Ground Zero
Finally, we came to the location I knew I had to see. I’m glad I took pictures of it, since I cannot remember it clearly now. Not as clearly as I want to anyway. I cannot remember it because I was too shocked to see the enormity of it and I was too terrified of being caught by the police for being out of the allowable boundary. Like the other location we visited, there were legions of firemen and police officers who gaped and gawked. The buildings on either side of us were in dangerous conditions: pillars knocked off their foundations, broken windows, mounds of concrete blocks and rebar, reams of paper strewn about, but given the wrecked colossus of what lay beyond, what we were clamoring over was nothing . A police officer stopped us and asked us slow, cunning questions. I was convinced he would figure us out and either arrest us or cart us off the premises (we had earlier passed a pickup truck of arrested protesters and looters that had been caught on site). He did neither. Instead he gave us permission to advance farther, beyond the crowd, where we had an uninterrupted view of the devastation. It was tough to get through some areas; the ground was like an industrial dump of big concrete blocks, metal and glass. It’s surprising we didn’t get cut or fall or somehow get injured, but as I pointed out, comparatively, what we were navigating was laughable. Behind me, some of the firemen took pictures. I was glad to see that others were as eager to capture the site on film as I was. It simply had to be photographed so that it could be proved to be true.
The Nobel Towers Reduced to a Heap
With a backdrop of foggy smoke, the mounds of debris were acres in size. From my angle, there appeared to be a section of one of the Towers intact. It sat on one of the mounds like a squat cake. Atop it there was a rain of metal strips, like limp noodles. These were metal girders that had melted. Nothing else was quite recognizable except for an office chair here and there and of course the billions of pieces of paper scattered far and wide. There were too, several pieces of the Tower’s honeycomb facade that stuck out of the ground in a somewhat square formation so that the area that the metal encompassed looked like a forward look at the Trade Center some 1500 years into the bleak future. The area smelled like burned garbage, but there was no evidence of the carnage some were reporting. However none of these aspects of the site were as shocking as the size of the disaster itself. Since the attack, I have seen many photos of Ground Zero, including my own, but none come close to capturing the magnitude of the destruction. It’s because it not only stretched up and out, but all the way around as well. It was 360, long, tall degrees. They made a mistake playing the film in theaters; it should have been seen in a planetarium.
It was not difficult to get back to the emergency unit. Once there, we made another effort at helping, but it was so pointless, we gave up trying in minutes. Volunteers were clamoring over each other to do something useful and any more help bordered on jeopardizing the dogs’ safety.
New York’s Heart Ruptures and Showers the Relief Sites with Supplies
I left the unit again and walked across the West Side Highway to explore the human triage unit that was housed in Stuyvesant High School. In this building there was a vast amount of donated supplies and a huge overstaffing of doctors, nurses and aids. All milled about, smoked outside, chatted, and posed for photos with their friends. Above the general hospital ward, someone had stretched a large American flag and the colors of it, against the soft blues and greens of the staff scrubs, looked capable and proud and clean. There were signs with arrows everywhere which read burn unit and eyes and orthopedic and restroom and sleeping areas and food. Upstairs I was shocked to see masseurs and masseuses. Someone was even getting acupuncture! There was a place for the rescue workers to get a change of clothes that included still-in-the-wrapper stacks of shirts, socks, underwear, pants, and shoes. On top of this, there were entire classrooms filled with more supplies that had yet to be unpacked. The place was more of a Hyatt than a high school. The canteen was tremendous. It included long buffet tables with outlandish selections like prosciutto, fresh mozzarella and pesto sandwiches on whole wheat baguettes; or fresh meatloaf sandwiches with dill mayonnaise. There was fresh fruit salad, a peach melba for dessert, and a long line of hot foods that included wonderful pasta combinations, grilled chicken, and juicy, hot hamburgers. I’m not sure why, but there were also shelves and shelves of pricey gourmet groceries, as if you might be inclined to pick up something from the store on the way home from your shift at the disaster.
If you felt like having MacDonald’s, there was an emergency unit set up by the company itself complete with Ronald MacDonald logo and just-out-of-the-fryer french fries, Filet-o-fish sandwiches and Big Macs. A tea selection at the Salvation Army canteen included Lemon Zinger, Sleepy Time Chamomile and Cinnamon Mist. When you walked the street, young volunteers brought refreshment selections around on trays… like we were at a cocktail party! Offerings included Gatorade, Poland Spring water, soda, Starbuck’s coffee, Krispy Kreme donuts, candy bars…was this it or would a tray of dim sum eventually make the rounds? The excess felt out of place, almost disrespectful, but due only to the generosity of the stores and people of Manhattan. No one asked for these things. They were delivered with good intention. Another example of New York’s gregarious, bursting heart.
Just outside Stuyvesant High School, the esplanade turns west, straight into the Hudson, to embrace a great lawn where people sport and sunbathe. The area marks the beginning of my favorite part of the walkway because from here to Bowling Green (the end of the island, the original Dutch settlement) the park is planted by a private group of horticulturists and the gardens include an amazing array of contrasting native grasses, beach roses and thousands and thousands of perennials. Now I ambled this stretch of walkway which was unlit and strewn with papers and which looked out onto a Hudson River bobbing only with police boats and military ships. As I neared the end of a row of astilbes, a National Guardsman in fatigues told me to halt and go no farther. The area of the lawn to which I was now near was, for some reason, being kept secure and I was told in no uncertain terms to turn around and get out. I started to explain, but he shut me up before I could finish talking. He was direct and menacing.
I obeyed without another word. As I walked back to the Highway and the morass of twirling police lights that lined it, I pined for the park of the past… with its neat flower beds and the little signs with plant names in Latin. I despaired at the new age the fall of the Towers heralded, an age of darkened streets and military police and the automatic presumption of guilt. I do not know anyone who died in the crash so even now, after all these days of candles and wakes and benefits and declarations of war, the deaths do no seem real. But I can tell you that I understand the loss of beauty that existed downtown; of the culture that was built on the same ground that had been dug up to make the foundation for the Trade Towers, and that is inches away from one of America’s first settlements. It was a splendidly planned environment in which men, women and children worked, lived, went to school, lunched, supped, shopped, sunbathed, exercised, threw frisbees, and even fished. It was a beautiful city of wealth and (believe it or not) cleanliness, and (believe it or not too) innocence. I never imagined that it would go away so quickly. I never imagined that it would be anything other than what it was: a towering home by the edge of a choppy river with a view of Liberty standing in the sea. In the end, I can only mourn what I truly know, what I can truly comprehend is gone, but perhaps that is grave enough.