ULTIMATE COWARDICE, ULTIMATE KINDNESS

by Ted Lerner

(Article appeared in Business Day magazine, February, 2004)

Ever since September 11 th, 2001, I have always wanted to visit Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. My family is from Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the northeastern United States, about a two hour drive from New York. The disaster that day for folks in these parts wasn't just horrible images on the television. Everyone it seems, like my parents, knew at least one person who died there. My brother, who lives in New Jersey, attended four funerals.

And so this past December, while visiting the folks, my wife, Au, and our nine year old daughter, Shanti, finally made it to New York. We started Uptown where you notice New York still moves at its typical frenetic pace. We walked through a teeming Times Square, as holiday tourists gawked at each other and the giant wide screen televisions high above. We lunched at the famous Carneggi Deli, packed with out-of-towners devouring mountainous corned beef sandwiches, on their way to the latest Broadway Show. We visited the small Central Park Zoo, and gaped at the giant polar bear. Then we strolled down Fifth Ave. past the designer shops and famous hotels, and St Patrick's Cathedral which was packed with holiday worshipers. And, of course we paid a visit to the recently lit up Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

Meet up with any New Yorker and the talk eventually turns to September 11 th . Andre, my longtime native New Yorker friend, recalls the tragedy like it was yesterday. He was uptown that day and remembers how, only hours after the towers came crashing down, he started to see people streaming up from downtown in shock and covered in dust. He quickly retrieved his daughter out of school. The city was on lockdown. You could get out, walking over the likes of the Brooklyn or Williamsburg Bridge. But you couldn't get into Manhattan. The thing he remembers most was the smell. For weeks afterward, he said, all of Manhattan wreaked from the fires coming from the financial district.

New Yorkers, I was to find out, are eager to direct people to the World Trade Center site. Andre walked us to the subway station and showed us to the number 9 train. The number 9 comes from the Bronx in the north heading all the way downtown to the tip of Manhattan Island and Battery Park. The New York subway is an intense, practically intimidating place, and offers up the pulse of New York. Faces of every conceivable kind come at you from every direction, from businessmen to bums, offering one of the greatest collections of humanity anywhere.

I was conscious of not wanting to look like a gawking tourist. Some feel that it's ghoulish to pay a visit to the site where the tallest buildings on the planet once stood proud. But for a long time something was telling me I just had to see it.

As the number 9 train rumbled through the cavernous underground, I perused the overpriced map I had bought at the Port Authority bus station. Where the map read �Lower Manhattan,� there was a notation in red indicating the �Site of World Trade Center World Financial Center.� Just below that was another notation: �Station closed since September 11, 2001.�

I looked closely at the map, wondering where we would get off. I noticed a larger map on the wall of the train car and stood up carefully to check it out. Without even asking, I suddenly had people in the crowded car offering help.
�You have to get off on Rector St,� called out one friendly older lady sitting a few seats away. Her face was covered with bumps, as if she had leprosy. She smiled seeing my nine-year old daughter grabbing my pants. A few seats away, a middle aged guy in jeans chimed in.

�This train doesn't stop on Cortland St.,� he said. �It'll go right past but won't stop.�

�I noticed on the map it's been closed since 9/11,� I said.

�Yes, so get off at Rector, then walk back a couple of blocks.� I thanked them both and sat back down, impressed at how strangers in this teeming metropolis can be so friendly. We didn't even mention the words, �World Trade Center,� and yet they knew why we were on that train.

It was just after 5 o'clock when we emerged from the Rector St. Station but, it being December, darkness had already enveloped Manhattan. Before September 11 th , 2001 it was easy to find the World Trade Center from anywhere in the Financial District. You just looked up into the sky. Luckily I spotted a sign on the sidewalk indicating the direction of St. Paul's Chapel, which I knew was right across the street from the World Trade Center.

The temperature must have been near freezing, but, fortunately, the wind was calm. In New York it's not so much the cold that kills you, but the wind.

Three blocks up we found it, Ground Zero. Several tour buses were parked on one end of the block. Well dressed workers hurried past on their way to the train and the suburbs.

Several hundred people of various races quietly milled around on the wide and well lit sidewalk, peering at the emptiness through the white fence which surrounds the area and taking snapshots. Now construction trailers sit inside the pit, getting ready to start building again. On the fence, posters have been placed telling in raw detail about the events that happened here. The display tells how terrorists hijacked planes and rammed them into the towers. You can see an overview of the site ten days later, with smoke still billowing and rubble everywhere. Several other signs contain the names of all the people who died that day.

Like everyone else there, I found myself looking up into the cold night sky, trying to place all those awful, horrible pictures that have become ingrained in all our minds with the dark calmness that I now saw.

�Those bastards,� I recall saying to my wife. �What a bunch of cowards.� At one end of the block we came across a guy named Harry holding court. It would be easy to mistake Harry as another fast talking New York Street hustler. Except Harry used to work inside the towers as a security guard. These days he's spends his days on the sidewalk telling anyone who will listen everything they need to know about what happened at this spot on September 11, 2001. He puts on quite a show, and nearly everyone who listens drops a few bucks into his small plastic jug hung around his neck.

�It's history, not a mystery,� he bellowed out into the cold night. Harry survived the tragedy because he had the day off. But he personally knew hundreds of people who perished.

�Don't forget seven buildings were destroyed here, not just two,� he said loudly while pointing to a handmade map. �The official figures said nearly 3000 people died here. But I tell you there were probably 5000 people who died here. There were lots of illegal aliens who worked at the Trade Center. But the city don't care about them. What about their benefits? Who's going to look after their families?�

As Harry talked a lady came by and greeted him like an old friend. She listened to his emotional ramble about the ordinary people bearing the brunt of what happened here. After a few minutes I noticed a tear dripping down the lady's cheek. It's three years on but the wounds here were obviously still fresh.

We hung around for a while, listening to Harry, gaping at this strange hole in the ground and just soaking up the vibe. Sadness, anger, awe, disbelief; emotions seemed to swirl in the chilly December air. Strangely, though, the overriding emotion I felt was a positive one. I actually felt buoyant by being here. I couldn't quite understand the feeling and wasn't sure if I was allowed or should be feeling that way.

The picture became clearer as we walked across the street to St. Paul's Chapel. The plaque outside informs visitors about this extraordinary building. Completed in 1776, St. Paul's Chapel is the oldest public building in continuous use on the island of Manhattan. America's first president, George Washington, worshipped there. The chapel survived the great fire in 1776, where every building for miles around was destroyed except St. Paul's.

True to its amazing nature, St. Paul's survived the September 11 th tragedy. Buildings for blocks were ruined, or had their glass facades blown apart. Except St. Pauls, which, thanks to a well placed Sycamore tree in the graveyard, suffered only minor damage. Not even one window got smashed in the tumultuous crash of the towers. Today St. Paul's is known as �The Little Chapel that Stood.�

In the weeks and months following September 11 th , St. Paul's became a place of refuge for the thousands of recovery workers clearing away the incredible rubble at Ground Zero. Volunteers of every background and religion, and from around the world, helped out, providing physical, emotional and spiritual care to the rescue workers. The rescue workers, exhausted from working 12, 15 hour shifts, working amidst the stench of horrible death would wander into the church. There they'd get fed, a massage, a comfortable place to lay down, or just a spot to sit quietly and pray.

The chapel is open to the public and now hosts an exhibit called �Unwavering Spirit: Hope and Healing at Ground Zero.� Several dozen people wandered in and out, and it was obvious St. Paul's has become a place of pilgrimage and peaceful reverence. The inside of the chapel walls are covered with banners sent or brought from around the globe containing prayers and messages of support. There's a table with photographs of people who died in the towers, left by distraught family members and accompanied by heart breaking messages. In several areas people placed lit candles on a platform and prayed quietly. A priest's vestment stands covered with patches left by the rescue workers like police, fire rescue and park rangers who came from around the United States and around the world to help out. There's also an interactive kiosk where you can read and listen to first person accounts about the post 9/11 ministry.

It is a heart wrenching display, and through my own misty eyes I noticed others dabbing their cheeks with tissue. Sadness, believe it or not, is not the overriding emotion. The vibe at St. Paul's is, frankly, an astounding positiveness, a palpable sense of hope and peace and belief in the good that human's can do.

As we exited the chapel I marveled at how buoyant and alive I felt. How could a broken hearted people express this incredible emotion amidst such an unconscionable tragedy?

Forget history for a moment. Forget the politics involved and the possible reasons that would drive human beings to become so angry and to perform an act like that which occurred on September 11 th , 2001. In and of itself, what happened on that day was the ultimate cowardly act. They plotted, schemed and calculated how to commit the cold blooded murder of innocents. And they did it in and through the very system that had allowed them passage in the first place. That's about as low as it gets.

But the people who come to the World Trade Center site and St. Paul's Chapel have a different message. In a way, it's a message of defiance, but not in a political way. They come from all over the world, all races, religions, rich and poor, young and old, to stamp their belief in the decency of humanity. This was a tragedy that affirmed the power of regular people all over the world, of those who simply want to live, and live in peace. Three years on at Ground Zero, it's not the tragedy that stands out so much as the miracle left in its aftermath. A miracle born out of the ultimate act of cowardice, resulting in the ultimate acts of kindness.

For more information on St. Paul's Chapel and the healing and recovery at Ground Zero, please visit http://saintpaulschapel.org/

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