On the Street

Yankee bloggers mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 by baking madeleines and proposing to their girlfriends. Which ain't gangsta, but is still just about as cute as anything related to the Yankees gets. But Mets bloggers trek down to Lower Manhattan to report the stories that need reporting.

I spent much of the morning down at Pace University's campus, no more than a stone's throw from Ground Zero, where a series of new towers may someday rise. Pace's was easily the closest college campus to the action five years ago, so much so that the campus was closed for nine days afterwards. On Sept. 11, 2001, its Board of Trustees had three possible venues for their scheduled meeting, and one was on the 55th floor of WTC2. Like I said, real close.


I was there specifically to look at an exhibit on loan from the New York State Museum comprised of artifacts saved from the rubble and debris in the Fresh Kills landfill. A twisted BMW steering wheel, WTC panels, airliner fuselage, a United frequent flier miles card ... a lot of powerful stuff, and housed in a place where people were buffeted pretty badly.

The guys from Engine Co. 6, right across the street from Pace Plaza, were literally the first responders to show up on site five years ago. They lost six guys from a smallish company. They also showed up unannounced last week to help cart the exhibit off trucks and into Pace's viewing space.

Early, before 8:30, I somewhat accidentally sat in on a group discussion led by President David Caputo and a scad of Pace's senior officials, who sat in a cavernous auditorium alongside office workers, current and former students, support staff and museum associates and replayed the day out loud. They were all over the map with their emotions about the past and the future, alternately guilty and relieved, steadily furious and outwardly reflective.


Nobody knew who I was. I sat extremely quietly toward the back of a darkened room and let their stories melt in. It was just light enough to read the expressions on people's faces.

I didn't take notes. I couldn't add anything. It was an intensely private moment for a group of co-workers, all of whom had supped from at least part of a shared experiece meal that I hadn't been invited too. In truth, I don't think they minded I was there, even after it became clear that I was something of a reporter.

Then came the interviewing. Roughly one in three of the people I talked to outside the exhibit broke down crying at some point (five people in total). Everyone was intensely interested in the objects, and everyone had no problem talking about their general significance.

But on occasion, when one of the specific items was mentioned, it proved to be a trigger. The human emotional response is one of the greatest mysteries in existence, tied into our senses and our memories and our higher-order concepts like hope and fear, and talking to these people was like taking a shower in all of feeling's breadth. It was amazing.

I walked over to Ground Zero just before noon. They were reading off the names of the deceased in alphabetical order, the surprisingly harsh sounds blaring from a speaker on the corner of Liberty and Church. A few people milled around that corner and listened, but most folks walked by, moving along the perimeter of the massive superblock, still encased in concrete and chained links. The Deutsche Bank building hovered over the walkways like a rickety grandfather clock from a Tim Burton movie.



There were people in Mets gear all over the place, but the one that caught my eye was a guy in a Mets hat who was holding up a sign right by that corner, right next to a group of cops who were directing traffic. It was a huge sign made out of what looked like white posterboard and glittery letters, reading "We Remember."

There was a very similar sign tacked to the fence behind him that people had written comments on, things like "God Bless" and names of FDNY and NYPD units. I thought about going up to him and asking him about the Mets, but I didn't.

If I see a guy on a corner today wearing a Mets hat, I will.

P.S. As Gary Cohen noted last night, Dave Williams offered his own impromptu tribute by handing the Marlins nine runs on 11 hits over three innings. That's sacrifice.