Memories of Sept. 11, 2001 linger in the Republican National Convention, as speaker after speaker refers to the World Trade Center disaster. President George W. Bush visited New York firefighters last night again evoking memories of 9/11, but at Ground Zero, few voices speak out.
Visitors quietly click photos behind links of a high metal fence. Sounds rise from far below. Metal tools scrape concrete as reconstruction of the site continues. Truck motors rev, and a subway clatters beneath.
Ground Zero would look like any other huge construction dig were it not for oversized placards with pictures hung around the site tracing the WTC creation and destruction; were it not for four or five high rise buildings surrounding it still in need of major repairs on their upper levels.
Little things evoke memories. Next to the site a fire truck, bearing names of firemen who died on Sept. 11, backs into Engine Company # 10. A bronze plaque on the station bears their images. A businessman breaks into a trot as he crosses the street leaving the WTC area. Suddenly I see a familiar photo of 911 of a businessman running away from a crashing building surrounded by dust clouds and smoke.
About 15 protestors wave signs and pass out flyers this Wednesday morning in New York, but even they are quiet. A gray-haired woman raises her voice to say, “It’s not about politics,“ to reporters who nearly outnumber protestors. Some of the protestors display pictures of loved-ones who died on Sept. 11, 2001. They want “ashen remains” dug out and properly buried at a WTC memorial.
Police talk in small groups in front of the site. At one point a helicopter hovers above, pausing so long that people look up. Earlier this day, another, bigger demonstration stretched nearly three miles through city streets. It was also a quiet affair with demonstrators holding up pink slips to signify lost jobs in the current economy.
Across the street from Ground Zero at Church Street and Fulton, tourists wander through the graveyard at St. Paul’s Chapel. The graves go back to at least the 1700s, but the area also serves as a memorial to 9/11. One exhibit in the church bears the shoulder patches of rescue divisions active in the aftermath. Another displays teddy bears left at the site.
New York faced a busy day on this Wednesday. The Yankees played at home in the Bronx, the U.S. Open continued at Flushing in Queens, President Bush spoke to firemen in Queens and the Republican National Convention continued in midtown with a tangle of delegates, security officials, pedestrians, and traffic. Compared to that, the sound in lower Manhattan, at Ground Zero, was nearly silence.
Comments