Monday in New York
Daily Herald Staff Writer James Fuller spent the 9/11 anniversary in New York City observing the commemorations. Here are some of this thoughts from the day.
By James Fuller
Daiily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Tuesday, September 12, 2006
NEW YORK - Day 2 in New York begins before dawn. Vinny Forras, my host, is scheduled to be on the “Today” show with Matt Lauer and Tom Brokaw for this morning.
That means we’re up at 5:20 a.m. I’ve logged a grand total of 2¨ hours sleep. I find it hard to rest at Forras’ home. Not because it feels unwelcome, but just from the buzz of the household, with its two high school kids, two college kids, Vinny, his wife Monica and Joe Cantafio.
Cantafio is a Barrington stock trader and musician looking to add his knowledge and passion to Vinny’s Gear Up Foundation. Cantafio has experience raising funds and providing entertainment for the families of New York firefighters who died in the attacks, and for U.S. troops overseas. Vinny wants to bring much-needed fire fighting gear and training to communities in need around the world.
NBC is operating from the rooftop of the One World Financial Center across the street from Ground Zero. As soon as we step off the elevator at the 10th floor, I get a wakeup call about what the aftermath of Sept. 11 has meant to journalists. The Wall Street Journal also has working space on the 10th floor. There is a plaque on the wall dedicated to the memory of Daniel Pearl. Journalists are not immune to death and torture even as we try to find the meaning and rationale behind it.
Vinny heads off for some last-minute beautification with the makeup crew. I step out onto the roof to see the set. CNBC, NBC and MSNBC are all broadcasting within 2 feet of each other. Chris Matthews, Matt Lauer, Tom Brokaw and some MSNBC host I don’t recognize are all working their TV magic. Behind them is the acreage that used to be the World Trade Center buildings.
Ground Zero ceremonies are already beginning. Reflecting pools have replaced the 10-story-high, mangled mass of steel and rubble and bodies. People line up to say prayers, shed tears and drop roses of various colors in the pools in memory of the dead. The last time I was here, you could still taste the dust in the air, feel it on your skin. That was 2002, less than a year after the attacks. Mourning was still in full effect. Four years later, there are still some tears, but dark sunglasses seem to have replaced watery eyes for the most part. I crack a faint smile to the thought that perhaps some healing, some peace has finally come for those carrying the grief of Sept. 11.
I can’t hear what the newscasters are saying from my vantage point. I go inside and watch a monitor, waiting for Vinny to appear. While I wait, I continue to gaze out the window. Police and fire vehicles are everywhere, standing at the ready. On the wall are four clocks with different time zones. One is New York. One is Turin, Italy. One is Asia. The last clock is stuck at 5 p.m. It’s labeled “Beer O’Clock.” Who says journalists don’t know how to have fun?
I look back to the monitor when I hear Vinny’s voice. He begins to talk about his experiences at Ground Zero. At first he came to save people. There were almost none left alive to save. Just random abysses in the pile that held the promise of saving a life, but often revealed only death when explored.
I look at the New York clock again. It’s 9:11 a.m.
At our next destination I soon find that I may have misjudged the amount of healing that has taken place.
The New York Board of Trade and New York Mercantile Exchange host a memorial tribute to 33 traders they lost when the Twin Towers collapsed. Vinny will speak here, too. He talks about how key the perseverance of the exchange was for the economy and defeating the terrorists’ goal of crippling America.
“You showed them we’re Americans, and we’re not going to let you do this to us,” Forras said. “Never forget 9/11. Keep your loved ones in your heart always.”
Then it begins. The names of the fallen stock traders are read from Evan Bauen to Elkin Yuen. One group at a time their surviving family members come to a microphone and talk about loved ones. Some bring children who aren’t even tall enough to reach the microphone. They’ve lost their daddies. Some families share memories. But some come to the podium and can barely do more than cry. They quiver with emotion, and can’t keep it all in. When their tears come, so do ours. We don’t know them, but somehow, in the hours glued to television watching those planes slam into the towers, we’ve bonded with them.
A dad cries into the microphone about how much he misses his son. His daughter rubs his arm. Next is a little girl. Next is a woman who is more composed, or so it seems. Some fight the tears. They won’t let themselves cry. So we cry for them. Finally we come to Yuen’s name, the last on the list. A little girl stretches up tiny hands to the microphone and announces she is Yuen’s daughter. The crowd loses it. I look around and everyone is whisking away a tear.
This little girl will never know her father. She’ll have only stories and most of those may be about how her dad was murdered by terrorists. Now my tears are flavored with a hint of anger. It’s wrong for this little girl to be robbed of her father. I’ve time warped back to five years ago, sitting in front of my TV. Shock and sadness mix with a simmering fury as the images of the crashes and collapses, the running and screaming play over and over.
There’s no complete outlet for such emotions, and I didn’t even lose anyone I knew.
After the ceremony I chat with one of the traders at the exchange. She tells me how depression sank in after the attacks a little more each day. Even when the market re-opened, it wasn’t the same without her 33 fallen colleagues. The audible cues were out of whack. The pit calls weren’t coming from their usual directions. No one was standing in the right place. No one knew how to fill the voids left by those 33 traders. At night she’d go home, but she couldn’t sleep unless the curtains were shut tight.
“It was sick, but I couldn’t look out onto the city, and it was almost like keeping the curtains closed would somehow stop the planes from flying into my windows,” she said, asking not to be named.
How do you get past such a fear? How long does it take to get back to “normal?” And when you do, how do you rationalize for the instant loss of 33 people who used to be part of your life five days a week?
Maybe it takes five years. Time, and picking apart things to their basic parts has helped her.
“I woke up this morning thinking about something that my son said to me when he was little and got stung by a bee,” she said. “He said it hurt, but it also hurt more because I he didn’t know bees could hurt him. He thought bees were his friends.”
Travel is part of so many New Yorkers’ lives, but planes no longer fly in the friendly skies. America has not fully recovered from Sept. 11. The stock trader’s story reveals something to me about myself that I had not considered before. Americans love America. We’ve fought wars before. We’ve even been attacked before. But it’s never been about outright hate before. Hate for America’s beliefs, values and way of life led to mass murder. Maybe part of healing is realizing that not everyone loves America.
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