September 20, 2001

There is a hole in the sky...

Today is the first day we are allowed back into office buildings below Canal St., which up until now have been well into the cordoned-off Dead Zone.

It's eerie with no cars allowed in, still. Pedestrians scurry about in the rain. The smoke from the continuing fires under the wreckage is thick in the air, nine days after the attack. As I walk from the subway, I am reminded of our house fire of last year where the smell of char and burnt materials suffused every corner of our home for six months. We've had six months off by this point to be able to forget it. But it's back. Same dirty smell. This time, though, throughout town.

As I reach Greenwich St. in Tribeca, I pause next to Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Grill at the corner. It is closed and dark at 4 PM. Through the windows, I can see boxes of foodstuffs piled on all of the tables, but no staff and no customers. It has been and is used as a jumping off point for delivery of food to the rescue workers.

I get my first look at Ground Zero from a quarter mile away. My first shock comes from seeing the sky. Tall buildings shock tourists who come to New York. Sky is the abnormality for New Yorkers. We assume God put buildings high above us for a reason, and we never question it. It is the norm.

I try desperately to remember what I used to see daily, and—of course—rarely paid attention to. Through the gray overcast and the swirling mist and thick billowing smoke, I try to see what was no longer there.

I walk down as far as Duane St., which is the new perimeter. The police are cordial, but firm. The greatest surprise: after seeing them check the IDs of residents of that block, seeing them also check the IDs of every rescue worker, fire fighter and police officer that went through, in or out of uniform. No chances taken when it's life and death.

Later, from my office above, I look due south to emptiness. Where before my view would be overwhelmed by the pink squatness of 7 WTC and the enormity of the Twin Towers, there is now just the normal scale of older high-rises of twenty to thirty stories.

From the perspective I get from my window, I am presented a macabre and eerie vision. As the mist and smoke swirl about, I notice that the telephone building, previously dwarfed, is the tallest building left standing at that site. As the worklights hide behind the fog, casting a Tim Burton-esque glow on the phone building area, I am struck by an uncanny resemblance to the photo on my "While the City Sleeps..." album cover. Even though the photo was taken many years ago, far away in midtown, with entirely different buildings. Very scary sight.

As the party of visiting U.S. Senators memtioned yesterday, it is different with a live view rather than the TV view. It is more massive, more affecting, more sobering, more painful.

May we as a species never inflict our madness on ourselves to this extent again.

Love and Peace,

E. J.