Sat, 15 Sep 2001
From: John Voelcker <johnvoelcker@yahoo.com>
Subject: coming together, going forward
Dear All
If you’d said before this week that thousands upon thousands of New Yorkers would gather to light candles and sing the national anthem — without a trace of irony — I’d have asked what new drug you’d cooked up. But that’s what’s happening here, night after night.
“America the Beautiful” … “God Bless America” … “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” … “This Land is Your Land” … and “Amazing Grace” … “Imagine” … “Lean on Me” … “New York, New York” … and, still, “Give Peace a Chance.”
Last night Union Square Park filled with people, overflowing into side streets, for a 7 pm candlelight vigil publicized via e-mail. So did the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. But there, no one sang. Thousands held their candles and just stared silently at the postcard view of the downtown skyline that is now so altered, missing its iconic twin towers.
Everywhere there are shrines, groupings of candles and posters and gifts. Large votives and tapers lined the tops of the construction barricades entirely around the park. Smaller votives and tea lights surround lampposts and tree pits. And, everywhere, the posters of the missing.
There is diversity in the messages. An intrepid student climbed up to a statue of George Washington on horseback to hang a huge flag, surrounding the horse’s hooves with lit candles. The words “PEACE” and “LOVE” in colored chalk cover the stone base. Patriotic and defiant slogans lie comfortably next to prayers for peace, with photos of the twin tower and hand-written notes punctuating the dialogue. How American. And, always, the posters of the missing.
This has been the week of cellphones and the internet. Singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the customary disapproving looks for ringing cellphones were entirely absent. Who knows, could it be possible, was that The Call? And I’ve had more contact via Instant Messaging and e-mail with friends in Manhattan, let alone outside, than I have in person.
Since Tuesday, I’ve stayed between 8th and 28th streets, between Second and Eighth avenues — slightly more than one square mile of lower Manhattan.
Life on Friday returned to a semblance of normality. Manhattan traffic now includes delivery trucks and some private cars, as well as emergency vehicles and the yellow taxis that have run throughout. Now, though, drivers move over immediately when they hear sirens. And it’s hard to be out for more than 2 or 3 minutes without hearing sirens, as fire, police and medical vehicles barrel up, or down, or sideways.
Eziba was open for business yesterday from 9 to 6. We shot catalog photos, answered e-mail and scheduled meetings for next week. Not everyone could make it into Manhattan. Whole subway lines were still closed, and child-care trips that used to take half an hour involved 3- and 4-hour journeys.
Attention lapses were common. Many of us simply forgot scheduled calls and meetings. Vendors and others are starting to call in, ask if we’re OK — we are — and, tentatively, inquire what it’s like. We tell our stories again, as if in the telling they will become more real.
Restaurants have stayed up and running throughout — Manhattanites have to eat — though clubs are largely empty. A number of friends are leaving town for the weekend, to the beach or the mountains or Connecticut, in hopes that different surroundings will ease the ache.
People quietly, often guiltily, acknowledge small pleasures and retreats from siege mentality. One friend escaped into the restored big-screen version of “Funny Girl” at the Ziegfeld. Another couple admitted to scoring a pair of Sunday tickets to “The Producers” from an acquaintance who survived the attack but no longer wanted to go out. They absolutely wouldn’t have taken the tickets if he’d died, they stressed, but since he was fine … and it IS “The Producers” … well ….
People tell jokes and laugh some now. Any hint of humor about the disaster is very, very carefully phrased — even stockbrokers, the most disrespectful purveyors of the blackest humor, haven’t (yet) generated a list of WTC jokes. But still, the sight of a missing-person flier or candles on the street will catch someone unawares. A quiet figure will sit sobbing, face in hands, on a side-street stoop.
There are few outlets for the desire to help now. All volunteers, even police officers and firefighters, are being turned away. Exasperated officials make it clear that the flood of volunteers and the tons of food are simply getting in the way. The Red Cross is frantically seeking staffed warehouse facilities. The only thing left is to donate money.
And the rescue effort is clearly well organized now. More than 18,000 tons of wreckage has been cleared. Traffic is open down to Canal, and pedestrians can walk north of Canal and east of Broadway the length of the island. Financial markets reopen Monday, with systems testing already underway. Subway lines are being reopened where stations have not been destroyed or tunnels flooded.
The mood of the Ground Zero team, however, is not hopeful. Officials still speak of “rescue, not recovery,” but their tones belie that phrase. More bodies are recovered, and the mayor gave details on the items — hairbrushes, toothbrushes, nail clippings, unwashed clothes — that can contain DNA of the missing.
Poignant details remain a fact of life, but are losing their power to stun. Commuter railroads are systematically listing the 1,000 cars left unclaimed in their lots, locating owners and matching them to lists of the missing. An organized campaign to rescue, feed and house abandoned pets is underway. And already a service to honor the missing and dead is set for Central Park on Sunday, September 23rd at 3 pm. Over one million people are expected.
My friend Spencer is from the south, so he knows the second and third verses of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. As we sang last night, he and I were touched by the power of two lines:
As He died to make men holy,
Let us die to make men free.
And, sadly, I fear that is where we must now head.
love, jv.
P.S. As always, please circulate this or any of the letters I’ve written to others if you feel they would be interested.