My first visit to the site of the attacks on the World Trade Centre was in April of 2009.
Mind you, this was well before the 9/11 Memorial opened in 2011 but the scale of what they had to excavate and haul away just to get to the point of laying down the footprint of what would become the Freedom Tower was more than a little overwhelming.
All of this in the very tight confines of Lower Manhattan with with all of the subterranean works that had to be carefully worked round to get to this point almost eight years later.
The close-up was on the walkway past the construction site along Fulton Street (Century 21 across the way is on Church Street between Dey and Cortlandt).
As I’m snapping that picture and really just trying to take in the enormity of the task at hand as being one that Hercules would have said “no way”, I remember a profound sense of sadness and loss hitting me right at that moment. The best way I can describe that feeling was that the whole place seemed to be holding it’s breath and waiting for something…anything…for someone to truly get what had happened there. For such a massive construction site in one of the most crowded places on Earth…Ground Zero honestly felt like one of the oppressively quiet places I’ve ever been. And to be sure, the few times I’ve visited since it still feels that way to me!
Apparently the combination of an ashen and horrified expression and the copious amount of tears inspired one of the construction workers to come over and ask if I’m OK.
So here I am trying to gather what’s left of my wits and the only thing I can think of is to apologise to him.
That certainly wasn’t what he expected to hear from someone who for all intents and purposes looked to be an emotional wreck! At that point, I wouldn’t have blamed him in the least if he was thinking of asking someone for the number for Bellevue just in case the guys in white were needed.
Fortunately, he gave me a chance to explain what I had meant! I had apologised because even though I remembered that day vividly and watching the footage over and over in the following months and years…it wasn’t really until that moment that I truly GOT IT. The scale of the enormous loss of life and property and that horrible wound right in the heart of the city that hadn’t healed and that you could still feel was the elephant in the room eight years on that the New Yorkers were dealing with daily. I felt sorry that those of us in the rest of the country for the most part didn’t get it either unless we had family or friends in the area or we came and visited the site and saw it for ourselves.
And that’s when the oppressive weight was lifted and I told him “thank you”. I think he was less prepared for that as he was probably used to people breaking down near the site!
I asked him to thank his colleagues who went down into that great hole every day to rebuild the World Trade Centre site and in so doing show us and the rest of the world that New Yorkers do not know what it means to quit or give up. And in so doing, they were helping to rebuild all of our hopes and our dreams in spite of one of the most horrific acts of terrorism in human history.
The next thing I know, I’m being enveloped in one of the biggest bear hugs I’ve ever experienced. As he turns away to head into work, his last words were “that is why we come here every day”.
Ten years on, that sense of hope and will to carry on in the face of unspeakable evil still resonates with me as strongly as it did that rainy day in April, 2009.