A bit of reflection
I don’t normally write on personal subjects in a blog that I devoted to the book and its particulars, but this is one of the proverbial Those Subjects that you simply can’t let sit.
The subject here is Sept. 11th.
I’m a New Yorker. I was there when those airplanes hit, although not in the area. I went to school a few blocks away from Ground Zero. I got frequent reminders of that, let me tell ya…
Once and again, I take the Manhattan-bound R train. It ties into the post-9/11 aftermath because…well, you New Yorkers know this, but for those that do not – the Cortlandt Street R and W-train stations exited right into World Trade Center Plaza. For the past eight years, my Manhattan-bound R would amble past it with the usual screech of metal wheels on metal rails; that sound would borderline deafening when it would pull away from Cortlandt to take the hairpin turn to approach and enter the City Hall station up ahead.
Cortlandt Street was closed since 9/11 and only now have the debris been removed enough to put up the lights. It’s a haunting sight; the station always looks frozen in time. All others were updated, upgraded in turnstiles, etc – but not Cortlandt. The way it stands now is the way it stood in 2001. The train doesn’t stop at the station, but passes by it and when it slows down, it lets the riders glimpse into that part of the city past. Much like the abandoned train stations and seldom-used express tunnels, Cortlandt Station is an innocuous-seeming sight that tends to linger because the rider becomes keenly aware of what’s just beyond the layers of plywood.
I have a habit of staring out the windows on my subway rides and every time I’m on that R train and it creeps into and away from Cortlandt Street, I’m reminded that, regardless of how safe this city may seem, it’s anything but.
There were entirely too many people that lost their lives there. Civilians, police officers, firefighters, the unfortunate passengers of those two planes – not one of them deserved to meet that sort of end. And for what? Political retaliation? Sending a pointed message? Religious fundamentalism?
Whatever the reasons may be, I am quite proud of my city for getting back into thge groove, so to speak. It will never be exactly as it was in the pre-9/11 days, but it had certain restored its sense of order. Slowly but surely, Ground Zero is becoming less of a pit and more people are starting to think about it and look forward to seeing what can rise from that place.
Moreover – we muscled it. Yes, it was jarring. Yes, it shattered a certain sense of security; it reminded us that while in some ways, we have it pretty damn good, we’re still people in a country and we aren’t immune from the actions of other people in other countries. Yes, it was devastating on a lot of levels, but we got past it, got to work and got back to our lives. Granted, there’s now this reflex to look to the sky at certain sounds, but we got back to our lives.
The most important thing is not to forget. Not for whatever reasons the media touts – and some of them are quite valid – but for what I mentioned above: while we have it pretty good in some ways, we’re still people in a country, on a global stage. We aren’t immune from the actions of others on the same stage. We aren’t immune from the economic impact of others, or cultural, or political. Nor are we immune from the informational impact, being on the Internet and having nearly all information at our fingertips. We are no more people than anyone else and the actions of some can impact a whole lot of others.
On Sept. 11th, 2001, the actions of nineteen impacted the lives of six million.
That’s what you should not forget. That all actions have impact, one way or another.
Ciao until next time…
K.G.
