email35.xml
Title
email35.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
email
Date Entered
2002-02-28
September 11 Email: Body
page 3
Today we find we were well advised to eat take in last night. The city is closed to all traffic south of 14th street. Nothing comes in. There are no newspapers for sale or for delivery, no fresh food, no mail delivery, no sanitation trucks, no deliveries to bars or restaurants, no Fed Ex or UPS, no plumbers, none of the constant construction of NYC life, no fresh laundry. At 14th Street, police barricades turn back everyone without proof of residency somewhere in the streets below. No one can just go to work. Most shops are closed. Grocery stores are gouging a bit, although Mayor G. says arrests will be made for that. I bought a peach, the last loaf of raisin bread (absolutely no bagels south of 14th St) and a bottle of tonic (as in "gin and tonic"). No traffic at all on the streets except for the occasional police car or truck. We are all walking down the middle of 7th Avenue looking out for rollerbladers. Then an F16 screams and wheels overhead, something that never happens in NYC. (It is interesting that you could live in Manhattan all your life and very easily forget two important facts if you were not careful, simply because the evidence never really presents itself to you unless you seek it out: 1) that Manhattan is an island; 2) that the US has an army or airforce.)
Over by the river, along the West Side highway, traffic going north is heavier than in the middle of the island--it is made up of ambulances on the way to one of the 100+ hospitals taking the injured, dumptrucks, buses of rescuers going off shift. As these vehicles leave lower Manhattan they pass through ranks of New Yorkers who are there just to see them and as they pass through the crowds applaud and whistle and cheer the workers on. "Street people" at the intersection of Christopher and the highway hold up handletterd signs of almost mawkishly sentimental protestations of how much they love America. Yuppies and Boomers more discreetly clap and wave. Hand painted t-shirts are here and there, but not many. No one is selling anything.
Our car is parked still and the pier is now inside the perimeter. I will have to bring all kinds of proof of ownership when I come for it. I am glad it's not at the Volvo dealership, however. Meanwhile we are all rescheduling our lives. My classes are not meeting and the library exercises I had scheduled for my doctoral students at the Schomburg Center for Research In Black Culture had to be cancelled when the Center decided at 3 to close at 5. Nan stayed home and worked since the Graduate Center was virtually closed. We are getting on each others nerves and suppose that even though this is not what was meant by terrorism bringing the war home, it's uncomfortable enough. Our good friend Jim had planned a 60th birthday party for himself this Friday, all of it below 14th Street and one part, a sail around the harbor for 2 hours with drinks on a chartered sloop, was to originate just abeam the WTC. All of that is off limits now.
Oh well, New Yorkers are comporting themselves well; there has been no looting or civil unrest that anyone has noticed. But
I am waiting for the shock of the numbers and the real stories of people who wait all night for wives and husbands and lovers who never phone, miss that secret tryst, left one last, unthinking phone or email message. I am waiting to see if I will have enough money to retire anytime soon. Like every New Yorker I am trying to second guess the real estate market now and looking at the impact of all this on my NYState tax-free bonds. Life goes on in its own heartless way and although we are only 15 blocks north, we are as insulated from that cataclysm, at this moment anyway, as you might feel yourself to be. The political rhetoric of American resolve and the strength of freedom seems beside the point to the argument raised by the terrorists. This is not about our freedom--it is about our government's foreign policy. Will someone who counts say that this war on us is about Israel? I doubt it.
jon-christian suggs
english
city university of new york
212.237.8575
jcsjj@sprintmail.com
Today we find we were well advised to eat take in last night. The city is closed to all traffic south of 14th street. Nothing comes in. There are no newspapers for sale or for delivery, no fresh food, no mail delivery, no sanitation trucks, no deliveries to bars or restaurants, no Fed Ex or UPS, no plumbers, none of the constant construction of NYC life, no fresh laundry. At 14th Street, police barricades turn back everyone without proof of residency somewhere in the streets below. No one can just go to work. Most shops are closed. Grocery stores are gouging a bit, although Mayor G. says arrests will be made for that. I bought a peach, the last loaf of raisin bread (absolutely no bagels south of 14th St) and a bottle of tonic (as in "gin and tonic"). No traffic at all on the streets except for the occasional police car or truck. We are all walking down the middle of 7th Avenue looking out for rollerbladers. Then an F16 screams and wheels overhead, something that never happens in NYC. (It is interesting that you could live in Manhattan all your life and very easily forget two important facts if you were not careful, simply because the evidence never really presents itself to you unless you seek it out: 1) that Manhattan is an island; 2) that the US has an army or airforce.)
Over by the river, along the West Side highway, traffic going north is heavier than in the middle of the island--it is made up of ambulances on the way to one of the 100+ hospitals taking the injured, dumptrucks, buses of rescuers going off shift. As these vehicles leave lower Manhattan they pass through ranks of New Yorkers who are there just to see them and as they pass through the crowds applaud and whistle and cheer the workers on. "Street people" at the intersection of Christopher and the highway hold up handletterd signs of almost mawkishly sentimental protestations of how much they love America. Yuppies and Boomers more discreetly clap and wave. Hand painted t-shirts are here and there, but not many. No one is selling anything.
Our car is parked still and the pier is now inside the perimeter. I will have to bring all kinds of proof of ownership when I come for it. I am glad it's not at the Volvo dealership, however. Meanwhile we are all rescheduling our lives. My classes are not meeting and the library exercises I had scheduled for my doctoral students at the Schomburg Center for Research In Black Culture had to be cancelled when the Center decided at 3 to close at 5. Nan stayed home and worked since the Graduate Center was virtually closed. We are getting on each others nerves and suppose that even though this is not what was meant by terrorism bringing the war home, it's uncomfortable enough. Our good friend Jim had planned a 60th birthday party for himself this Friday, all of it below 14th Street and one part, a sail around the harbor for 2 hours with drinks on a chartered sloop, was to originate just abeam the WTC. All of that is off limits now.
Oh well, New Yorkers are comporting themselves well; there has been no looting or civil unrest that anyone has noticed. But
I am waiting for the shock of the numbers and the real stories of people who wait all night for wives and husbands and lovers who never phone, miss that secret tryst, left one last, unthinking phone or email message. I am waiting to see if I will have enough money to retire anytime soon. Like every New Yorker I am trying to second guess the real estate market now and looking at the impact of all this on my NYState tax-free bonds. Life goes on in its own heartless way and although we are only 15 blocks north, we are as insulated from that cataclysm, at this moment anyway, as you might feel yourself to be. The political rhetoric of American resolve and the strength of freedom seems beside the point to the argument raised by the terrorists. This is not about our freedom--it is about our government's foreign policy. Will someone who counts say that this war on us is about Israel? I doubt it.
jon-christian suggs
english
city university of new york
212.237.8575
jcsjj@sprintmail.com
September 11 Email: Date
9/12/2001 5:13 pm
September 11 Email: Subject
recent events
Collection
Citation
“email35.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed July 3, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/37146.