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IP: Saturday in Manhattan
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 04:57:18 -0400
From: "Janos Gereben" <janos451 () earthlink net> To: "jg" <janos451 () earthlink net> Subject: Saturday in Manhattan Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 19:49:32 -0700 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 [From a friend] <<I drove I drove in to NYC today, my first venture in since Tuesday's attacks. There were many semblances of normality, but it was really only that, mere semblances. I felt disspirited, as many seemed to be. On the other hand, people seemed to be looking out for and reaching out for each other, expressing hope for no losses, unburdening. I walked from Academy Records and CDs to the Union Square farmer's market, a couple of blocks away, passing a small fire station with a huge cluster of flowers and many votive candles on the sidewalk in front. The city was quiet. Lighter than usual traffic to and in the City. Plenty of parking in non-metered spaces. Police all around, and of all varities, including Sanitation Dep't police and "Cadet Corps" trainees on traffic duty. Saw only one small group of military, guarding a staging area at West Street (along the Hudson River) and the meat market, these carrying machine gun-like weapons. A long row of NYC dumptrucks lined up on West Street below 23rd, facing downtown, waiting to carry away debris (500 million tons, estimated). Trailers (I assume refrigerated) lined up on the uptown side in the same area, awaiting bodies of which there seem to be precious few beyond those already recovered. Police and emergency vehicles from outlying departments, communities in Westchester, Long Island and NJ. Many NYS Troopers, who are not usually deployed in NYC. A tractor-trailer on West Street heading downtown, below 14th Street (just arriving, it seemed), with the logo: "Disaster Relief, Knox County, Tennessee." I exited by coming across Christopher Street to West Street, the usual route. At West Street there were many people lining the roadway with flags and "thank you" signs cheering every police and fire and emergency and debris-carrying vehicle that drove past. Very moving sight. And, of course, the great void in the cityscape as one looked south from just about any point on the West Side. In its place, still a plume of white smoke over the downtown area. We will get accustomed to seeing the void in place of what had been there. We will see the clean-up effort for some time, and the security for some time longer. We will see rebuilding on the site, eventually. And we have begun to see the beginnings of a long succession of funerals, and memorial services for the thousands whose remains will never be recovered. Unhappily, the reality is that these are likely to be only the first such event, not the last, although it will be difficult to surpass the catastrophic magnitude of these. Mayor Guiliani and Governor Pataki have been terrific (I say that as a fan of neither), and have done a great job of getting information out and rallying the City. Dubya was something else, saying yesterday that he had come to "comforate" people. My daughter told me that Pataki, standing behind him, had a look on his face that said: "I don't have a chance to be President and I can't believe this guy is there." She wants Dubya impeached for stupidity and inarticulate babble. I had to explain it don't work that way. I am not visibly patriotic (nor visibly much of anything else). But driving out of the office parking garage last evening, as I made a left turn into a divided roadway, I saw on the pavement in the other roadway a small American Flag that must have blown off a car to which it had been fastened. Well, after the week's events, and the Queen's grand gesture to The Star-Spangled Banner, I was not going to leave one laying in the street, to be run over by passing cars. So I made a U-turn at the earliest possible moment, stopped my car and picked it up. The dowel (piece of bamboo, more accurately, I suppose) to which the flag was attached had been run over, but the flag seems not to have been. It is on my desk now. A small thing, but it made me feel a bit better.>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Janos Gereben/SF janos451 () earthlink net
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