In the nine years since the attacks of 9/11 I've noticed the neighborhood amidst ground zero, where I live, is rarely factored into the discussions about it. Certainly other constituencies, like the victims' loved ones, have greater claim to the sorrow of the space and the significance of the day, but it seems odd for those of us who live with it, watch on a daily basis the subtle and not so subtle changes here, that we're absent from the continual discussion about it. Many would argue that the last thing ground zero needs is another opinion about it but those of us who have watched our neighborhood suffer, heal, and adapt to it's new purpose may have a unique perspective about, not to mention an actual investment in, a true recovery of this uniquely meaningful little place on earth.
I live two blocks from ground zero. I've watched the lines of iron workers gathering for lunch at the pizza shop on our corner grow in recent years, and then again at the end of the day in their workworn hard hats and "WTC" vests to throw back a few drinks at Uncle Mike's, a tumble of a bar next door. For years, we residents of Tribeca have guided the disoriented tourist to ground zero, until very recently a dusty hole, and with each of these small encounters silently revisit memories of the day; hearing the first plane scream by our apartment, bolting up in bed and shaking my husband to tell him there is going to be a plane crash, feeling every floor hit the earth as they pancaked together and then breathing in the cloud of white dust that turned all our windows opaque and blanketed our neighborhood forever more. "Yes, two blocks down on the right, you can't miss it." We've had to explain far too early to our children, born in the years after 9/11, the jarring images sold by local street merchants to tourists, because no matter how old you are planes, soaring buildings and fire all together create an image that causes questions. In these years the neighborhood as healed, incorporating past tragedy, and changing it, making it part of everyday life, and now, finally, hope for restoration.
And yet this year the neighborhood feels different as the 9th anniversary approaches. There's more hubbub, it's palpable on the street, part of the need to show progress on the site, and there has been lots. The footprints of the twin towers, that will become the memorial and largest man-made waterfall in the world, are now visible. A father of a classmate of my son's heads up of the memorial project and has said, once completed, the sound of the falls will be like white noise in the neighborhood which seems fitting too--since, as residents of ground zero, we already know the political white noise that threatens to drown out the sounds of progress here.
One block south of my apartment, on Park Place, which is one block north of Ground Zero the white noise is already deafening. Park51, the proposed Muslim Community Center, has police stationed in front today. It's an empty shell of a building now on a block that was abandoned well before the devastation that happened one block below it nine years ago. The white noise about Park 51 masks important truths: the Muslim community that wishes to build there has been apart of our neighborhood for years and well before the attacks of September 11. Until 2009, they gathered on Warren Street, two blocks north of the current proposed location until their lease was lost as the building owners opted to change it to residential condos. Those who wish to prohibit our Muslim neighbors from finding a new place of worship locally didn't seem to have a problem when they were in the our neighborhood on September 11, 2001 and were traumatized and evacuated like the rest of us who live and work and worship here. That they wish to invest 200 million dollars back into the neighborhood, revive a deserted block, and join with the community that they have always been apart of gets little push back from those of us who live here. What better way to thumb our noses at terrorists than to show that Muslims stand united with us against terrorism committed in their name and will even help in our rebuilding?
This morning as I headed off to do some errands I saw a new guest in the neighborhood: the "Islam is not a true religion. Repent" truck driving in circles down our street and around to Park and back again. Perhaps it's just that parking is impossible in this neighborhood. But it struck me as a perfect metaphor. A truck like that, a vehicle for such ugly sentiment, will keep driving in circles and never find a place in this neighborhood.
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Chris Kelly: The Secret Relevance of Glenn Beck's 9/11 Show REVEALED
Nobody denies that terrible things happened that day, and that people need to work it out in their own ways. What I'm saying is that people are putting too much significance into this attack. We damaged ourselves more than those two planes ever did in our fear and collective pants browning as a nation. The best, strongest reaction that this country could have done would have been to clean up the mess, and look for the perpetrators and bring them to justice. Instead we crippled ourselves, sold out parts of our constitution, sold out parts of our civil liberties and even worse, demeaned the people who died by attacking and killing others that had nothing at all to do with the initial assault. In my mind, part of the irony here with the park51 project is that most of the hijackers were Saudi and Egyptian. There may actually be a legitimate connection, but thats been ruined by our earlier erroneous reactionary mess.
Good article though, Cristina. If I run into you at Kaffe, your next coffee is on me! Well done.
The brouhaha about the Islamic center is about the very fact that is is near Ground Zero, NOT that it is simply in some random place in this country. Or had you missed that bit? All these people coming in from who knows where, acting like they care so deeply about the center being built near the WTC, and that it's in NYC, don't even live int he city, and most did not know anyone who died there, nor did the attacks affect them in the personal way it did to those who lived here and were covered in dust. They act like they can come in and speak for everyone else, just to get their hate out there. Her point is very relevant.
as to my post you answered on another thread about Murdoch...............I guess it got scrubbed............No, I do not know why he came here and did that and I guess you cannot mention the German, sometimes,.......and perhaps re incarnation.........The particular author on that other thread........much gets scrubbed.........very much.
right?
I love New York !!
I read this today on Huffpo, in an article by Karen Armstrong.
Do not attach yourself in an exclusive manner to any one creed, so that you disbelieve all the rest: if you do this, you will miss much good; nay, you will fail to realize the real truth of the matter. God, the omnipresent and omnipotent, is not limited by any one creed, for He says, "Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah" (Quran 2.109). Everyone praises what he believes; his god is his own creature, and in praising it he praises himself. Consequently he blames the beliefs of others, which he would not do if he were just but his dislike is based on ignorance.
Are we kidding, condemning this bonehead Terry Jones? Millions of
Americans are bigots. It's not everybody but most of us. Prejudice has always been a way of life
in America. Isn't it about time we knocked it off & treated people with respect? Kindness &
achievement would be a start. Build the Mosque/rec center. Every thing will be the same as
it was. Read a history book about bigotry in America since the Revolution. Open your eyes,
folks. We can do better. We sure can't do any worst.
but it was rejected. It's nothing new. :-) Now I come across another post
that is terrific. Thank you. Have a nice Sunday. Take care.
Cheers,
Mike:
Then I got the call that I have a new baby granddaughter, born to a Japanese mother whose birthday is December 7th, married to my son who was blinded in Iraq.
I've decided to forgive everybody and get on with happiness.
I used to manage a record store on New York City’s Warren Street, right around the corner from the Burlington Coat Factory that is now the proposed site of the Cordoba Center, widely (but inaccurately) called “the Ground Zero mosque.” Four short blocks north of the Twin Towers, my colleagues and I used to jokingly call our store the World Music Trade Center.
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, as I was on my way to work, pieces of airplane fell on the roof of our building and a tsunami of ash and grit got inside and ruined almost everything. Four customers I knew, and possibly others I had seen in the store or talked to, were killed that day; at least two of them were Muslim.
My staff comprised three Christians, two Jews, one Muslim, one atheist and my agnostic self. When we were able to reopen our store just before Christmas, we set up a display near the entrance, with a sign reading "Islamic Music from Around the World," which was exactly what we offered on that center rack. We also gave a prominent place in the Asian section, along one wall, to secular Afghan music that had been banned by the Taliban, especially a CD by a singer whose death in a car crash his fans believed to have been engineered by Al Qaeda.....
in the UK (Swindon) for 10 years long ago. :) There was a nasty class system
in England at that time but it paled to the lack of civil rights in America where
bragging about our freedoms were the norm but not true for many. That said,
your post is a lesson for us all. Well written & sad but courageous. Great story.
I hope your post is read by many of our HP posters then discussed with friends
& family. Take care of yourself. I will be looking forward to many more of your posts.
Fanned & Faved:
Cheers,
Mike: