How do I get to Ground Zero?

I'm one of those native New Yorkers who likes to disprove the myth that we're all rude assholes. I mean, I'm a total rude asshole, especially if you are walking too slowly on the sidewalk ahead of me, or, god forbid, stopping suddenly to look at something. I will not only run you right over, I will mutter something so obscene you will stop and reconsider your various orifices -- Is that even physically possible?

But if you pull over to the side of the sidewalk, and pull out a map, I will be your best friend. For one, I want you to get where you're going quickly and easily so you don't stop suddenly in front of one of my fellow New Yorkers. I also enjoy showing off my wizardly knowledge of my hometown. I want you to go home and remember me -- "Remember that nice lady who stopped and asked us if we needed help?" "Yep. She sure was cute, and physically fit. And her knowledge of New York was unparalleled!"

So this morning, I see three fannypacked Midwesterners making confused round vowels over a map of the city, and I pull up like CHiPs to the rescue. "Do you ladies need some directions?"

And they give me that weird look, like I might demand a dollar from them if they engage me, but really I look normal enough, and I'm totally sincere. I want to help them. They sense this, and give in.

"Oh, thanks so much. Can you tell us how to get to the World Trade Center?"

Uh, yeah. You just go back in time a few years, and it's right there by the A train.

Why the fuck does everyone want to go to the World Trade Center? Do they know there's nothing there anymore? I always want to tell them, "You know they patched up the smoking pit full of the charred human remains of innocent people who died terrified, just so you're not disappointed when you get there." Or, "The view's much better from the Empire State these days." I mean, what the fuck are they looking for? I don't go walking up to you in your hometown, going, "So where was that car accident that killed all those highschoolers? I really want to go there and stare at the place they died!"

Let me tell you something: Ground Zero is not yours. Were you here that day, that week? Did you see the smoke? Did you smell that smell? Did you walk around and see the posters, the desperate pleas for loved ones who'd never be seen again? I walked from the memorial in Union Square, past cops who checked my ID, into my building every day to see my downstairs neighbor's face on a flyer: Avnish Patel, MISSING, never coming back. The picture stayed up for a month.

They should rethink the memorial down there. They should make it a high diving board over a fiery pit -- you could stand there and feel what the dead felt. Or you could go through a shower that dumped white ash on you, covered you with a viscous coat of ionized metal, fuel, flesh. You could walk around a maze full of people who look like zombies, everyone grieving at once; you could wait with them on long, sad lines to register to volunteer, to do something.

"Oh, go one block that way to Union Square, then take the 4 to Wall Street, and go west. And don't forget to check out Century Twenty-One while you're down there. Super cheap. Great shoes!"

Their eyes light up. Human tragedy, and shoes? "Oh, thanks so much!"

Comments

[glowlita]

eek. talk about spectacle.
in fairness i can think of valid reasons for people to go...out of town family of victims, for instance...but their eyes likely wouldn't lite-brite at the mention of footwear.

[girlbomb]

Oh, I understand wanting to see it too. I was just cranky when I posted this. I certainly don't "own" Sept. 11 or "Ground Zero" more than anyone else. I just wonder, if everybody's so fascinated by tragedy, why don't more people want to go to New Orleans?

[Kathy Kelly]

The academic term for this is thanatourism. Vacation itineraries are full of places where people died. Cemetaries, battlefields, prisons, churches, etc. People do it for various reasons: pilgramage, morbid curiosity, remembrance, empathy, validation, self-discovery, etc.

I learned this word after my husband did research on the sleepy Greek island we visited this summer. I thought the ruins were from neglect. He went in search of the facts and found out Nazi bombs made the ruins.

You breathed 9/11, I watched it. Us Midwesterners saw it live on TV. It pre-empted Oprah.

What we should be angry at is our government's response. How are we the best country and society ever and our response is anger, ignorance, and torture? Be angry because we aren't honoring the dead with choosing peace over war.

[glowlita]

no no, of course i didn't mean to imply that you're claiming to own it. i know whatcha meant. totally understandable.
i believe i heard, though, that over half a million people had gone to n.o. to help out...the tourist set won't show up till it's nicey nice redone i imagine.

[satia]

I was with Joe in the bookstore the other day and there was a graphic novel or some such about . . .

Anyway, I started to open it and my hand just froze. "It's too soon," I said. Joe didn't say anything. He knows when it is best to just let me have silence.

I wasn't even there and I am still affected. I don't understand why anyone would want to visit the location. Then again, I went to where they found my friend's body, or as close to the place as I could go because they still have police tape, etc., marking off the area. I sat far enough away not to attract attention from the media who were still there. Sat and tried to call anyone who would just let me talk to them. I needed some human connection.

Nobody answered their phone.

Maybe that is all it is . . . a need to connect with something. Only connect, as Forster suggested. I don't know. I could be wrong. I probably am.

I love your honesty.

[Kyria]

Yeah, I never quite got how people decided to co-opt the pain of these particular strangers, yet choose to completely ignore, say, the millions of Darfurian refugees. it's certainly not numerical. More people have been slashed in Darfur than died in 9/11, but no one is going *there* to take photos and sniffle, "Oh, how could anyone do something like this?" One stranger's tragic death is as good as anothers, right? Right? Or... apparently not, you know, if you're African.

But nothing has ever summed it up better than this:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28148

[KellieB.]

My God, can't midwesterners find some sommon sense in the world! Every time I see pics of the World Trade Center going down I cry my ass off remembering all those poor people who did and didn't survive.

[Melissa]

Two things:

1. Most New Yorkers just LOVE to give directions. Why are we like that? I, too, pride myself on knowing and providing the absolute best routes around the city.

and

2. Did I ever tell you about the time I got hailed by some rich people in fur coats two winters ago down by Ground Zero? It was icy out and there were five of them and I told them I couldn't legally and safely put them all in my cab (the passenger limit is four, and I won't break that rule when there's ice on the streets 'cause it's too hard to stop with that much weight). So these people, who were "doing Ground Zero" as part of their vacation itinerary, actually yelled and cursed at me for refusing to take them back up to the Plaza Hotel, saying, "Well, YOU'RE just a cab driver!" 'Cause apparently that makes me some low-life piece of shit.

So much for fucking empathy. Seems like certain tourists like New Yorkers dead better than alive.

[Siobhan]

Maybe we weren't on the ground when it happened, but we lost people we knew, too. And it had a hell of an impact on all of us. I stopped at the Pentagon and looked at where the plane crashed. Why? Not for morbid curiosity, but to remind myself why I have served in the armed forces for 13 years and will continue to do so. And also to honor those who died there. A piece of all of us died that day, no matter where we were on the planet.

[Anne E]

Girlbomb: I, for one want to go to New Orleans.

And if I ever make it to Poland, I'll be checking out some grim stuff there too.

I guess I'm one of those kind of tourists.

Seeing the place makes it real for me. Seeing it on TV is too much like a movie. Too easy to turn it off.

But the shoes thing? Freaky.

My brother visited in December '01 in order to see the site. We spent a whole afternoon there, walking around, smelling, remembering.

NY Historical Society is putting on a 9/11 exhibition, with that sealed room from the jeans store that was across the street. You know the one, with the ash-covered merchandise?

Why do we cling onto trauma? What does it teach us?

Satia:
Was that graphic novel the Art Spiegelman one? If so, that guy was there. I think he had to draw that book the way you had to visit the police-tape site.

[Clio Bluestocking]

I will admit to having been one of those types of thanotourists. In 2000, I had spent a summer at an internship in New York (and just loved it when people asked for directions from me, as if I actually looked like I knew where I was going). Of course, I saw all of the touristy things including the twin towers.

A year later, when I saw the planes hit the towers, watching a tiny t.v., with bad reception, and then again and again and again for months afterward, the event seemed unreal. I had seen the place. Now, it was not there, and all of those people were gone. How does a simple, human mind wrap itself around that? The t.v. screen does odd things to your sense of reality.

About six months after 9/11, I went on a second trip to New York. Going to Ground Zero seemed kind of sick and disrespectful. Still, I was drawn downtown in that direction, so I admitted that I was a sick freak and went.

Visiting Ground Zero made the event profoundly, grimly real, not something that I knew abstractly. Real. Devastating. All of those people gone. I wanted to grab someone, anyone, and cry.

Instead of mourning, I saw people selling pictures of the event. I saw tourists getting their own pictures taken, with those big, goofy, dumb, “I’m on vacation and loving it!” smiles on their faces, with the site in the background as if it were the Statue of Liberty. I wanted to punch them all. I wanted to grab their pictures and cameras and shreik at them “this is NOT Disneyland, you assholes! This is a grave! A gigantic, mass grave!”

There are reasons to visit places of tragedy, but not as a tourist. People should go with respect, to remember what happened, and to know it as real (unless, of course, you lived through it, then it is far too real for you). I hope those two women had some epiphany, some understanding, and didn't go away saying "oh, look, a sale on shoes!"

Sorry to make the post so long (even with editing). Edit more, if you must.

Oh, and p.s.: I'm in the middle of _Girlbomb_ and can't stop reading.

[girlbomb]

Siobhan, thanks for your comment. Thank everybody else, too. I tried to reply by email, but it bounced back. As noted above, I was in a shitty mood when I wrote the post, and should not have tried to tell anybody that they didn't have a right to visit a memorial site that might mean a tremendous amount to them personally. I'd edit the thing, but I'd rather let my mistake stand, so everyone can see it.

I totally understand the impulse to honor the victims of a tragedy by visiting the site where they died. I just wish the tourists who visit the WTC site would be a little more sensitive to those of us for whom it is, as they say, "too soon!"

And I always send people to Century 21 when giving them directions to WTC. I feel like they're bound to be disappointed, if not downright depressed, and why not give them something nice to ameliorate that? Plus, come on, the place is a supah-bawgain.

(Hi again, Clio! Glad you're liking the book. I'm going to have to stop in and say hi to you in person sometime.)

[Bill Scurry]

Like Tim Robbins likes to remind us, G.W.'s big advice to the mourning nation post-tragedy was, in so many words, "go shopping."

[Bill Scurry]

To keep our economy alive, of course... I need new loafers, anyway.

[Siobhan]

You are absolutely right that the WTC should not be seen as a tourist attraction. I also wanted to tell you how much I liked your book -- and have enjoyed your blog.
Siobhan

[verismo]

Thank you. You expressed the way I feel about tourism at WTC so much better than I could. I forced myself to go to Canal St. and TriBeca when they were having those "Support the Neighborhood Vendors" weekends and was horrified to see people taking pictures and other touristy things.

So I did start screaming at them. And they had no idea why I was yelling things like "open grave" and "coming to your funeral with a fucking camera" as my friend yanked me back uptown.

Every time this subject comes up, I get some mild-mannered response; like "everyone grieves in their own way" or "people feel a connection to this tragedy." But what are they going to do with the pictures? Print them out and stick 'em on the 'fridge?

[Naomi]

I think you're being too harsh. People go to visit the places where things happened which affected them -- whether the effect was direct or indirect, happy or painful. People who want to see the site where the World Trade Center used to stand were hurt by its destruction, even if they weren't physically present when it happened. I plan to go pay my respects at Auchwitz if I'm ever in the area, and I hope you won't be as cranky at me for doing so.

[Kyria]

Janice, glad you're leaving the post up, but you didn't make a mistake.

[girlbomb]

Ach, Naomi, I can only acknowledge my harshness a third time, and ask everyone's forebearance with my hot temper, which I endeavor to manage in public.

And Kyria, maybe "mistake" was the wrong word. "Rush to judgment," perhaps?

[Naomi]

Janice: I posted the comment before seeing the rest of them -- meaning that I, too, rushed to judgment, if not ahead of my compassion then at least ahead of my technology.

[Steve]

I totally get your reaction - i feel the same way when i get calls and emails from people asking me for 'b roll' of 9/11 (you know, it's just footage). Worse yet, when people call and ask for video of 'jumpers'.

I do feel like i have a right to hold the feelings of 9/11 close, but then again - it's hard to judge what motives or feelings others have.

for example, when we posted clips on Google video, millions of people went to look at them. Why? what are they looking for? Truth?

But we don't get to ask why people are watching the clips - we just let them and hope it serves some postive purpose.

http://sept11.magnifynetworks.com/item/Q313K3M316GT2V0G

Our answer was to put the work we did out there for everyone, for free.

Not sure why. Just tyring to find some energy other than anger.

If people are using 9/11 to justify evil political actions- then they're going to do that anyway.

[girlbomb]

Wait...there's energy besides anger?

When...when did they invent that?

Seriously, Steve, your Sept. 11 documentary was great. And then there's Oliver Stone's movie. There's a difference, you know?

[amy]

Girlbomb, when they aired the Concert for New York in 01, and they did they ads that showed people from all over the country declaring, I am a New Yorker, and I mean fat and thin and male and female and rich poor urban rural...were you pissed off about it? I feel kind of like the country really reached out to New Yorkers, and in return, now, we're getting this attitude about how we don't get it or we shouldn't visit the site or whatever. I get very frustrated on message boards where New Yorkers get pissy about the way others react/pay homage to 9-11. Personally, my first visit to NYC after 9-11, I felt it very important to visit the site and acknowledge it. I went to the bar at the top for one of my first cocktails in the early 80s, possibly when you were at the shelter or hanging out with your friends...My husband worked there, at least did business there a lot. When we tried to find it, it was so different and weird and our landmarks were off. I hate to think we were somehow rude or bumpkinish, but I also kind of think screw you if you think we were, ya know?

[girlbomb]

Amy, apparently I can not apologize enough for offending people -- I've done it three times, but I don't think I can muster a fourth. I don't know what to say anymore.

The truth is, every tragedy is a unique experience for those who witnessed it first-hand. Which doesn't negate the experience of others who deeply feel its effects. But as horrified and saddened as I was by what happened in New Orleans last summer, no way was I affected as personally as the actual residents of the city were. And I'm horrified and saddened by the war in Iraq, but my horror and sadness are not comparable to those of the Iraqis and soldiers who are present for it. Same for the tsunami. It's just not the same unless you were there. People detatched from the situation were affected, but not in the same physical, visceral way -- they didn't breathe that horrible air, they weren't bodily immersed in the communal grief. I have no idea what Thailand or Sri Lanka was like after the tsunami from the news footage -- what it smelled like, the enormity of the loss. I feel terrible sadness at the footage, but I can't know what the residents experienced. And if I went to Sri Lanka, you can bet I'd tread very carefully around the subject.

Those "I'm a New Yorker" commercials were wrong. I can certainly empathize and feel for people who have been first-hand witnesses to large-scale disaster; I can care and reach out and write checks with the best of 'em. But I'm not an Iraqi, nor am I a New Orleansean. I'm also not African-American, differently-abled, or dying of cancer. I can be affected by racism, or disease, but I don't know what it's like from the inside.

I AM a New Yorker, and I am frankly sick of rude bumpkins. I'm unfailingly polite and helpful to them -- I've certainly never told anyone "screw you," not even with my attitude -- but I have a right to express my frustration with what I perceive as some people's shallowness or disrespect. I've backed off the harshness of my original post, but my underlying complaint remains. For many people who were here when it happened, it's still too soon. Too soon for the "I went to Ground Zero" t-shirts, too soon for the cheesy movies, and too soon for SOME -- not all, but SOME -- people to act like it's just another stop on the tour bus.

[amy]

I don't think you have to apologize; I think it's an interesting conversation and I'm just trying to bring to it my perspective. I'm a native Midwesterner, I live across the country from you now. I will admit to being sensitive to comments that disparage Midwesterners because they are so flipping snobby and assume so much. And yet in spite of my non-New Yorker status, I knew people who died in those towers. My friends knew people on the planes, got those calls. It's a mistake to think you had to breathe the air to be part of the communal grief. I wouldn't claim to know what it was like to be there, but being far away and helpless and having your country under attack and people unaccounted for, that was horrible. I think it's kind of interesting you hated those commercials. They were used as fund-raising ads, and it worked. Lots of money went to the victims' families. And that's a whole other conversation, how much money went to families and how they spent it, and you're right, it does draw a comparison to where we are with Katrina relief. Is it because people wanted to give to New Yorkers because the victims were heros and white businessmen, and the Katrina victims are poor and black?