bed with the cracking.  
Now I start looking for a place for dinner.  I go into
Greenwich Village and Tribeca and I noticed three
things.  One, many shops and restaurants are closed,
most seemingly recently.  Two, there are signs
thanking people for pulling together and helping their
neighbors.  Three, there bust be a real need for
merchants union of some sort because there were flyers
up for the Tribeca Merchants Organization meeting next
week to find out how to rebuild.  This has hit not
only the WTC but the small local restaurants and
shops.  I don’t know the extent of it, but this will
really affect the “everyman” of New York all the way
down to the service industries.  I say an election
campaign ad on TV with the guy saying he was one of
the little people hurt in the tragedy and he was in a
better position than his opponent to understand and
help others.  It was kind of spooky watching him say
he cares more than the other guy when it usually is
just mudslinging.  
Maybe the biggest surprise was back in Hoboken. 
Hoboken is right there on the river and there is a
ferry to the city.  There is a nice public park on the
pier and on a whim I decided to walk out to the end. 
There is a huge shrine there with a huge flag and a
big “America Stands Firm” banner.  When you look to
the city, Lower Manhattan is a blaze of light.  It
almost is like searchlights.  I wasn’t ready for that.
 
Later, I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in
the city and he made the observation that in
California, we live under the threat of Earthquake
every day so we are somewhat prepared to deal with
disaster.  That’s true, there have been natural
disasters that were worse than this, but those were
natural.  This was a deliberate act meant to create
havoc and terror.  Once again I find myself fighting
my urge to be hateful.  
Overall, I have very mixed emotions.  I am very glad
that I went, but I now am carrying some sorrow.  Once
I walked around a bit and felt the mood, I seem caught
up in it.  Just about every emotion is out there. 
Fear, anger, resentment, resilience, teamwork, etc. 
Hopefully I can bring it back and become a better
person for it.  
One thing that I have come back with is a healthy
respect for the fragile thread of doom that we all
exist on.  I’m sure that not one person in New York
went to work that morning thinking “well, today is
going to be the end of the world”.  I think many
people take life for granted.  Someday our frail lives
will end, probably not the way we would choose to go. 
I find myself wondering what would happen to me if I
was suddenly taken.  I have always thought about death
as far away, that I would have time to put my affairs
in order and prepare myself to meet Heavenly Father. 
What if I don’t?  What would I have to answer for? 
Would I receive the reward that I think I am working
toward?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  I find myself thinking
back to that great orator George W. (ok, a little
sarcasm) when he said people were asking what they
could do and all he could say was to hug your kids. 
That’s kind of the way I feel now.  (Insert sermon
here).  Anyway, take a good look at yourself and see
what you’re up to.  
Sorry this was so long and introspective, but I had to
get it out.  

Randy


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