PHOTO ALBUM: September 11, 2004, New York, New York
One Year Ago Today, Part III was really hoping to make it to New York before nightfall, since I wasn't sure how well my crappy disposable cameras would work. Unfortunately, I didn't. I didn't know about parking in lower Manhattan, so I searched endlessly through Hoboken and Jersey City for a ferry that would take me there. But most of them shut down by dusk.
After sundown I gave up and took the Holland Tunnel, and found ample parking. I stopped at the corner of Greenwich and Harrison and walked the twelve blocks or so to Ground Zero.
New York had brought back the "Tribute In Light". If you haven't seen this, it is really spectacular. Squares of spotlights rise from near the former World Trade Center site to create twin beams that extend into the night sky.
It is a wondrous sight. Too bad my camera couldn't capture it.
I'm serious. Here's a picture right next to the spotlights, and you can just barely make out the light:
(click any for full-size)
Hundreds of people were there (including a couple I later met who were also from Mishawaka, Indiana) forming small tributes. These people lit candles at the corner of Vesey Street and West Side Highway:
The viewing area started with a covered walking bridge that went over West Side Highway and ran along the northern edge of what used to be the World Trade Center:
(That's the Tribute In Light in the background.)
The steel bars made it difficult to take pictures through, and the darkness still meant they wouldn't come out very good, but I dutifully tried:
Here you can see that the bottom of "the pit" is four stories below street level. The pit extends all the way to Liberty Street; that's the intersection with the red light you can see at West Side Highway. It's 1000 feet away.
This is the ramp that extends from Liberty Street down into Ground Zero. Just for perspective, in the middle of the ramp you can see a car.
This is from below street level, at the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) train station entrance. The Port Authority rebuilt the train station very quickly; had I known, I could have taken a train from either Newark or Hoboken.
I left two trinkets at Ground Zero.
The first were twin carnations that I bought from a young girl who was selling them along the walkway, along with many other street vendors.
The second was another small American flag, which I tied with a ribbon (also bought from the girl) to the fence in between panels which featured pictures of the aftermath of the attack.
Those panels, bolted to the east side of the fence, displayed the story of 9/11 — not just in New York but in Washington and Pennsylvania as well.
These six panels contain the names of the more than 2,200 people who perished in the World Trade Center.
This panel described what happened on Flight 93.
With the availability for pictures devastated by the darkness, I decided to leave and find someplace where I could still take pictures after 10 or 11 pm. I could think of only one place:
Times Square.
For some reason, most likely paranoid small-town thinking, I figured I would stick out so much that I might as well have had "I'M NOT FROM AROUND HERE" stamped on my shirt. I didn't realize how much I'd blend in. When I was on the subway, someone wanted to know where the line ended going the other way during late-night hours; since I had just checked that myself, I responded: "Coney Island."
"You take this line often?" she responded.
"No, I'm from Indiana," I replied, grinning.
I encountered the people from Mishawaka at Times Square because one of them was wearing a shirt with the logo for LanLizards, a local cybercafé. I freaked them out when I asked, "That's on Main Street, north of Jefferson, right?" They were shocked that some New Yorker would know about their little joint.
Some street artists were making spraypaint posterboard lithographs and selling them for $20. It's a process I'm fascinated by but, as I learned over a two-week span as a teenager, I'm personally terrible at. These guys were good. I didn't want to blow a Jackson on them, though, until I saw one of them make this:
I had to find an ATM, as I only brought about $25 with me (remember, paranoid, I was sure I'd be mugged) and I'd already spent money on memorabilia and a hot dog from a vendor at the corner of Vesey and Church (it was seriously the best damn hot dog I've ever had). When I got back, I asked him to make me one just like that. And I bought one.
I got one picture of me at Times Square, but as I'd now spent nearly 24 unshowered hours in a car, I looked even worse than I did that morning in Pennsylvania.
With my new picture in tow and my cameras almost out of film, I boarded the subway back to Lower Manhattan . . .
. . . and to my car, and to New Jersey, and home.
I still wish the camera would have caught the Tribute In Light.
posted by Marsh @ 12:13 AM
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