It was all a great time, full of memories that stem from the fullness of the weekend and the inevitable frictions of hanging out with family. In our zeal to accommodate everyone's plans we found ourselves stepping on each others' toes in ways that became comical. Mix in some overtly deferential communication styles amongst all of us who are hard-headed and convinced that our way is the right way. Layer that on top of my cousins' opinions of where the best pizza to be had can be found or how to get somewhere (which way is fastest? or cheapest?). The funniest moments (though frustrating at the time) could have come straight out of an I Love Lucy episode, involving a car service car and a bus (and its surly driver), with movements that could not have been choregraphed better. Describing it here won't do it justice--it will live on in memories.
One other unintended detour, however, gave me a bit of closure on something that has been on my mind since September of 2001. I have a macabre obsession with the events of the 11th, starting with Why and How and going back to Why again. I've always wanted to see the site with my own eyes, knowing that pictures and TV images don't demonstrate the peripheral scope that being there provides. Since I design buildings for a living, understanding how buildings react to outside forces (or in this case, how they fail), is an endless source of fascination. How people react to buildings under stress is similarly fascinating, since building codes are written and revised as a direct result of tragic events. I was hoping to see "Ground Zero" to understand the physical magnitude once and for all.
I called an old friend from architecture school, who told me to get on the R Train from Park Slope and get off at Court Street, where I would visit and catch up on 16 years of time gone by. The train rolled past Court Street without stopping, and before I knew it I was on the Manhattan Bridge. I got off on Canal Street in downtown Manhattan, jumped across and waited for the R to come the other way to get back to my intended destination. Sunday evening train schedules and routes get weird due to repairs, etc. I was along for the ride.
As we rolled (slowly) back to Brooklyn, we went through a station that looked like it was under construction, when in fact it was deserted, dusty, and spooky. This was the Cortlandt Street Station, the closest one to the Twin Towers, with what looks like the dust and debris from that day still resting on the tiles and rails. Riding through it, listening to the aching screach of the train's wheels on the tracks raised the hair on the back of my neck, since above me approximately 3000 people died in the span of an hour when two buildings failed based on forces that they were not intended to withstand. It's actually not closed due to the collapse--now it's closed because of the construction of the new WTC, but the effect remains the same for an outsider like me.
I got to see Ground Zero, finally, but not from where we are used to seeing it. It's no longer so important that I see it again. But this:
the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk...was awesome.
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1 comment:
I have a 9.11 story to tell you one day....Tragic as they all
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