New York City

On Sunday, September 30, I took the train from New Haven to Manhattan for the day. Here are some impressions I wrote down upon my return, and some of the pictures I took (click on the pictures and larger images will open in a new window -- close the new window to return here).

It's hard to believe that it's really real, even after seeing it.

I went in on the 9:57 train from New Haven to Grand Central, and took the 6 subway from Grand Central down to the Brooklyn Bridge stop. I got out right there by City Hall and walked over towards the west. It was quiet down there, it was Sunday morning so there weren't too many businesses open or anything. Lots of streets were blocked off -- people could walk down them but only emergency vehicles could drive on them.

I passed a fire hall just a few blocks east of the site. There were flowers and candles all over the sidewalk, and a sign saying they had lost 26 members of their crew. People were lined up to sign a book with messages. Children had drawn pictures and they were taped up on the walls.

I continued walking until I ended up at the corner of Duane and Greenwich. This is the place where you can really see the site. When you stand there looking down the street to where the pile is, you almost can't believe that what you're seeing there used to be skyscrapers. It is a densely packed pile of rubble, 40 - 50 feet high. They were spraying water on it yesterday from a fire hose. I just stood there and looked down the street for a long time, trying to understand that I was really seeing it.

What is New York like right now? There are cops and volunteers everywhere, and hundreds of official vehicles, and huge construction trucks carrying away the debris. Some people are still walking around the streets with respirator masks, and a few times I felt like I got something in my eye. But mostly the ash and papers have been cleaned up, at least in the areas where you can walk around. Behind the perimeter it may be different.

The smell in Manhattan is still pretty bad. There's actually an article in the New York Times about that today.

In the subway stations and at Grand Central there are walls set up for the signs describing the missing. Now, three weeks later, these signs seem to be openly acknowledged as tributes to those who have died, but still they are expressed in the present tense. People smile out from the pictures, holding babies, prizewinning fish, and golf clubs. Passersby stop and stand, quietly, reading them. There are flowers and memorials everywhere.

In many ways the city feels different from before. After I left the area of the WTC, I went to Union Square Park, Midtown, the Upper East Side, and Times Square. Everywhere I went, there were signs of the change. There was a kind of somber attitude, and something that seemed like vulnerability under the surface. Even up as far north as 70th Street, faces seemed strained, and all the vendors along Central Park East were selling pictures of the World Trade Center.

But at the same time, even with the changes, New York keeps going. In Times Square, in particular, the heart of the city was beating. As I stood on the sidewalk in the rain last night, it was good to see the lights of the businesses and the cars reflected on the wet street. There is still so much pain to heal and wreckage to clean up, but through it all, New York keeps going. It keeps on feeling, and shouting, and living.

It is an amazing city.

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