THE MANY FACES AT GROUND ZERO

(This article was originally published on PixiPort.com and is being reprinted with additonal images with permission)

    During Thanksgiving 2001, I made my annual trek to my hometown, New York City. This trip was unlike any other I had made since I had moved to South Florida because it included several day and night visits to what we now call Ground Zero. This small plot of land in lower Manhattan may prove to be the defining site of our decade. At the time this is being written, it is just a big hole in the ground. However, last Thanksgiving, I saw what I expected, twisted steel and shock and grief among many of the spectators. Also, there was something there that shocked me, but I should have known it would be there, commercialism, and the American entrepreneurial spirit.

   The trip was dominated by heightened security. Now, over a year after September 11, 2001 we have gotten used to what was then somewhat of a novelty, heightened airport security. In the City itself, I had never seen so many police, most standing around with little to do, others directing traffic away from streets that were clogged with emergency vehicles, demolition and construction equipment.

   Physically, at that time, Ground Zero looked quite a bit like a construction site. There was a plywood fence surrounding the ruins. Onlookers and tourists could only get within 1 ½-2 blocks of the fence. The then still standing twisted steel frame of the lower portion of one of the Towers and some partial destruction of a few of the surrounding buildings were all you could see from the street.

  In some respects, business in the immediate vicinity was returning to some sense of normalcy. Ho Yip, a Chinese restaurant was reopened right at the police lines. I wondered how the patrons could enjoy their Chinese food mingling with the odors emanating from Ground Zero.

     The focal point to the memory of the victims was the semi-official memorial on the fence of Trinity Church. Built in 1846, it is immediately adjacent to Ground Zero. Because of it’s proximity to the disaster site, almost everyone who viewed the Church marveled that it escaped virtually unscathed. On it’s wrought iron fence, there were sheets where visitors could express their feelings in writing to the victims, the families and perhaps even just to themselves. Many did and the sheets were quickly covered with writing and drawings. National Guardsmen reverently removed each sheet in a ceremony that one would normally associate with the folding of the flag. Also on the fence, visitors from all over the world hung posters, signs and sometimes photographs of those that were lost. I captured an un-posed image of a woman pointing to a small photograph taped to the fence. I wondered, but did not ask whether she was related to or knew the person in the photograph or was just moved by the image and the thoughts it provoked. There were volunteers from all over the country handing out markers so people could write on the sheets. Most of the volunteers had serene looks on their faces as they went about their work. The look of some reminded me of those enraptured in some type of religious experience and indeed, I discovered that many of them were deeply religious individuals.

     Many of the onlookers wanted to be photographed with the backdrop of Ground Zero or Trinity Church. Tourists posed with National Guardsmen in front of the Church fence. A mother photographed her children, outfitted appropriately in Gap sweatshirts with the former World Trade Center site as the background. These were images taken more appropriately at the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial or in front of the White House. These image makers reminded me of photographs I have seen of Japanese tourists posing at the epicenter in Hiroshima, Japan. The Ground Zero tourists, just like the Japanese, must have been drawn by the same desire to capture images of themselves or their loved ones at the site in order to preserve forever a memory of these places. I also had to ask myself, over and over again, why I was there making images?

     Several parents were holding their children high enough to get a view of the wreckage. Most of these children were clearly too young to understand what they were seeing. I had the feeling that the parents were determined to make certain their children saw what was left of this historic area before it was cleaned up and sanitized.

     The faces of many of the onlookers at or near the site were remarkable to observe. Some looked dumbstruck or grief stricken, as if unable to fathom the enormity of the tragedy laid out before them. A few wept openly. Others, like a smiling police officer and a passing beauty apparently have grown numb to the devastation and simply expressed their natural emotions as they felt them.

     There was an odor, faint but pervasive. It reminded me of the smell of a campfire, after the flames are doused with water. It was not at all a good smell. After a while, I felt my throat getting sore and constricting. I believe we will be reading in the future about the long term effects of those fumes on those that were exposed daily as they worked and went about their lives in that area of Manhattan.

     There was a disturbing spectacle that was taking place, at the Ground Zero site and in other parts of the City. The tragedy had spawned a boom in the street sales of World Trade Center memorabilia; pictures, postcards, pins, police and fire department caps, flags and other assorted patriotic kitsch. Many of these items were being hawked as close as one could physically get to the World Trade Center site itself, often within feet of the police lines. Many vendors spoke no English except the words "World Trade Center" or "American Flag". Others were obviously down on their luck and trying to eke a living off of this, the latest fad. Several seemed to be doing a brisk business feeding the tourists desire to take home a trinket memorializing the disaster or the heroism of those that distinguished themselves during the disaster.

 It has taken me some time, but I am coming to realize that, in many respects, the World Trade Center site was like any other place where something tragic, historic and meaningful has occurred. Like Gettysburg, the Alamo and Pearl Harbor, people wanted to see, remember and perhaps take home a memento or picture of what they had viewed. For others in the area, life had to go on. They were required to live, work and carry on even if they were adjacent to an area where almost 3,000 people were murdered just a couple of months before, an area which, in effect remained the final burial ground of many of those innocent human beings. Still others would pursue their economic goals, even if they did not conform to my perception of how they should behave such a place. The emotions reflected on the faces of those in New York City on the first Thanksgiving after September 11, 2001, were as varied as the gamut of all human feelings.