That Time of Year Again--Sixth Anniversary of WTC Attack

[bqephoto]

I saw The Trade Center go up from Brooklyn Tech from 1966-70. My cousin worked in the Custom House in Building 6 and we used to hook up and drink by the Water Ball or in the Bar in the Concourse (the one that had the "under construction" motif) or across the street at the Plaza in Bankers Trust Plaza (we called it the "Promenade"!). Remember the Big Kitchen? People did drink more in those days!! Most of the time I had the trusty Nikon F2. Here are some photos from that time. For more, visit www.bqephoto.com (http://www.bqephoto.com) Dan
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1418/962856441_1203b3a123_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1159/962738877_94c9d2b5d2_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1126/962673999_492ebcbbe8_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1069/962674071_aba31570d7_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1142/962738833_98f9aeaa51_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1293/962738697_16af7731fd_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1277/962738867_6b272cc022_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1197/962674097_703c423526_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1113/962674085_6e34cd8374_o.jpg
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1434/962673945_c3a35df97b_o.jpg

[kz1000ps]

Beautiful. Thanks for these.

[LeCom]

Great stuff.

[ZippyTheChimp]

September 2, 2007

As 9/11 Nears, How Much Tribute Is Enough?

By N. R. KLEINFIELD

Again it comes, for the sixth time now — 2,191 days after that awful morning — falling for the first time on a Tuesday, the same day of the week.

Again there will be the public tributes, the tightly scripted memorial events, the reflex news coverage, the souvenir peddlers.

Is all of it necessary, at the same decibel level — still?

Each year, murmuring about Sept. 11 fatigue arises, a weariness of reliving a day that everyone wishes had never happened. It began before the first anniversary of the terrorist attack. By now, though, many people feel that the collective commemorations, publicly staged, are excessive and vacant, even annoying.

“I may sound callous, but doesn’t grieving have a shelf life?” said Charlene Correia, 57, a nursing supervisor from Acushnet, Mass. “We’re very sorry and mournful that people died, but there are living people. Let’s wind it down.”

Some people prefer to see things condensed to perhaps a moment of silence that morning and an end to the rituals like the long recitation of the names of the dead at ground zero.

But many others bristle at such talk, especially those who lost relatives on that day.

“The idea of scaling back just seems so offensive to me when you think of the monumental nature of that tragedy,” said Anita LaFond Korsonsky, whose sister Jeanette LaFond-Menichino died in the World Trade Center. “If you’re tired of it, don’t attend it; turn off your TV or leave town. To say six years is enough, it’s not. I don’t know what is enough.”

As the ragged nature of life pushes on, it is natural that the national fixation on an ominous event becomes ruptured and its anniversary starts to wear out. Once-indelible dates no longer even incite curiosity. On Feb. 15, how many turn backward to the sinking of the battleship Maine in 1898?

Few Americans give much thought anymore on Dec. 7 that Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941 (the date to live in infamy). Similar subdued attention is paid to other scarring tragedies: the Kennedy assassination (Nov. 22, 1963), Kent State (May 4, 1970), the Oklahoma City bombing (April 19, 1995).

Generations, of course, turn over. Few are alive anymore who can recall June 15, 1904, when 1,021 people died in the burning of the steamer General Slocum, the deadliest New York City disaster until Sept. 11, 2001. Also, the weight of new wrenching events crowds the national memory. Already since Sept. 11, there have been Katrina and Virginia Tech. And people have their own more circumscribed agonies.

“Commemoration aims to simplify, but life as it’s lived and feelings as they’re felt are never simple,” said John Bodnar, a professor of history at Indiana University.

The Sept. 11 attack may well have an unusually long resonance. It was a watershed moment in the nation’s history. And it is a tragedy named after a date. But the way it is recalled is sure to undergo editing.

For the first time this year at ground zero, the main ceremony will not be at the trade center site. Because of construction, the families will be allowed to pass onto the ground only momentarily, but the ceremony will be shifted to nearby Zuccotti Park, at Broadway and Liberty Street — its moving on somewhat of a metaphor for the feelings of those who favor change.

Sept. 11, of course, remains complicated by its unfinished contours — continuing worry over terrorism, the war in Iraq, a presidential race in which candidates repeatedly invoke the day and its portents. Episodes like the fire at the vacant Deutsche Bank building stir up haunting memories. Books rooted in the attack continue to arrive.

Some people are troubled by what they see as others’ taking advantage of the event. “Six years later, we can see that a lot of people have used 9/11 for some gain,” said Matt Brosseau, 27, of Westfield, N.J. He sees the public tributes as “crassly corporatized and co-opted by false patriots.”

“Me personally, I wouldn’t involve myself in a public commemoration,” he said. “I don’t see the need for an official remembrance from the city or anyone else. In six years, is Minneapolis going to pay for something for the people who died in the bridge collapse?”

David Hendrickson, 56, a computer software trainer who lives in Manhattan, said he began being somewhat irritated by the attention to the commemoration on the third anniversary. “It seems a little much to me to still be talking about this six years later,” he said. “I understand it’s a sad thing. I understand it’s a tragedy. I’ve had my own share of tragedies — my uncle was killed in a tornado. But you get on. I have the sense that some people are living on their victimhood, which I find a little tiring.”

Mental health practitioners see a certain value in the growing fatigue.

“It’s a good sign when people don’t need an anniversary commemoration or demarcation,” said Charles R. Figley, the director of the Florida State University Traumatology Institute. “And it’s not disrespectful to those who died.”

Laurie Pearlman, a clinical psychologist in Massachusetts, said, “Our society has a very low tolerance for grief — it’s exhausting and unrelenting, and we don’t want to hear about it.”

Some of the relatives of those who died that day hold fast to the anniversary and are the most insistent that it not be dismantled.

“I would no sooner tell survivors of the Holocaust how to mourn or how to commemorate their atrocity, so why do others feel they have any right to dictate how family members should feel or memorialize our loved ones on Sept. 11 or any day, for that matter?” said Nancy Nee, whose brother George Cain died in the attack. “Six years feels like the blink of an eye. That number means nothing to me.”

Ms. Korsonsky has not attended any of the ceremonies at ground zero, but she has watched them on television. “I always have a lot of friends who watch it and then call me and tell me they listened for my sister’s name. I can’t tell you how much that means to me. She’s remembered for that one instant. I’m just so afraid that she’ll be forgotten.”

But even family members diverge over what should or should not happen on this anniversary of death.

Lesli Rice, 26, who works in insurance and lost her mother, Eileen Rice, on Sept. 11, thinks something respectful should occur on the anniversary — a tolling of church bells or a moment of silence — but that otherwise the event should be scaled back. “The grieving part has to be more personal,” she said. “The whole city wasn’t affected by my mother’s death.”

A hairdresser’s question told Nikki Stern something about her own sensibilities. Ms. Stern lost her husband, James Potorti, in the collapsing towers. Two years ago, her hairdresser mentioned that she was planning to marry on Sept. 11. It was a Sunday, a day that worked best for all involved. She was grasping for guidance: Was that all right?

Ms. Stern suggested that if it was the most convenient day, fine, but perhaps a portion of the wedding gifts could go to some charity.

“I thought that it was completely cool,” she said. “The last thing my husband would have wanted was for everyone to lie down and die.”

“I still get so many letters from people that even I suffer from 9/11 fatigue to some extent,” she said. “People who don’t want to do anything on 9/11, they shouldn’t be forced to. I never thought I’d say that.”

Part of the problem with remembrances is that people are unsure what is expected of them, said Rachel Yehuda, a professor of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “People wonder, ‘How sad am I supposed to feel? What do you expect me to do, because possibly I’ve gotten over it,’ ” she said. “We have to figure out how to commemorate other people’s grief. It’s a generic question we haven’t answered that goes beyond 9/11.”

An organization called myGoodDeed.org was begun last year to urge people to do something nice for Sept. 11, and, if they want, to post it on its Web site. “We asked what should 9/11 be 20 or 30 years from now, and the big concern is that people will become tired of conventional ceremonies,” said David Paine, president of the organization.

Some 150,000 deeds were posted last year, with more than 40,000 intentions clocked so far this year. One person chose to put quarters in expired parking meters. Another is knitting socks for soldiers. A boy said he would help his mother around the house and not torment his siblings.

Where you were, your proximity to the attack — these things shade your tie to the anniversary. On Sept. 11, Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history and education at New York University, was crossing Washington Square in Greenwich Village and was approached by a panhandler, whom he brushed off. The panhandler then said, “The World Trade Center is on fire.”

Dr. Zimmerman didn’t even look. Not until he got to his office did he find out it was truth. “I now pay more attention to what homeless people say,” he said.

Dr. Zimmerman knows that the N.Y.U. dynamic is now different, the undergraduates who were there during the attack gone, supplanted largely by students who did not see it and whose feelings are thus likely to be more varied.

“I’m quite troubled about all this talk of 9/11 fatigue,” he said. “It’s true that commemorations can take on bombastic and ritualistic forms that trivialize them, but 9/11 is with us every day. Every political issue in our times is refracted through this event. I can understand why some people are sick of hearing about it, but they should get used to it.”

It seems likely that attention to the anniversary will ebb and flow. Events become artificially magnified during 10-year, 25-year, 50-year demarcations.

What might happen on Sept. 11 a hundred years from now? “It’s conceivable that it could be virtually forgotten,” said Dr. Bodnar, the history professor. “Does anyone go out on the streets of New York and commemorate the firing on Fort Sumter?”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[BrooklynRider]

I was walking around dowtown tonight. Looks like they were testing the Tribute in Light. I looked like it was out of the area by the Jewish Heritage Museum in BPC. Only 3 lights were lit, so I guess they are setting them in place.

Also(apropos to nothing), the Woolworth building was lit on the most beautiful rose colored lights.

[Pussy Willow]

RIP

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/nyctowers/2007/wtcgfgfgf.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v109/nyctowers/2007/wtc.jpg

[DarrylStrawberry]

I was walking around dowtown tonight. Looks like they were testing the Tribute in Light. I looked like it was out of the area by the Jewish Heritage Museum in BPC. Only 3 lights were lit, so I guess they are setting them in place.

Also(apropos to nothing), the Woolworth building was lit on the most beautiful rose colored lights.

9/7/07

[BrooklynRider]

Thanks for posting that!

[DarrylStrawberry]

Glad to be of service.

The lighting of the Woolworth was for the Susan G. Komen "city in pink" breast cancer research fund raiser.

[alonzo-ny]

Is there any good reason trump doesnt light up 40 Wall?

[Dan C]

Thanks Dan for posting those superb photos. I can look at those all day.

This Sonic Memorial Project is worth checking out, if you already haven't. It was put together by the same producers who made NPR's excellent 'Lost And Found Sound' series several years back.

My favorite story is 'Radio Row', which gives us a glimps into the colorful world of HiFi that lived there before the WTC was built. Being a vintage HiFi junkie myself I find it fascinating.

http://www.sonicmemorial.org/sonic/public/stories.html

dan c

[TomAuch]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/09/09/nyregion/09downt1_span.jpg

September 9, 2007
Near Ground Zero, a Mixed-Use Revival
By PATRICK McGEEHAN

Six years ago, in the aftershock of the terrorist attack that reduced the World Trade Center to a smoldering pile, local officials wondered whether people would want to live or work around the financial district again.

Today, as new residents fill converted office buildings and jam the raucous block party that erupts nightly on Stone Street, the more likely curiosity about Lower Manhattan is: Where did all these people come from, and how can they afford to live here?

Despite the slow pace of reconstruction at ground zero, the area below Chambers Street is humming with activity, much of it designed to appeal to the well-heeled professionals who are transforming the neighborhood. Already, it has added hundreds of condominium units and hotel rooms, a thriving restaurant row, a private school charging $27,000 a year, a free wireless Internet service, a BMW dealership and an Hermès boutique.

A Tiffany & Company jewelry store is coming soon, and plans are in place for the arrival of grocery stores, the type of business that the area has long lacked.

“There were very few who would have predicted that Lower Manhattan would have rebounded as quickly as it has, despite all of the false starts and delays and emotional overlays,” said Carl Weisbrod, president of Trinity Real Estate and former president of the Alliance for Downtown New York. “There were few people who were quite that optimistic.”

The rebound is a testament to the healing power of billions of dollars in government aid, like the federal Liberty Bond program, which provided more than $6 billion in tax-exempt financing for reconstruction downtown, as well as various rent and wage subsidies from redevelopment agencies.

Optimism abounds now among developers and merchants, who are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into real estate along the narrow streets of Lower Manhattan. They are counting on the district, in its next incarnation, to be not just a collection of office towers and trading floors, but also a self-sustaining residential neighborhood that will appeal to families.

Even accounting for the exodus of residents immediately after 9/11, the population of Lower Manhattan has increased by more than 10,000 in the last six years, according to census data. To accommodate new residents, more than 6,000 apartments have been created in the last four years, through conversions or construction, and an additional 5,000 are planned, according to the Downtown Alliance.

Office space, now in short supply, is renting for more than it did before 9/11. Over the next several years, around 14 million square feet of commercial space is scheduled to be built, replacing the offices and stores destroyed on 9/11, according to data compiled by Cushman & Wakefield, a large real estate brokerage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/nyregion/09downtown.html?pagewanted=1&ref=nyregion

[lofter1]

Looking south from Broadway in Soho, six years ago ...

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p242/Lofter1/WTC/010911_BroadwayPrince_01b.jpg

And six years from now ...

http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p242/Lofter1/WTC/WTCSITE_Rendering0709_01e.jpg

***

[TomAuch]

Wow! that is one hell of a contrast. And I can't believe that it's been six years since 9/11. Six years in which, you, me, and many others on this site have spent following the rebuilding. I'm glad that we're finally seeing real progress for a change.

[Jasonik]

Live feed video of 9/11 truth protesters at WTC site (http://www.justin.tv/wearechange)

[Scraperfannyc]

The true spirit of the American People and NYC is being what we want, and living the way we want, and to succeed at being the best. This is represented by the fact that the most exciting development project in NYC is occuring right here at ground zero in spite of being attacked at this location. This is a development more bold than anything else occuring at any other part of NYC, and not even the harshest nimbys voiced anything against it.

And let the 1776 foot height be the official height, because I want roof heigts to break 1400 feet in the near future.

[millertime83]

Never forget:

http://www.vimeo.com/300236

[brianac]

Never forget:

http://www.vimeo.com/300236

I have so many films about 9/11. They all make me cry, including this one.

[alonzo-ny]

I truely think this is the most exciting development in the world right now, dubai can have its burj and its disgustingly huge urban disaster. We get a beautiful calatrava train station, a foster and rogers masterpieces, a decent 1wtc and 4 wtc and above average 7wtc.

[Bob]

...and two voids where there ought to be 111 story buildings.