DAY FORTY:Oct. 20:
The beleaguered businesses of TriBeCa were aided in their campaign to draw people and their credit cards back downtown by nearly miraculous weather today. The sun and breezes and clear blue skies conspired to make this an ideally suited outdoors Saturday. And the all-but-bankrupt shops and bistros of TriBeCa offered 10-20% discounts on all goods. Bargain hunters made their ways from the upper climes of Manhattan, locales sufficiently removed from Ground Zero that it is easy to forget what the city has been through. I rode my bike through the throngs in the morning, and was struck by their gaping mouths and shocked faces as they turned their heads towards Ground Zero. Yes, uptowners had forgotten.
There are other signs of real progress to be seen. Somebody in city government has obviously told the languorous construction crews that have for years been renovating classic municipal buildings that enough is enough: finish the jobs, already. The magnificent Tammany Hall Boss Tweed building, which has been surrounded by scaffolding and under renovation for several years, was suddenly revealed yesterday, a glorious white marble neoclassical structure that overlooks City Hall. Other buildings in the area have also lost their shrouds and scaffolds, and appear at long last to be nearing completion. Non-New Yorkers may not appreciate how astounding this is, unaware as they undoubtedly are of the snails pace that usually marks all city construction jobs, especially those contracted to private companies. Someone has obviously told the crews, "We have a bigger job ahead, rebuilding the city, so get finished!"
The pace of completion is so high that the downtown area was filled yesterday with concrete. My bike and self were covered in the stuff on my ride into Manhattan, and I was drenched by fire hoses that were washing concrete leavings of the streets on my afternoon ride home.
In Greenwich Village I found the mood far quieter, even peaceful. I spent a couple of hours with Janet, who for years has been my friend and hair cutter. It has been six weeks since I simply sat still for two hours, no work of any kind at hand, far from telephones and news. It is our routine to plow through piles of fashion magazines, making nasty comments about the anorexic models and silly clothing while Janet works on my hair. But today the magazines offered no joy, and the decadence of pre-September 11 America was intolerable. Before September 11 ridiculous $8,000 see-through puff skirts were funny; today it was deeply depressing to imagine anybody plunking down money on such ghastly extravagance.
Also among JanetŐs piles of magazines were a few that had tried to step above their usual crap, offering photos and articles about September 11. As I silently turned those pages I felt a cloud move up from behind me, crawl up my spine and neck and envelope my head in a sudden, deep sadness. Tears flowed down my cheeks. Janet passed me some tissues, and I, surprising by my own emotions, apologized. Janet shook her head and said that every single customer she had tended to in recent days had experienced precisely the same thing. She told of a macho electrician from New Jersey who broke down sobbing while she cut his hair. She said that people really lower their barriers when they get their hair cut, because they have to trust the person who swings scissors around their face. While your hair is being cut, she said, you canŐt move, you canŐt work, and you canŐt escape: so thoughts that have been shoved in the background flood forward.
That sadness carried with me for the rest of the day. It was with me as I sat for an interminable amount of time, waiting in the CNN studios to be on the air. It was with me when I walked through TriBeCa in the evening, headed to a friendŐs house for dinner. It hung like a weight, and I realized it would not depart unless I willingly examined it, flowed with it, and allowed it to wash over me.
My dear Brooklyn friends, who were sharing dinner in TriBeCa, announced that they are leaving New York, within twelve months, moving to an as yet undecided location. "We just canŐt take the sadness anymore," they said.
Our hostess has had a hard six weeks. Her office was on the 86th floor of the World Trade Center North Tower. Her home is in the middle of the no-mans-land where National Guards troops and police barricades abound. She worked for the Port Authority, which lost dozens of people in the disaster. Her boss looked out his window that morning and saw peopleŐs faces as they fell in anguish from the roof of the Trade Center: he has not been able to shake those nightmare visions.
Together we laughed too loudly, drank too heavily, ate too much and tried not to be depressed. Our hostess, however, has clearly been changed by the horror and deep sadness she has experienced. She spoke of memorial services, funerals, and hardships.
But in the end her greatest sadness was reserved for the buildings, themselves. She pulled out a stack of photocopied pictures, official Port Authority photos taken in 1970 to chronicle the construction of the Twin Towers. The photos were chilling because so many images were the same as what we now see, in demolished form: partial shells of the towers, reaching to the sky. As I looked through those pictures I realized that I, too, was mourning the loss of the buildings, themselves.
How do you hold a funeral for a building?
Be well. Stay safe. Stand defiant.
Laurie Garrett
