Autumn in New York
Happy Patriot's Day, everyone. Or whatever the hell we're supposed to call it. My feeling is that if you're going to make such a big freaking deal out of it, can we at least have the day off?
It's really nice out today (although not, as we say, "September 11th nice," because as I'm sure you know, that day 5 years ago was really, really nice) and I'd like to be anywhere but here at my desk. Especially because the late week work blitz means I'm curiously without anything to do right now. So I thought I'd talk a little about the thing that happened at that place downtown a while ago.
I've been having a little email back and forth with a friend for the last couple of days about this, and it's very interesting how people choose to approach these things. This was sparked by an article in the Times about the invisible dividing line between New Yorkers that were here and those that have moved here since. I think that you could have no end of dividing lines, all based on any number of measurements of proximity, and therefore it is somewhat moot. I am lucky in that the bulk of the impact for me was morphological and psychological and not personal. Which is to say that I was afforded a sort of distance, while still being very close. It sees to me that there is a strange sort of nostalgia or one-upmanship that we go through with this - who was deeper in the shit, you know? And so to a certain extent I refuse to play that, but of course get a couple of drinks in there and we all do because we all want to be validated.
And so. I've lived here most of my life, and I'm about the same age as those buildings were. There is a kind of companionship I feel with them, especially when I see pictures of the early days. We grew up in the City in the 70s, we did. Later, I went to work right by them for a few years (the last ones, as it turned out.) Every time I would walk past (which was a couple of times a day) it made me feel a little like I was in some movie. "In the shadow of the World Trade Center..." I would think, as the first line. Possibly written across the screen in 12 pt. Courier, or maybe in voiceover. That's how my movie would start. I often used the subway station on mornings when I was late. I would figure that if I was late anyway, might as well make it worth it and would go to the Krispy Kreme in the Trade Center and get a dozen glazed for my team. And we'd go to the mall all the time to go shopping, at the Gap, or the Banana, not to mention the J. Crew or the pretzel place (was it a Pretzel Time?) and the Borders. And in a way this is my way of honoring it still - the slow walk in my mind through the mall, beginning with the Sam Goody on the right and the Structure/Express situation on the left. Through that hallway, towards the center and the PATH station. I try to keep those pictures in my mind the way I try to keep the sense memory of what it felt like to fall asleep on my father's shoulder.
They were completely quotidian, but extraordinary too. They were very, very tall. And that may well have been their only purpose. Their tallness and boxiness meant to me, who likes excess in my architecture, a kind of why-the-fuck-notness that I really loved. And there was the boy that I kissed on a bench, and I can see the towers reflected in the dark glass of the Millennium Hilton across the street, and I can remember the feeling of exhilaration from the first delicious moments of discovering a new person, the two of us all alone in the twinkling night.
So I see that I divide my memories into what was, what they meant to me, and then what happened, and what the effects of that were. And the effects were predictable. Formerly good relationships strained because no one knew how the hell to act. Desperate attempts to reconnect with anyone, everyone (which is a euphemism for calling up old boyfriends). And the certain knowledge that nothing is as solid as it seems. In the end, I think that was the damage that was done to me - the belief that you cannot rely on anything, not really.
And so the day comes around again and the pictures are on TV, and the damn president shows up (and don't believe the hype - we hated him then and we hated his pathetic bullhorn grandstanding and we hate him now and it is an unbroken line of animosity) and the papers bust out the big type. And I just want people to remember that this is the greatest city in the world. This city is so big and so beautiful, a day like today with the crisp sun and Lever House so perfectly clean against the sky and the steady hum of millions, this city is life itself to me. And all I want, if I can't go back to that bench (and I can't. An even if I could?) is to feel the vibrations of city burst back into that lost, dead parking lot they call the pit. Screw your memorials and your footprints and your security perimeters and just give us a city. Let's have buildings that inspire and then go about living life.
But.
I may yet go down tonight and say hello, or goodbye, again. Because we're all, still, just a little bit broken.
It's really nice out today (although not, as we say, "September 11th nice," because as I'm sure you know, that day 5 years ago was really, really nice) and I'd like to be anywhere but here at my desk. Especially because the late week work blitz means I'm curiously without anything to do right now. So I thought I'd talk a little about the thing that happened at that place downtown a while ago.
I've been having a little email back and forth with a friend for the last couple of days about this, and it's very interesting how people choose to approach these things. This was sparked by an article in the Times about the invisible dividing line between New Yorkers that were here and those that have moved here since. I think that you could have no end of dividing lines, all based on any number of measurements of proximity, and therefore it is somewhat moot. I am lucky in that the bulk of the impact for me was morphological and psychological and not personal. Which is to say that I was afforded a sort of distance, while still being very close. It sees to me that there is a strange sort of nostalgia or one-upmanship that we go through with this - who was deeper in the shit, you know? And so to a certain extent I refuse to play that, but of course get a couple of drinks in there and we all do because we all want to be validated.
And so. I've lived here most of my life, and I'm about the same age as those buildings were. There is a kind of companionship I feel with them, especially when I see pictures of the early days. We grew up in the City in the 70s, we did. Later, I went to work right by them for a few years (the last ones, as it turned out.) Every time I would walk past (which was a couple of times a day) it made me feel a little like I was in some movie. "In the shadow of the World Trade Center..." I would think, as the first line. Possibly written across the screen in 12 pt. Courier, or maybe in voiceover. That's how my movie would start. I often used the subway station on mornings when I was late. I would figure that if I was late anyway, might as well make it worth it and would go to the Krispy Kreme in the Trade Center and get a dozen glazed for my team. And we'd go to the mall all the time to go shopping, at the Gap, or the Banana, not to mention the J. Crew or the pretzel place (was it a Pretzel Time?) and the Borders. And in a way this is my way of honoring it still - the slow walk in my mind through the mall, beginning with the Sam Goody on the right and the Structure/Express situation on the left. Through that hallway, towards the center and the PATH station. I try to keep those pictures in my mind the way I try to keep the sense memory of what it felt like to fall asleep on my father's shoulder.
They were completely quotidian, but extraordinary too. They were very, very tall. And that may well have been their only purpose. Their tallness and boxiness meant to me, who likes excess in my architecture, a kind of why-the-fuck-notness that I really loved. And there was the boy that I kissed on a bench, and I can see the towers reflected in the dark glass of the Millennium Hilton across the street, and I can remember the feeling of exhilaration from the first delicious moments of discovering a new person, the two of us all alone in the twinkling night.
So I see that I divide my memories into what was, what they meant to me, and then what happened, and what the effects of that were. And the effects were predictable. Formerly good relationships strained because no one knew how the hell to act. Desperate attempts to reconnect with anyone, everyone (which is a euphemism for calling up old boyfriends). And the certain knowledge that nothing is as solid as it seems. In the end, I think that was the damage that was done to me - the belief that you cannot rely on anything, not really.
And so the day comes around again and the pictures are on TV, and the damn president shows up (and don't believe the hype - we hated him then and we hated his pathetic bullhorn grandstanding and we hate him now and it is an unbroken line of animosity) and the papers bust out the big type. And I just want people to remember that this is the greatest city in the world. This city is so big and so beautiful, a day like today with the crisp sun and Lever House so perfectly clean against the sky and the steady hum of millions, this city is life itself to me. And all I want, if I can't go back to that bench (and I can't. An even if I could?) is to feel the vibrations of city burst back into that lost, dead parking lot they call the pit. Screw your memorials and your footprints and your security perimeters and just give us a city. Let's have buildings that inspire and then go about living life.
But.
I may yet go down tonight and say hello, or goodbye, again. Because we're all, still, just a little bit broken.
posted by chiniqua at 12:21 PM
1 Comments:
I was just idly looking for some couch-informed comment, and I found the only anniversary essay so far about the event-that-I-don't -talk-about-to-anyone that I want everyone to read.
It feels exactly right. And I have stopped expecting to feel any recognition of the city when I read articles about what it all means; that reality has been an inconvenient detail from the first moment that America declared it was never going to forget New York.
But I can't tell anyone, because then I would have to tak about it.
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