Returning to Ground Zero

Yesterday I went to help a few out of town friends on a project they’re working on about Ground Zero and it’s significance. The strange thing is that it wasn’t until I had to ask a traffic cop how one now gets to Van Cortlandt St, that I realized I hadn’t been there since literally weeks after the attack. The reason for this is, unfortunately, not one of emotions, but of visuals: It’s a hole. And that’s all. Just one more construction site to match the hundreds throughout the city, one more place to navigate through hordes of tourists, walk around burly construction workers, and strategically find your way to ‘Point B’.

For the bulk of my childhood, my father worked in WTC building 7. For years, we attended the ‘Children’s Day’ celebrations at the foot of the towers. As I was a guide yesterday, so too did my family bring every out of town guest for a visit to the Tower’s observation deck. But none of these memories have anything to do with the hole in the ground, nor do really the memories from that day seven years ago. For most of New York, the shock associated with that day is as remote as the pride associated with the days afterwards. What’s left is little more than a feeling of annoyance, one caused by both tourists and the fact that we would all but purge the day from our minds if this country and this world would just finally let us.

The great crime of this era may not be the lies told, the soldiers and civilians killed, or the wanton destruction of far too much, but the true horror of a broken promise. We were all told how great we were going to be, how triumphant, what glories would be placed on us as we rid the world of evil and made it safe once again for Democracy. But all of this turned out to be a rather cynical joke, perpetuated on a people too strong to admit they were just grieving, their eyes too clouded to notice the fool at the podium. New York can forgive itself a lot, but can we ever forgive ourselves for cheering on, however shortly, George Bush?

Our punishment for this, of course, has been our own fear, a fear largely produced by that same man and done masterfully well. Our fear has forced us to accept a new building that has only one thing in common with the previous two: New Yorkers don’t like it. The Freedom Tower–again, a name that sounds of a cynical humor– like a theme park ride, will have 1,776 floors, the ones at the top not being used for anything because as Washington keeps assuring us: It could happen again. This is the same reason why they won’t simply rebuild the originals, though most of New York has consistently supported such a plan.

If I had any doubts before yesterday, I now think it’s official that New York has moved on. The goal is no longer revenge or justice, but in a return to normalcy, simply getting to ‘Point B’. There is no ground-zero anymore, just a hole in the ground and the tiny promise of another skyscraper which is just ‘good enough’.