Tuesday, August 23, 2005

It's my last few days as a NYC resident and I am sick (with a cold, currently in the 'coughing up chunks of lung' phase). Thus the no posting. Tragically, I have been beset by various ailments since I posted last Monday. I still managed to cross one more thing off my must-do-in-NY list, riding the Staten Island Ferry. I kind of can't understand why the Ferry is free, but it is. It was a hazy day so all my photos will suck. But it was still pretty neato. I like all the crazy wheels and chains that raise and lower the gangplanks and the contraption that locks the ferry into place against the dock.

Then all of the subway stations in lower Manhattan were closed for one reason or another, so I got to walk past the WTC site, which is, well, just a big hole. A giant gap. I was almost four years too late. But I don't mind. It's a stupid thing to visit, if you ask me. If you haven't seen the original buildings in person - and I hadn't, except at a distance - then looking at the space where they once were is not going to add any sense of scope to the event, anyway.

Sorry dudes. I'm a little down. I had plans! And my body is failing me. Crap.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you intentionally refere to you physical illness as "tragic" and then go on to comment on how little the empty space where the World Trade Center was means to you? You must be feeling pretty crappy.

debl said...

The actual events of 9-11 meant a lot... The empty lot where the buildings once were? Not so much. Which, hey! is what I wrote. Look at that.

Julie Marsh said...

Have you walked over the Brooklyn Bridge yet? Take the subway to Brooklyn Heights, have some pizza at Grimaldi's (or Patsy's - I forget what they're calling it now), and walk back to Manhattan over the bridge. I'm so glad we managed to do that one last time before we left the city.

What else is on your list? God, I miss NYC.

Anonymous said...

I must say, i had the worst reaction when I went to visit the site three years "too late." Walking around, I couldn't help but be haunted by what had happened. I found myself genuinely sobbing at the horror of my memory. Before I got there I thought I'd think it was a gaping hole as well, but the more I stood there and walked around the more I remembered all that had transpired.

At least a year ago there were still many empty, abandoned buildings surrounding the site, where bustling activity had once been seen. That enhanced the sense that something has been lost.

Perhaps it does involve having been there when the wtc was erect to add scope, but I don't think it necessarily has to. And I don't want to diminish your reaction, but since that day is part our collective memory, I felt compelled to share.

debl said...

That's all good. Different people have different reactions, and obviously the site means a lot to a lot of people. I drove through Manhattan a couple of weeks after it had happened and I smelled the still-smoldering wreckage and saw the streets half-empty but with police cars everywhere watching the traffic... That was much worse than seeing a pristine construction site, you know?