Posted by Adam on September 11, 2001, at 16:00:06
In reply to Re: Got some news » Adam, posted by akc on September 11, 2001, at 14:59:20
You know, my g.f. and I were just talking on the phone, and remembering our last visit to the Big Apple, maybe eight months ago...one of the best parts of that trip was visiting a friend of her's over in Brooklyn Heights who had just had a baby. We went for a stroll on that boardwalk, the one where you can see what seems like all of the Financial District and downtown, Ellis Ilsand, the Statue of Liberty, Staten Island, etc. I have all these pictures, a big panorama of the Manhattan Skyline, and one's eyes are simply pulled with magnetic force to the sight of the Twin Towers, they way they just dwarfed everything.
I've always thought, every time I've seen them or been close to them that, well, this is as high as a mountain. I've gotten good and tired hiking up piles of stone that are shorter than these enormous buildings. And that view from the Heights...how many movies have been shot up there, how many photograps of sweethearts like us standing on the boardwalk with those huge buildings...I mean, that's a New York moment, if there is one...and they're gone. They're not there anymore. I'm going back (I think, anyway) in a little over a month. I know we are going to go to the same spot, and I'm going to take some pictures, and they won't be there.
There is something about the New York mentality that is unique. Constantly perturbed but somehow indefatiguable. Stuff simultaneously horrifies and elicits barely a shrug. I've always thought, as nutty, crowded, dirty, smelly as this place is, it would take Riders of the Apocalypse to alter their schedule or really do much of anything to change their outlook. It's that vast organism of a city, which they somehow have this kind of telepathic connection to...shit happens, life goes on...whattah yah gonnah do, y'know?
More than the loss of life, more than the closing of the markets, more than idea that even here you are not safe from war, it think the thing that is really going to hit them (and me) right where they live is the instantaneous, permanent alteration of the landscape. I think the psychological impact of looking out the window, gazing from the boardwalk, driving on the freeway or over the bridge and not seeing those buildings anymore. That's what will shake even the most jaded from that city, I'm guessing, and bring home the sheer dimension of this tragedy. I'm not saying that all they care about is buildings. I'm saying a chunk of their world has been ripped out faster than a New York Minute, an inescapable, unforgettable void where once stood a towering symbol of the city. It will really, seriously, never be the same.
> I'm glad you are getting some good news. I hope that you will be one of the lucky ones and all of your loved ones will be okay -- well physically ok -- the emotional damage will be around for sometime.
>
poster:Adam
thread:11115
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010909/msgs/11204.html