Doings of Gotham

There are flags on the construction cranes. It’s the first thing that catches me as I walk along Church Street with my back towards the graveyard. I inch closer to ground zero and I am suddenly bombarded by men with thick Russian accents who are trying to make a sale. “Pictures, pictures!” Screams one man.

“I give you better price!” Yells his competitor.

They’re waving their product around so much that it’s hard to get a look. I finally make out the pictures; it’s of the buildings, burning. Aerial shots and shots from high buildings. Shots of it crashing. Shots before and shots after.

A family carrying FAO Schwartz shopping bags and two men in darks suits with bright ties are walking by, clutching their starbucks cups and blowing streams of cigarette smoke into the first day of fall. There’s a homeless man with a dirty beard leaning against the fence and he’s playing amazing grace on the pipe. There’s a poster behind him, it reads in big block letters, “THE SAME PIPER FEATURED IN FAIRENHYPE 9/11.” Another man’s poster is telling me that 9/11 was “year one of the new world.”

I walk towards the fence to get a better view. The fence is tall with barbed wire whirled around the top and people pressing their faces against it. People are everywhere, trying to get the best view. There isn’t much of anything to look at.

Conspiracy theorists with matching blue t-shirts start screaming as they pace through the open spaces, telling everyone to ask for answers, telling everyone to demand them. Two women with New York City sweatshirts stare at them in petrified disgust.

I move away from this, retreating to the staircase. The stairs lead to another open space, it’s closer to the site. The only thing separating us from ground zero is a thin wall of checkered steel. I peer through it on to the construction, or the rebuilding as it has been called; it seems more like some eerie desecration. The workers move dirt and debris from one pile to the next under a large sign that reads “Here Lie Our Heroes.” Some stranger next to me is crying and everyone is whispering about her, fixing their eyes on her as they pass, the way people do with a car wreck on the freeway.

I decide to follow a couple walking by. They start towards yet another stairway. It leads to some sort of transport. They swipe their cards and disappear. This level is enclosed and far emptier; I’m nearly alone, except for the Hudson newsstand, three homeless men and four ticket machines. On the wall behind the tickets machines is an oddly shaped mosaic. The Plaque under it reads “Saetta Iridescente,” that’s Italian for “Iridescent Thunderbolt.” The plaque goes on to tell me about how some town in some place sent this piece of art somewhere else but I’m not really paying attention, I skip down to the most prophetic line, “overcome moments of horror.”

I look around to see what else is here and there is a blue wall that screams temporary. It’s covering up something that will be or already was. All I can see peaking out from the left end is large letters that spell “The city is thronged” and I know those words. They are the first line of the second paragraph in ‘Doings of Gotham’ by Edgar Allan Poe.

I decide that I’m bored and start back up the staircases. Once at the street level, I move towards the fence. I watch three construction workers wearing their hard hats and wandering through rubble… They arrive at a dumpster where they begin to pull food out of their McDonalds bags and cigarettes out of their pockets. They light and chew and smoke and swallow while leaning against the dumpster.

“Excuse me?” Says a man with a Polaroid camera in tow. “Will you take our picture?” He asks. He has a fanny pack cinched to his waist and a subway map clenched in his hand. He hides brown eyes behind round sunglasses. I take the camera from his hand and look into the viewfinder as the man, his wife, and four kids line up against the fence, they smile and wait for me to press the shutter.

~ by carik on March 6, 2008.