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Published: November 9th 2012
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The friend I made yesterday checked out of the hostel this morning, so I was on my own again and determined to conquer the subway without any help beyond the NYC Subway app on my phone. I consider myself to be something of an expert when it comes to navigating underground train systems, so I was refusing to let this one get the better of me. Unfortunately, I lost all resolve after getting lost not once, but twice, on my way to Times Square. On the second occasion, I realised that I needed to be on the opposite platform, but I couldn’t see any way of getting over there. The only way to do it was to leave the station and re-enter using a different entrance. When I couldn’t even find my way back into the station, I conceded defeat and hailed a cab. I had wanted a ride in an NYC taxi, anyway.
Surrounded by skyscrapers, billboards and big screens, Times Square is a busy, busy place. Sightseers rushed around me, taking photos of anything and everything, and others sat down where they could and took it all in whilst clutching hot dogs or cups of Starbucks goodness. I
could see Elvis, the Smurfs, Disney characters, Darth Vader and Jack Sparrow all milling about and having their pictures taken with excited tourists, and mounted police patiently allowing people to stroke their horses. The big screens played movie trailers and music videos; there was even one that randomly flashed clips of last year’s royal wedding. Ticket agents for various comedies, shows and tours approached me, and eventually I bought a ticket for an open top bus tour of the city. It had unlimited use over forty-eight hours, and also included access to the Empire State Building. Buses left regularly from Times Square, but there was something I wanted to do before setting off on the tour.
Anyone who knows me will know how much I love theatre. In fact, one of my best friends commented that the only excuse for not updating my blog was that I hadn’t actually left Broadway and was instead in a marathon of every musical ever produced. Unfortunately, this was not the case, but I did want to see a show while I was in New York. It didn’t take long for me to decide which one. I went straight to the Minskoff Theatre
and bought a last minute ticket for that evening’s performance of The Lion King. Given how I had spent my last two weeks, it really was the only choice, even though I knew how much it would make me miss my cubs.
I got on the bus, and it headed out into a sea of yellow taxis. It was the sort of tour where you can hop on and hop off at various points along the route, and I stayed where I was as we went past the Empire State Building, Farley Post Office with its dry moat and Corinthian columns, Macys and Bloomingdales, and the tallest billboard of a half-naked David Beckham I’ve ever seen. We went through SoHo, Little Italy and Chinatown, before arriving at the stop for Ground Zero.
Going to the site of the 2001 terror attacks was something that I had been in two minds about. I didn’t like the idea of being just another tourist, staring at the place where a tragedy costing thousands of lives had taken place, but I also believe that places like Auschwitz, the Killing Fields in Cambodia, the Kigali Memorial in Rwanda…and now, the World Trade Centre…should
be visited by people. Not out of morbid curiosity, but so that respects can be paid and human atrocities never forgotten. Does it change anything? No. Does it bring back the people who died, or does it heal the survivors? No, of course not. But it keeps alive the knowledge of what humans are capable of doing, and the memory of the sacrifices made by people caught up in needless cruelty.
As I walked around the corner from the bus stop, the first thing that struck me was how there is very clearly a distinctive part of the Manhattan skyline missing. That might sound like I’m stating the obvious, but it really was a strange feeling. I knew that the Twin Towers weren’t going to be there, and yet I still got a jolt when I saw that they weren’t. Entry to the World Trade Centre site is free, but you have to get timed tickets. While I was waiting for my time to come, I spent a little while looking around the visitor centre. They had exhibits showing the events of September 11
th 2001, and the aftermath of that day, and also on display were firemen’s jackets and
helmets, police officers’ badges, broken glasses, ruined wallets and torn photographs, all still covered in dust. Of particular poignancy was a collection of letters and pictures that children had sent to the emergency services in the immediate aftermath, and their innocence against the dark images of the falling towers struck a chord. There were videos of survivors and victims’ families, telling the world what they lost that day. Although I had heard these sorts of stories in documentaries before, seeing the pain in those people’s eyes whilst standing so close to where it happened was unbelievably sad.
It takes five minutes to walk from the visitor centre to the site of the memorial, and being in the heart of the financial district, you pass suited businessmen and women on their breaks or on their way home from work. One of the things I noticed was that many of these New Yorkers, whilst talking into their phones or sipping from their Starbucks cups, glanced up briefly at where the towers no longer stood before averting their eyes again. I don’t know if looking up there is just an automatic reflex for them, even now, but whatever it was, I found
it oddly touching.
Once I passed security, which was understandably tight, I stepped out into what would have been the World Trade Centre plaza. Ten years ago, it was ruined and covered in rubble and debris, but now it is smoothly paved again, with trees planted at intervals and benches to sit and reflect. The foundations of the north and south towers hold waterfalls, around which are inscribed the names of the nearly three thousand victims. The names with ‘and her unborn child’ added onto the end were especially sobering, and some people had left flowers or little United States flags on the memorials.
Something that really stood out for me, and it took me a little while to realise, was that I just couldn’t hear anything beyond the walls of the memorial grounds. It was eerie to think that even the busy hustle and bustle of New York City just didn’t penetrate into the World Trade Centre site, almost as though life was standing still right where I stood. Everyone who visits Ground Zero must get something different from it; I don’t think that there’s a right or wrong feeling to have about it, and I certainly don’t condemn anyone who goes there and cries, or anyone who disagrees with how I felt. I didn’t cry. I didn’t even get a tear in my eye, and that’s unusual for me. Human suffering usually touches me on a deep level, but I just didn’t feel as though the site itself was particularly sad. Instead, I felt that it was oppressive. The atmosphere was wrong. Even if I hadn’t known exactly what had gone on there, it would have been quite clear to me that something terrible had happened, like when you walk into a house for the first time and you just know that a person died there. But I don’t think that that’s necessarily a bad thing. The site of thousands of deaths isn’t meant to feel happy; there’s something wrong if it does.
Having said that, I would be lying if I wrote that all I felt at the World Trade Centre was darkness and gloom. There was resilience and hope as well, like rays of the sun peeking out from behind black clouds. The experience was a sobering one, yes, and it will never make for a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, even years from now. But as I walked away, it was the resilience and the hope that stayed with me, beyond anything else.
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Anna Kendall
non-member comment
Atmosphere
It's funny but the atmosphere you describe about ground ground zero is exactly how I imagine it would be. Descriptive blog as unusual. Look forward to the rest Xxxxx