Note:
Click any image here for a clear, large version. All images
will open into a new window. To continue, just close the new
window. Smaller monitors may require some scrolling to view the
whole image. 256 color systems may display posterized colors in
skies and other places -- use thousands or millions of colors if
possible. All full-sized images are larger than usual jpegs
(>10", ca. 100 megs each), as no smaller size can do justice to
this event, one which will loom as the lowest nadir of perfidious
human evil. To quote FDR from 60 years ago, this truly is
"a
day which will live in infamy."
9-
Nighttime Views
There
were many things I had to get back to which remained more
or less untouched a week later. While in one sense we can
fool ourselves into thinking we're going along just
nicely, handling the increased stress and anguish of a
national tragedy, another part of our minds keeps peeking
over our shoulders, so to speak. In my case I was aware
that everything I was doing was done in slo-mo. I was a
jar of molasses on a cold night in winter. Eventually a
few things were accomplished. But it took forever, and
very little to show for it. Finally I wanted to see how
my city and neighborhood had changed by this cruel attack
during the evening hours, the "magic hour" and shortly
afterwards.
Looking
South on Fifth Avenue
So at the start of the
new week I decided to go out for dinner to a small
restaurant due west of here. As I crossed the various
avenues I stopped to snap a picture. Some views
comfortingly were about the same as always. But looking
down Fifth Avenue you could see right away that something
familiar was missing. The traffic all around me and
pedestrians at the dinner hour were going about their
usual tasks, if slightly more slowly. I found I had to
steel myself to look south, and to take a few pictures of
what I saw.
Looking
South on Sixth Avenue
During twilight and the
"magic hour" the light level changes quickly. Here just
one long city block later, walking briskly, you can see a
deeper shade of darkness engulfing the city, as lights
begin to turn on in a dazzling "white way" other than
Broadway north of Times Square. This angle always showed
the towers to good advantage. Now only some buildings of
the World Financial Center, towers Three and Two, remain,
crouched down low. See them there? The tall mast on 1
WTC, with all its radio, television and even high-def
transmitters and antennae would commence each evening to
wink at us with the slow throb found on transmission
towers around the world. They're mainly there to prevent
the accidental plane crashes of the kind that happened in
July 1945 into the north face of The Empire State
Building. Then it was a B-25 bomber, and 14 lives were
lost, during an unusually opaque, rainy Saturday
morning.
The lights are now
gone, destroyed with everything else in a bombast of
mayhem brought about by that very same action: a plane
crash. But these new crashes were not at night, and were
no accident, although that's what my disbelieving brain
first assumed the rest of me must be what had happened.
That fiction never gained status as an "urban legend," as
it lasted but some minutes before it became obvious what
really was happening, which was worse, MUCH worse.
You can also see the
attractive clock tower of a much older building, now a
the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public
Library. That and a shorter solitary church spire behind
it are all that spear the twilight sky in this spot. They
had been dwarfed up to two weeks ago. Like a scene from
Finney's sumptuous fantasy novel, "Time and Again", we
are like that tale's protagonist, noting an older New
York City, one in which there are still "skyscrapers" of
a sort. The many steeples of churches and temples and a
handful of large civic buildings would slice the sky
nearer to the horizon into smaller chunks.
In our own time the
chunks have dwindled, and the sky remains unblocked only
directly overhead. One of the few sacrifices I made to
live here was to give up much (but not all) of my love of
astronomy and the stars. Light pollution is now somewhat
on the wane due to new streetlights and awareness. 4th
and 5th magnitude stars can now been seen from the
rooftops of many buildings on a few dozen nights each
year. At one time you'd be lucky to spot much dimmer than
2nd magnitude. But I do miss the dark skies of New
England when I was growing up. And now I miss the World
Trade Center. In both cases I had to lose something
first, before the loss hit me in the chest.
Looking
South on Seventh Avenue
If you had looked south
on Seventh Avenue, here near 11th Street, you would have
seen both towers, well, "towering" over the night skies.
Now there is nothing but the memories of them, those of
us still alive to HAVE the memories. I hope they do
decide to rebuild something on the spot. We need the
office space if we are to keep the businesses and
companies here that had been using the WTC for years. We
may be able to do a better job of it now, and keep a
section of the Plaza for a permanent memorial to the
lives lost on 9/11/01. Perhaps return one of those
gnarled metal sections to a memorial on the plaza level.
My late collaborator's film, "2001 -- A Space Odyssey"
provided us with over three decades of things to look
forward to as we marked the start of the new Millennium.
Now this year is forever marked not with optimistic
images, hopes of space stations and lunar bases yet to be
realized, but by melancholy and anger.
Remembrance
Wall on St. Vincent's Hospital
On the way home I paused
at Saint Vincent's Hospital, which is located on the
opposite side of the street from where I took the last
photo. Along the south wall of the building I saw some
people stopping to read a long expanse of postings of
people who were missing. The Hospital is the one that had
braced itself to give emergency medical aid to the people
who were found alive but wounded. They prepared quickly
for the worst, cases of inhalation of smoke and
particulate, burns, cuts from falling glass and metal and
whatever else might happen in such a ferocious event. A
few hundred case were treated early on. Then fewer, then
two days later, none. Whomever was found still alive
would likely have been one of those lucky enough to be
out of the buildings, running for cover. The rest would
never return. I originally feared the death toll would be
nearer to the usual occupancy of the buildings. But
reports came that most people just ran for the exit
stairways, and got out of there as fast as they could. I
wish everyone had been so able. I wish the hundreds of
firefighters and police who bravely tried to assist had
not lost their lives in their line of duty.
Just
a Few of the Missing
Here's a closer view of
just a fraction of the images that are affixed to the
hospital wall. Many shown here were moved from more
exposed locations, as there's an overhang above this
section of wall, which offers some shelter from the
weather. When you look at a whole wall covered like this,
with so many detailed, loving descriptions of lost love
ones, you can't help yourself -- you shudder
involuntarily. There is such hope expressed in these
descriptions. The photos are generally as you might
expect, taken at a party, or on vacation -- when
do we normally grab snapshots of our own family
and closest friends, after all? It feels completely
incongruous, otherworldly, to see the smiling faces, so
healthy and full of life. So many young people, too,
lives ended before they had really begun. We have all
died a little with them; the American psyche has died a
little.
As I said at the
start, seeing the debris and wreckage left me numb. I
found the site chilling, horrific, while the Union Square
crowd and my fire station gave it a personal, human face.
This is where it felt natural to express our grief, our
collective hopes and fears for the future. A week later
the city took down all the shrines and posters, all the
flowers and candles and signs are now gone. But people
still come anyway. They'll probably continue for awhile,
until the cold weather intervenes. Gradually we are
moving on from this stage, to -- what's next after denial
and grief? Acceptance? And then what? We all still are
angered and know the taste of wanting swift justice and
even vengeance. I can't tell you here what will come of
the seething and reaction to such a massive terrorism.
Conflagrations and unending ethnic and religious wars
have been fought on many shores, but never before on
these. We have a lot of growing up to do. But the
American people are strong. We will get there, just give
us time, time to think, and time to mourn.
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Post
Postscript July 2007
Time to Mourn
This
brief section is being added nearly six years after that
horrific event. While making this first "aftermath"
addition since my 2002 Postscript comments
(on
the last page of this rather lengthy single-topic
section), I'm
suddenly struck by how my most pessimistic predictions in
that postscript (and
on the page it completed)
have been grossly exceeded by an astonishingly
incompetent, lawless, self-serving administration. Shame.
I just hope we can still survive it, as I've worried in
several candid postings from the past six years.
But this newest
section is no polemic or soapbox (and the minority who
still don't "get it" probably never will). It's a simple
personal addendum about something closely related to
these aftermath postings, something I saw for the first
time only a week ago. As a final cap to a three-year
delayed get-away which I really needed, I visited my good
friends, synthesist Larry Fast, and his tech-whiz wife,
Phyllis, who live in mid NJ. It was also the first time I
could see how their extensive home reconstruction and
expansion project was progressing.
We get along so very
well, it was wonderful to visit and catch up, see them,
pet the cats, enjoy a wonderfully mild and sunny early
Summer afternoon. Their home is now about four times
larger than before, and will be gorgeous when it's
completed soon. I love seeing creative people work out
creative puzzles, which in this case respected the older
original sections, while complementing them with tasty,
striking, comfortable new expansions. As we wound down
our visit, they happened to mention that near them is the
bell tower memorial to 9-11 that I'd read about a few
years ago. Would I like to see it? Most certainly! So on
our way to a quick meal together, we stopped by this
quiet, lovely spot. Let me post a couple of photos of
it.
As you leave your
car in the secluded, convenient parking lot, you descend
several yards along a small, gracefully curving brick
pathway. This leads to the memorial itself, which is
located in the middle of a charming tree-lined grotto
(the tower is not visible from the road). You will pass a
flagpole marker set beside the path, which includes an
inscribed plaque (September
11, 2001 -- "WE
WILL REMEMBER"),
as you can see here.
Memorial
Plaque and Flag
The memorial is called
the "Tower
of Remembrance",
and it is part of the Shrine of St. Joseph, at 1050 Long
Hill Road, Stirling, NJ (for those who'd like to see it
in person). If you've not heard about it before, the
tower was cobbled together with actual steelwork from the
North Tower of the World Trade Center. The momument also
contains four bronze bells from Monroe Virginia (cast in
1960) which had been silent from 1973 until they were
contributed to the tower project. On the surrounding
memorial walls you'll find inscribed the names of the
victims who died on that fateful September morning. It's
a very tasteful, thoughtful and appropriate addition to
the Shrine (many of the victims were from New Jersey).
You can't stand there and not be overcome by emotion and
a tragic perspective about the best and worst sides of
human nature. I'm very glad Phyllis and Larry mentioned
it.
Tower
of Remembrance
This is the
approximately 20 foot tall tower seen close up. The deep
reddish-brown patina is caused by the natural oxidation
of unprotected steel exposed to the elements. If you
stand right beside it and look closely, you can make out
the subtle warping and bending of many originally
straight, massive portions of steel, caused by the
immense weight of collapse. There are a few benches
located on either side, and nearly always I'm told you
will find many fresh flowers and bouquets placed about,
which are brought by visitors in memory of lost friends
and loved ones. I'm glad to have seen it, and thought it
wouldn't be out of place to be included on this
webpage.
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How
Do We View Such Destruction?
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This
page was assembled with some haste, while everything was
still close up and sharp in memory. I have yet to attain
any perspective on any of this, which may be the most
discussed and remembered historical event of our
generation. As I glance back through the many images
here, I notice that there are none of the original fires
and collapse (unless
you count my computer painted perspective view just
above). But then I
was away from my city when our small island was under
attack. There are also no close-ups of people grieving
over their and our losses. But that was deliberate. I
just couldn't bring myself to poke a camera lens into the
face of these utterly crushed fellow human beings, when
they were at their most vulnerable, and I was grieving
along with them.
Then again, I'm old
fashioned enough to deplore the path the news media has
taken in my lifetime. Sound and picture bites are NOT
news reporting. Nor is yelling about other terrorist
attacks about to happen two days later, when it was rumor
and conjecture sans evidence. Scare the country, why
don't you? Playing to the lowest, basest emotions,
prurient or other unsavory parts of our nature, may sell
papers or slots for commercials. But it seems (to this
old skeptic) like taking an easy shot, the cheapest
trick, instead of making at least a little effort to
raise journalism and reporting towards the best it can
be, given all real world
constrains.
Then again I don't
face their day by day conditions, and the pressures from
above. So it's easy for me to criticize. And you have to
give the networks big points for altruism in continuing
coverage around the clock, sans any commercials, for many
days. That was putting people ahead of profit in a big
way!
I was grateful to
the media for allowing all of us not in Manhattan or D.C.
or PA that fateful day to witness for themselves the
outrage while it happened. If there had been swifter
actual follow-up news, perhaps we would not have been
treated with the specter of seeing those planes crash
again and again into those buildings. After enough
repeats I simply had had enough. I still couldn't get
into any of the books or magazines I had brought with me
to try to relax for a few days. I still can't do it, but
I am trying at least to get back to being productive.
Creating this new web page collection has taken many
hours. I hope after uploading them, and the usual few
initial days of proofing and polishing, I can get back to
the stack of work and deadlines awaiting me. Perhaps most
of you feel exactly the same way, and hope to heal
gradually, as we seem as a species prewired to do after a
suitable grieving time.
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