Looking Ahead

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis Visiting World Trade Center, ten years after 9/11 On the first relatively cool day after the July heat wave this family visited the 9/11 Memorial site, in homage to the 3,000 men women and children who perished in the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. It was a sobering experience, coming as it did, only two days after another psychopathic terrorist's attack on the men, women and children of Aurora, CO, with a booby-trapped sequel, promising to extend the attack to many more. One begins to lose one’s civilized perspective, wishing a painful death to the perpetrators, to partially balance the suffering they handed out to their innocent victims. The WTC is a complex place to visit, and I am providing a step-by-step description to ease your trip, should you choose to make one.We took the #4 Lexington Ave express to Fulton Street, exiting on Broadway, filled with visitors and tourists, many too young and from too far away to have had an actual mind-crushing experience, as felt by us the locals. In our case it was personal; the lights from 2 World Trade Building were the comfortable night light shining in our bedroom window, and its top floor restaurant, Widows on the World, was the place to take visitors for dinner. Walking downhill, west on Fulton, we came to Church Street, with St. Paul's churchyard on the side, the junction offering a full view of the high fenced site, several blocks long. The majestic tapering 1 World Trade Center building was in front, 1776 feet tall, with the #7, remembered as the government site, on its right, and a row of other new structures, # 2, 3 and 4 to the left. So it was explained by one of the wandering sellers of memorial booklets ($19, marked down to $5). There was a big sign on Church Street, marked Path, with an arrow to the right, and we followed the crowd, to the next corner, Vesey Street, turning left. Vesey led us further downhill, along the fence to the PATH entrance and an information booth, with a helpful attendant explaining that we should walk back to Church Street, cross, walk a building or two east, obtain free passes to view the WTC site from another information desk, and proceed on Church Street/Trinity Place, going a few blocks south, to Liberty Street, and the entrance of the locale for the free WTC viewing (there is another, the Tribute WTC Visitor Center indoors on Liberty, with a $10 admission charge.) We did as ordered, and were booked for a free visit to the WTC site, time stamped in 90 minutes. That gave us time for lunch. With no restaurants available, we clambered upstairs, to a pizza parlor (nice room, food and service) and had a leisurely review of events to date. The walkway to Liberty Street was chockful with people and baby strollers, and a control person checked our passes and opened the way for us through several turns on local streets, with several fast food parlors and souvenir stores, to the south side of the re-cast World Trade Center site, leading to the Memorial museum, still under construction. Hundreds of us scheduled free visitors, passes in hand (a security requirement) were fed through a zigzagging access path, which, through the net of the ever-present wire fence, provided a majestic view of the site. The fence was covered with information placards, giving some history and a list of the dignitaries, from Mayor Bloomberg down to local contributors, followed by the honorary leaders in the Memorial fulfillment, several past Presidents, Mayors and Governors. Again, security prevailed, not quite of an airport intensity, and visitors had to shed their coats and backpacks for a quick peek. This long passage led to a brief viewing of an open free Visitors Center, with pictures and posters. Then, through another long pass, we ealked to the open-air World Trade Center plaza, with two huge rectangular pools, quite deep, set in the footprints (basements) of the original twin towers. They are bordered by high waterfalls, the water descending into the pool, then flowing into large square drains. A guard explained that the falls symbolized continued existence, and the drains stood for the loss of life. The permanent stone railings around the pools carried engraved names of the victims of the 9/11 attack (electronic directories help find the names you might be looking for). The half-finished glass Memorial building stands between the pools, with a Survivor Tree nearby, a leafy tree that survived from the original destruction of the Plaza, and was brought back to bloom in a Botanical Garden nursery. The green Plaza, crisscrossed with marble tiled paths and punctuated with stone benches, is a pleasant experience in the somber world of the Memorial. One is reminded at every step of the original horror. The Memorial will most likely be filled with the notes, photographs of missing people posted by relatives and personal items found in the ruins, that one remembers helping collect in Union Square Park, a month after the 9/11 2001 attack, for posting in a then envisioned central site. Our Union Square was the central point for information in that month, and pilgrimages from all over the US brought visitors, who brought memorabilia of the victims, and messages, with Never Again the theme. Traveling back to 14th Street from the Wall Street station on Broadway - the site nearly spans two subway stops - one found the hustle and bustle that helped overcome the somber cast of the day. There were the shoppers with bags from Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, and on 17th Street and 3rd Avenue a Con Ed truck manned by dignified men d in brand new blue overalls struggling with street parking reminded one of the utility's strike /lockout. A discreet inquiry brought a reply that they were really the supervisors we read about in the papers, and that the three weeks of street work in the abnormal heat were getting to be too much. But that is another story. I also have an inquiry for fracking proponents and opponents. What is known about using guar, a bean grown in India, as the only water thickener in hydraulic fracturing done by gas drillers? Would that stop the poisoning of the world’s water supply?