Walking in NYC

They were waiting for the Manhattan bound F train at 4th Avenue. Father and son. The father put his hand in the small of the back of the boy and gently pushed him forward as they boarded. Arab descent. The father was dressed in a blue oxford cloth button down shirt and khaki trousers. Neatly-trimmed beard. Middle-aged, Ivy League. The son in typical teenage attire-- Old Navy T-shirt and jeans. The father was serious but did not appear to be anxious. The son looked around as if he were not used to riding the subway. The train was headed for the Smith and 9th St. station-- the highest of all the elevated stations in the entire subway system. This station has a panoramic view of brownstone Brooklyn, lower Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty and the harbor even. It is often used by low budget film makers for scenes that involve the subway as well as requiring a money shot of the skyline. It was apparent that the volume of smoke coming from the former site of the World Trade Center was somewhat diminished today. Another glorious day in September. Fall in the air. Brilliant blue skies. Only a single cloud.

Last night driving back into the city just before midnight after taking Alexandra back to Bard, the cloud appeared to be even more ghastly than it did during the daytime-- illumined by klieg lights for the benefit of the rescuers while the surrounding buildings remained mostly dark.

Another Arab looking fellow was under arrest in the Jay St. subway station in downtown Brooklyn where I had gotten off. He was surrounded by several cops in uniform and in plain clothes. The situation was under control. The cops seemed almost jovial. The guy appeared to be calm. I had to drop off an information form for the directory for Paulís school which he had forgotten to take with him when he left that morning. His school is on Pearl Street on a block that receives very little direct sunlight and terminates at one side of the new Brooklyn Mariott Hotel. The Mariott Corporation is minus one hotel in New York City. The Marriott World Trade Center having been situated right between the Twin Towers, now lies buried at the very bottom of the pile of the hundreds of thousands of tons of debris. I had intended to walk over to Brooklyn Heights to take in the view from the promenade and have a look at the various makeshift candle-lit shrines that are to be found in nearly every public space in the city. There had been an interfaith unity march the night before from Atlantic Avenue-- the heart of Arab Brooklyn-- that was supposed to have ended up there. But seeing the signs for the Brooklyn Bridge and having read in the paper that it was closed to all but pedestrian traffic proved irresistible. So I undertook the reverse of the journey Steve and I had made last July during his visit and which so many others had made last week when fleeing the falling towers.

Two cops were standing guard on the street to prevent any cars, except for police or emergency vehicles onto the roadway leading to the bridge. But the walkway was doing a brisk business. Without the normal whining sound the cars make when traveling over the bridge to drown it out, the noise of the engines of the New York Waterway boat traversing the East River below was quite audible. It sounded something like a distant and incessant drumbeat. Incidental music to set the scene in an action film. High seriousness. Danger is near. I kept looking to my right through webbed cables of the bridge supports towards the Empire State Building, formerly and once again the cityís signature skyscraper. To the left in the distance was the Statue of Liberty whose torch was lit in the daytime. The smoke from the Trade Center loomed from behind 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, now the tallest structure in the financial district.

By the time I arrived on the Manhattan side of the bridge the wind had shifted. The smoke and the acrid smell were drifting due east of the site and pervading the spaces between the buildings which line the narrow streets of lower Manhattan. But people were moving briskly about. It was Monday. They had been told to go back to work. The city was back in business. Police barricades surrounded City Hall Park. Many of the police officers as well as the National Guardsmen in camouflage uniforms wore face masks that were very official-issue and WWI-looking. Ordinary citizens had to make due with simple dust masks of the kind that are sold in hardware stores. Although the smoke and the dust were everywhere, they didnít bother me too much and I never felt short of breath or uncomfortable. Awnings over most store fronts were filthy. Of the stores that were open here and there, the proprietors were attempting to hose the awnings off, clean the windows, or wash down sidewalks. I walked south on Broad Street past Federal Hall and the New York Stock Exchange and took some pictures of the enormous flag hanging there. I was in a hurry and there was so much activity about that I didnít bother to examine the pockmarks still to be found in the nearby buildings that withstood the 1920 Wall Street bombing by anarchists which had killed thirty people among the noontime crowds. A horse-drawn cart loaded with dynamite was the delivery method on that particular September day. When I reached Beaver Street, the air cleared suddenly. Outside the New York Telecom Exchange at 75 Broad Street two women were smoking cigarettes. The building next door-- the International Telephone Building-- housed the Barclay Rex Tobacconist. ìIn business since 1910,î according to a sign in the window. I kept going and somehow I soon found myself walking around in Battery Park. There were police barricades all around but few police. Several military-looking vehicles were parked on the wide sidewalks on the north side of the park. I continued past Castle Clinton and was right by the water and the ferry slips where the Liberty and Ellis Island excursions boats arrive and depart. A U.S. Coast Guard ship lay anchored in the harbor flanked by the Statue of Liberty on the left and the red turreted buildings of Ellis Island on the right. Emerging from the park I had a direct view up West St. of the cranes at work on the pile of Trade Center rubble. A procession of trucks hauling away pieces of steel and shards of glass was coming towards me but then turned to the right to thread their way through the narrow streets and eventually head for Staten Island. According to the papers there are no large chunks of concrete at the scene to be removed. Most of the concrete in the fallen structures was pulverized and this is what largely constitutes, along with the smoke from the fires that still smolder days later, the dirty white cloud that hovers above everything.

I was getting hungry as I headed next towards the Staten Island Ferry Terminal and looked for some place to eat. I hadnít ridden the ferry in years. No cars were presently allowed on the ferry boats and no fares were being collected. For no particular reason I began hurrying along with the small crowd I now found myself in as the large doors to one of the terminal berths were being closed. A boat was about to leave. I wanted to be on it. I got onboard at the lowest of three levels. I went up one level and stood at the rear of the boat along with several others, including a 3-man TV crew. One fellow was doing all the talking and there was a cameraman and a sound guy holding a long microphone. The sound guy was a heavy set black man. The other two members of the crew looked very California with their blonde surferís pompadours. Everyone gazed at the picture postcard shot of lower Manhattan on a brilliant day as the ferry pulled away. Every so often the TV guy talked. He kept rehearsing and repeating his bit about this altered view of the New York City skyline without the Twin Towers. His voice was the only thing that intruded on the dream-like state induced by the sound of the boatís engine and the churning waters and the column of smoke hovering behind the other buildings where the World Trade Center used to stand. Everyone just kept staring back at the city. The TV camera turned at one point towards the Statue of Liberty which was now on our left. And there was Brooklyn on the right. I recognized the two contiguous verdant hills upon which Greenwood Cemetery and Sunset Park are situated.

Suddenly we were slowing down for the arrival at the ferry berth at St. George Terminal on the Staten Island side. I was still hungry and also remembered that the new ballpark for the Yankees farm team was nearby. I looked around and then saw to the south the light standards that surround the small stadium. After we docked I walked over to it, only a couple hundred yards away, and read the sign for the ìRichmond County Bank Ballpark at St. Georgeî. Across the street was a little store--Johnís MiniMarket-- at the end of a single-story shopping strip. The land rises quickly here such that even crossing the street results in a change of elevation. Inside the store there was a nice view of the baseball park and the harbor beyond the park. Last Tuesday morning, looking out the windows, everyone in this store would have seen the towers burning in the distance. A woman in her late 30ís with dark hair was working behind the deli counter. I asked for a turkey sandwich and went off to get a Coke out of the refrigerator case. I noticed that the guy behind the cash register and two others who were stocking shelves were Arabs. There was a single copy of Newsweek with the exploding south tower on the cover sitting on top of a pile of National Observers in a low magazine display stand in front of the deli counter. I asked the woman after she had made the sandwich for a pickle. I also wanted to ask what country she was from but didnít. She took an enormous pickle out of the pickle jar and first sliced off the ends before cutting it into quarters. Her own technique. Iíd never seen this before. Maybe thatís the way they typically slice pickles where she comes from. She asked me if the pickle was cut the way I wanted it and I told her it was ìperfectî. The cameraman from the TV crew entered the store. He had come in not to get something to eat but only to purchase two packs of Camel Filters. I paid the Arab guy at the cash register only $3.75 for the sandwich, the pickle, and a 20 oz. Coke. In Brooklyn I would have had to pay Pierre, the Lebanese owner of the little store around the corner from my house, $6.00 for the same thing. And it would have probably been yet another $2.00 in Manhattan.

I took my food down to the waterís edge just beyond the outfield fence of the baseball park. There were signs all around saying to beware of baseballs flying out of the stadium. But not now. No ballgame today. I sat on a bench on the newly built promenade and ate lunch, listening to the water lapping on the rocks below me, and looking back once more at the city and over towards Brooklyn. I was thinking about the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building and how they are usually considered by the residents of New York City to be touristsí gewgaws, spawning a low-grade market for shoddy miniature replicas, cheap figurines, and tacky snow globes; their hackneyed, endlessly replicated images mostly suitable for the bottoms of ash trays, the sides of coffee mugs, the fronts of T-shirts. But the sight of themóthe actual statue and building-- now had a reassuring quality about them. At least they were still standing.

After I finished eating I was up and walking around and having a look at the ballpark. It was nice enough, nothing fancy, constructed in WPA retro fashion of brown bricks with a few decorative touches. The grass on the field was a vivid green. The harbor and city views were spectacular enough but the place was without the sense of the whimsical and the sheer joy that fill the ocean air in the vicinity of Keyspan Park at Coney Island. The seats here are also of the same unrelieved blue on every level as the seats in Yankee Stadium. A ferry horn sounded over by the ferry terminal and I headed back that way, my trip to Staten Island almost over. On the return voyage I decided not to stand and gaze again at the skyline. I sat off to one side by an open window in the large seating area on the lower level and got out something to read. I actually nodded off for a bit. A little water-borne fresh air siesta. I woke up when some teenagers were making a lot of noise nearby. Many of the other passengers scattered around the room looked like they were tourists from Europe.

Back in Manhattan and walking again near the Battery I saw a procession of red dump trucks owned by the Mazzocochi Asbestos and Demolition Company. No indication of which borough the business was located in or even if it was located in New York City. Just north of the shrine of Mary Elizabeth Seton, the first native born American saint, is the site of the birthplace of Herman Melville. I knew this from previous trips to this neighborhood over the years particularly when I first came to New York City in the 1970ís. There used to be a plaque with the pertinent information located on the side of the Seamanís Institute Church and Sailorís Residence. But the building I remembered was gone. It hadnít even been a particularly old building either-- made of red brick with a curved facade that paralleled the curve of the street. Could it have been torn down? Indeed it had. I examined a locator map on the sidewalk that showed the Seamanís Institute Church to be further north and east, near the South Street Seaport. That certainly wasnít the place I was looking for. This new structure-- a modern office tower of black steel and glass called 17 Park Place-- was set at an oblique angle from the street and had a small outdoor plaza with benches. Finally, on the wall of another building in the plaza or perhaps just a different section 17 Park Place, I found the plaque. There was even a bust of Melville next to it behind a dirty piece of Lucite. The plaque indicated that this site had formerly been 6 Pearl Street and that Herman Melville had been born here on August 1st, 1819. It is in this vicinity that the opening paragraphs of Moby Dick are set, Melville describing himself and the other ìwater-gazersî congregating on the docks and the Battery to dream of distant oceans and life at sea. Here at Melvilleís birthplace I recalled the poem by Hart Crane in his book White Buildings entitled ìAt Melvilleís Tombî. Iíve never understood the poem in its entirety but I remember reading an explication of the part that reads ìOften beneath the wave.../The dice of drowned menís bones he saw bequeath an embassy. Their numbers as he watched beat upon the dusty shore and were obscured.î The explication of the poem discussed how the word ënumbersí could be referring either to the numbers of waves, or to the numbers inscribed on the dice that are formed by the action of the waves breaking up the bones of the drowned sailors and washing them ashore. The waves were also likened to hands that repeatedly toss the dice upon the shore. All of this saying something about the interaction of fate and chance in the dangerous undertaking of sailing. The dusty shore itself composed of the dried bones of the drowned sailors.

I began walking again up Broad Street and then New Street which runs behind the Stock Exchange. At the police barricades along Broadway clusters of people gathered to look toward the smoking ruins. At Wall Street, Trinity Churchís steeple still looms high. At one time it was the tallest structure in the area. The facade of steam-cleaned Trinity is brown like milk chocolate. When I first came to New York it was coated with black soot like a relic from the Industrial Age, and like all the churches in England and Scotland used to be or maybe ought to be. It was right around here that I noticed several women talking on cell phones while wearing face masks. Must be the latest fashion statement in this weekís New York. And then just before Nassau Street a young guy emerged from the hurrying crowd, came up to me, and asked if I were Jewish. A Lubavitcher-- in his black wide-brimmed hat, black suit, white shirt, and scraggly beard. The Mitzvah Tank must have been parked somewhere nearby but where? There was not supposed to be any unauthorized vehicular traffic below Canal. He asked his question in the usual furtive manner that is their custom. I know these people are basically harmless and Iíve been approached by them many times before. But they could perhaps take some tips from the evangelizers and proselytizers hailing from places like Branson or Tulsa. Smile a lot and approach people in a friendly and engaging manner. Make eye contact. Cultivate a demeanor that exudes warmth and wholesomeness instead of acting in such a way that suggests youíre offering pornography or contraband. I said no, but then I thought the next time Iím asked this Iím going to step back, look my questioner up and down, and use the punchline of an old Rodney Dangerfield joke by replying: ìYeah-- you too?î Either that or something like, ìNo Iím not. Are you?î

I had seen enough. Or almost enough. At Fulton Street and Broadway near the subway entrance the view toward the Trade Center opened up. The edge of the rubble was right there just across the way. The grid-like structure of one of the familiar Trade Center buildings was visible through the dust-- but all bent and broken and attached to nothing. All of the store fronts on the block on this side of the barricades were shuttered. There had been a little Japanese restaurant and noodle somewhere along here called Tokyo Lunch that Judi used to like to eat at when she worked downtown. Maybe itís still here somewhere behind the metal gates and will eventually re-open along with the other businesses.

Another day had passed in New York City. Another week. Still no survivors. Thousands are still missing. Tomorrow will be the eighth day since the planes flew into the towers. Everything has changed. I went downstairs to look for the ìAî train to take me back to Brooklyn.

Walking in New York City