Special Assignment: New York, New Year
January 4, 2002
by John Bloom

NEW YORK, (UPI) -- The wind chill had to be 10 degrees, but six of us walked out onto the foredeck of the sleek yacht. We were six strangers, forsaking the New Year's Eve dance parties that were boiling on two decks inside, and we emerged all at the same moment, bracing ourselves against the freezing air rushing across the Hudson.

We didn't speak, but each knew what the others were thinking. We leaned against the port rail, and after a few moments one of us said, "I think we'll be able to see it between those next two buildings."

We were waiting for Ground Zero.

As the ship had slipped down past Tribeca and drawn even with Stuyvesant High School, we had trusted the fabric of our flimsy evening clothes to protect us long enough for one more look. For some people it's almost impossible not to look. Later it develops that five of the six strangers live south of 14th Street, so we co-exist with Ground Zero all the time anyway. We've seen the crowds, the trucks, the dust. We all remember the day when the last pillar of twisted steel was pulled down. So why do we keep staring?

Last week the city of New York erected a "viewing platform" for Ground Zero near St. Paul's Chapel, which is now the unofficial mourning site for all pilgrims. The iron fence that fronts on Broadway has been completely covered with posters, banners, teddy bears, messages, poems, and, on the ground, candles and icons. Pamphleteers roam the surrounding streets, handing out "Jesus Saves" tracts. On the weekends both sides of the street are crowded with folding tables loaded with souvenirs- -mostly photos of the Twin Towers, T-shirts with patriotic slogans, and caps sporting the "FDNY" and "NYPD" logos. Many of the vendors are from Chinatown, and they have an uncanny ability to introduce new product lines almost daily--today a "God Bless America" teddy bear, tomorrow a "We'll Never Forget" sweatshirt.

The day the platform opened there was a line stretching for eight blocks and requiring, at the height of mid-day crowds, a four-hour wait. (Fifty people at a time can stand on the platform, with about a two-minute limit being enforced on each visitor.) Downtown shops that normally close on the weekend remained open so that people could buy sandwiches or browse the 99-cent stores while family members held their place in line. Folk singers set up microphones along Church Street and played to the crowds that, at that point, are three hours away from their goal.

At first the fascination with the wreckage seemed to be a temporary phenomenon, but with each passing weekend, the crowds have grown, and now that gawking has been officially sanctioned by the platform, it seems to have become a permanent New York tourist attraction--perhaps the biggest one. People come to New York for a thousand reasons--they have theater tickets, or they're attending a convention, or their business requires them to be in the city--and they're hypnotically drawn to Ground Zero. Many of them say they didn't even know they wanted to see it until they arrived in New York. It must be the same way people once felt about Gettysburg, or Troy, or the Roman Coliseum after it was sacked.

But in ancient times people would have been afraid to touch the place of mass death. They would have buried the bodies on the surface and then abandoned the site, letting it return to the elements, for decades or even centuries, until trees grew up through the walls and the earth slowly reclaimed it. In America we don't think that way. We want to pick up every last scrap of debris, sweep it clean, and then erect a memorial that's a little less frightening.

When you see all these staring reverent faces, though, you start to think that's not necessarily the best thing to do. There's something to be said for letting the debris rest. The most startling thing about it, when you do make your way to the front of the platform, is that there's not really anything to see. Heavy equipment, cranes, piles of rubbish. But that doesn't mean it's not fascinating. Most people are awed by the sheer size of the site itself. Those two buildings occupied 16 acres in a part of the city where the streets are narrow and the buildings are tall and slender. Most people have some idea of the height of the Twin Towers, but they're not prepared for the breadth of them. The gap is so huge that it's shocking in spite of its lack of detail.

The two things you always notice are the giant American flag draped on the side of a building on the site's southern edge, and--at night--these enormous lamps that are so powerful you can't look directly into them without blinding yourself.

Our party yacht was strangely silent outside even though the cabins were full of blaring rap and salsa that occasionally broke our reverie in the form of a distant throbbing bass. When we drew near the docks of the World Financial Center, we saw the wash of bright white light cascading between the serried ranks of office buildings. Arriving at the gap, we stared at the light, the dust, the faint outline of a crane. We didn't really see anything, but we didn't speak either.

It was a new year. We couldn't look at it forever. Someone opened the heavy metal door of the foredeck and we were suddenly enveloped by "Who Let the Dogs Out." The spell was broken.

"Hey, is this where you go to smoke?" said the new arrival.

I nodded. Yeah, this is just where you go to smoke. The world is very old, and it doesn't really change.

© Copyright 2002 United Press International and John Bloom