story10741.xml
Title
story10741.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2004-08-09
911DA Story: Story
(Written September 16, 2001)
My wife and I, who live in Connecticut, went down to NYC to a memorial service in Washington Square Park to light a few candles, drink a few beers and write on all the memorial canvases strung around the arch with all the mourners that were reported to frequent the place. We stopped off to use the bathroom in Grand Central Station before going to the subway and who do we meet up with? Rich Cochrane!
He was on his way home from volunteer work providing therapeutic massage to the rescue workers who came into one of the hospitals. Made me proud to have a frat brother who would put his own life on hold and come all the way down from Mass. to help out in this troubled time. (Didn't tell him that, it would sound sappy!)
Life in NYC is still the same hustle and bustle that it was before, but now, no one talks. Before, talking while walking down City streets, especially in crowded areas, was like trying to talk in a bar. Now everyone seems silent as they go about their business, presumably doing whatever they did on a daily basis last Sunday, before the tragedy. Another thing I noticed was that people are looking into other people's eyes as they pass, and smiling when they catch eye contact. NY is notorious for no eye contact, and they'll run you down if your not paying attention to where your going, but yesterday, I was told "God Bless You" so many times I was beginning to think I was sneezing without noticing. I saw at least a dozen times complete strangers standing in an embrace and sobbing while telling each other, "It'll be all right, we'll get through this" and the like. The fire departments, hardly noticeable before as their set into the facades of large blocks of buildings, are shrouded in black bunting and have the sidewalks absolutely covered with flowers and candles. Firemen stand in the garage doorways with a look of shock on their faces like they just found out their best friend died, which of course, is likely the case. Everyone quietly thanks them as they pass, and some hug them and the silence hangs in the air just like it does in a funeral parlor during a wake.
Although in mourning, everyone's out, everyone's doing whatever they did before, and life goes on in the city that never sleeps. I don't want to say that people are not afraid to go out, I'm sure that's true in many a case, but they are going out and their not cowering in their homes waiting for the next plane or bomb or whatever.
I guess that's the main reason I wanted to go down, just to see if everything in NY was as bad as they are really saying on TV. I didn't try to get down to ground zero, they don't need me down there gawking like a rubbernecker in a traffic jam while their going about their grizzly task, and you can see all that crap on TV all day, every day. What I saw was the people in one of the toughest cities in the world reaching out to each other and flat out, objectively loving each other, there's no other way to describe it. That's what you aren't seeing on TV. There's very, very little hate or rage, just calmness to the point of sedation, and brotherly love permeating everything.
The South end of Washington Square is usually dominated by the Twin Towers, so huge that they look like their a couple of blocks away when their really across town. Now their replaced by the plume of white smoke that everyone sees on TV. The smoke must be right in the flight path of Laguarda or Kennedy Airport, because as you stare at the scene, one after another, plane after plane after plane emerges from the smoke and heads uptown looking a little ghostly, but signifying that we cant be kept down and that things are slowly getting back to some semblance of normal.
Hundreds of "Missing" posters are everywhere, everyone knowing, including those that posted them, that the 'missing' are really 'dead' right under that plume of smoke that dominates the south end of the island. All the posters have pictures of the lost on them, holding their children, embracing their wives/husbands, along with a description that gives you a small indication of what they were like. They appear to be some of the brightest people at the top of their games, and almost all are so young, just beginning promising lives.
Still, I have more faith now that I went down for the day, and truly believe that all will be right with the world again someday...I really, really didn't feel that way before. Give it a few years, they'll bury the bodies and the rubble that smells like what's kicked up by a jackhammer mixed with chemical laden steam and death, build a few new towers and be back up to full speed. I cant help but believe that, when all is said and done, that NY, it's people, and maybe the rest of us will somehow be a little better for this experience. I wish we didn't have to learn like this, but we can?t always choose how life?s lessons are taught.
My wife and I, who live in Connecticut, went down to NYC to a memorial service in Washington Square Park to light a few candles, drink a few beers and write on all the memorial canvases strung around the arch with all the mourners that were reported to frequent the place. We stopped off to use the bathroom in Grand Central Station before going to the subway and who do we meet up with? Rich Cochrane!
He was on his way home from volunteer work providing therapeutic massage to the rescue workers who came into one of the hospitals. Made me proud to have a frat brother who would put his own life on hold and come all the way down from Mass. to help out in this troubled time. (Didn't tell him that, it would sound sappy!)
Life in NYC is still the same hustle and bustle that it was before, but now, no one talks. Before, talking while walking down City streets, especially in crowded areas, was like trying to talk in a bar. Now everyone seems silent as they go about their business, presumably doing whatever they did on a daily basis last Sunday, before the tragedy. Another thing I noticed was that people are looking into other people's eyes as they pass, and smiling when they catch eye contact. NY is notorious for no eye contact, and they'll run you down if your not paying attention to where your going, but yesterday, I was told "God Bless You" so many times I was beginning to think I was sneezing without noticing. I saw at least a dozen times complete strangers standing in an embrace and sobbing while telling each other, "It'll be all right, we'll get through this" and the like. The fire departments, hardly noticeable before as their set into the facades of large blocks of buildings, are shrouded in black bunting and have the sidewalks absolutely covered with flowers and candles. Firemen stand in the garage doorways with a look of shock on their faces like they just found out their best friend died, which of course, is likely the case. Everyone quietly thanks them as they pass, and some hug them and the silence hangs in the air just like it does in a funeral parlor during a wake.
Although in mourning, everyone's out, everyone's doing whatever they did before, and life goes on in the city that never sleeps. I don't want to say that people are not afraid to go out, I'm sure that's true in many a case, but they are going out and their not cowering in their homes waiting for the next plane or bomb or whatever.
I guess that's the main reason I wanted to go down, just to see if everything in NY was as bad as they are really saying on TV. I didn't try to get down to ground zero, they don't need me down there gawking like a rubbernecker in a traffic jam while their going about their grizzly task, and you can see all that crap on TV all day, every day. What I saw was the people in one of the toughest cities in the world reaching out to each other and flat out, objectively loving each other, there's no other way to describe it. That's what you aren't seeing on TV. There's very, very little hate or rage, just calmness to the point of sedation, and brotherly love permeating everything.
The South end of Washington Square is usually dominated by the Twin Towers, so huge that they look like their a couple of blocks away when their really across town. Now their replaced by the plume of white smoke that everyone sees on TV. The smoke must be right in the flight path of Laguarda or Kennedy Airport, because as you stare at the scene, one after another, plane after plane after plane emerges from the smoke and heads uptown looking a little ghostly, but signifying that we cant be kept down and that things are slowly getting back to some semblance of normal.
Hundreds of "Missing" posters are everywhere, everyone knowing, including those that posted them, that the 'missing' are really 'dead' right under that plume of smoke that dominates the south end of the island. All the posters have pictures of the lost on them, holding their children, embracing their wives/husbands, along with a description that gives you a small indication of what they were like. They appear to be some of the brightest people at the top of their games, and almost all are so young, just beginning promising lives.
Still, I have more faith now that I went down for the day, and truly believe that all will be right with the world again someday...I really, really didn't feel that way before. Give it a few years, they'll bury the bodies and the rubble that smells like what's kicked up by a jackhammer mixed with chemical laden steam and death, build a few new towers and be back up to full speed. I cant help but believe that, when all is said and done, that NY, it's people, and maybe the rest of us will somehow be a little better for this experience. I wish we didn't have to learn like this, but we can?t always choose how life?s lessons are taught.
Collection
Citation
“story10741.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 9, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/9120.