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9/11 Archive
by Thomas Beller 12/26/2002Neighborhood: Multiple, World Trade Center
The View From the Seventieth Floor by Sandy Gelpieryn Death Masks at Ground Zero by Kendra Hurley The Numbers by Bryan Charles The View From Silver Lake Park by Gabrielle Walter Don’t Look Back by Kevin McLeod Scenes From The Brooklyn Bridge by Jim Merlis The View From Long Island Part Ii by Adam Baer [...]
The Season of 9/11
by Elizabeth Seay 09/19/2002Neighborhood: World Trade Center
Another September as bright as a dime. Another morning of clear air, another day of hearing shrieking jets and watching strangers acting strange in the streets. Another day of firefighters in their FDNY T-shirts and brotherhoods of policemen in their dress blues, this time like old war veterans dressed up for the parade, assuming a [...]
Shouldn’t We Be Digging?
by Jake Cooney 09/11/2002Neighborhood: World Trade Center
I am not a firefighter, police officer or paramedic, but when a nurse at the Red Cross barricade mistook me for one and asked, “Are you coming?” I said, “Yes.” That was 8:45 P.M. on September 11th. What followed was a two-day odyssey at Ground Zero. I worked with many good-willed people on bucket brigades [...]
Forces at Work
by Vanessa Ahern 09/11/2002Neighborhood: World Trade Center
I am a skeptic when it comes to psychics like John Edward, the hunky television charlatan, who claims he is able to communicate with “The Other Side.” When I have a premonition I tend to deny it. I denied one in late August of last year when I was seven months pregnant. While organizing my [...]
The Numbers
by Bryan Charles 03/11/2002Neighborhood: World Trade Center
Here was a morning like any other. I got up at 6:40, took a shower and got ready for work. I hadn’t slept well the night before. My eyes burned. Walking to the bathroom required tremendous energy. I blamed my new neighbors. Their surround-sound TV was set up just a few feet from my head. [...]
Unbearable Lightness
by Paul W. Morris 03/10/2002Neighborhood: World Trade Center
It’s a trick of the light. Depending on where you stand, the “Tribute in Light” memorial looks more like a pillar of fire descending from heaven than a recreation of the World Trade Center. You’d be forgiven if, after 9/11, you thought you’d never crane your neck to look that high up again, because there [...]
The College at Ground Zero
by Kate Walter 02/02/2002Neighborhood: World Trade Center
My class started the fall semester in the beautiful rooms of newly renovated Fiterman Hall, the south annex of Borough of Manhattan Community College, and finished in a trailer on West Street across from the barge port where trucks dump debris from the World Trade Center. “Have a good weekend and keep up with your [...]
America is the Bomb
by Kevin Cooney 01/10/2002Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad, World Trade Center
“America. Boom. America. Boom. Boeki Centaa. Boom.” During my time in Japan, I had grown quite used to not understanding what the hell people were trying to tell me. But this was a new one. Usually you can decipher the broken English of the Japanese by taking an abstract view of the words and changing [...]
Back Then
by Gretchen Griffin 11/24/2001Neighborhood: World Trade Center
Some South Jersey friends and I have a Christmas evening tradition of ditching our families and meeting for drinks in a dive near Atlantic City. There was a time when most of us lived in New York, but we’ve since scattered, some further afield and others, like my friend Paul, back to NJ. This year [...]
The Fate of the Pear Trees at Ground Zero
by Bram Gunther 11/10/2001Neighborhood: World Trade Center
Two weeks after the shock of September 11th, I was sent to “ground zero” by the Parks Department Commissioner to make a quick evaluation of the damage to the plant life in the area. The Commissioner wanted to know what had survived, what plants would need to be replaced, how much it would all cost. [...]
Reality in Freefall
by David Drake 11/01/2001Neighborhood: World Trade Center
“Spirit is Life. It flows thru the death of me endlessly like a river unafraid of becoming the sea”–Gregory Corso I ate my breakfast at a leisurely pace, mopping up the last traces of ketchup on the plate with my muffin. Glancing at the clock on the wall, I saw that it was eight forty [...]
The Day the Music Retched
by Andy Gensler 10/20/2001Neighborhood: Multiple, World Trade Center
It was supposed to start with a mandated early-morning appointment with an “employment specialist” from the New York Department of Labor and end with me shaking my ass to minimal techno at Centro-Fly. Between these, I was going to vote in the primaries, work at the international DJ academy, and see Matthew Herbert, on of [...]
