11/8/02-11/10/02: World Trade Center site, New York City

A young man around age 25, wearing a tan sweater and black jeans, stands before a cool silver fence. He looks up towards a black plaque that reads Heroes of September 11. He looks at the list of names and kisses one of them, which is two up from the bottom. He clasps the fence and begins to sob.

Two young boys skateboarding on the sidewalk dismount and walk up to the same fence. Their jovial, bubbly laughs suddenly turn into an uneasy silence. They stand in silence as they gaze down into a deep, rectangular hole, illuminated with powerful floodlights and a very tense, uneasy calm. This is the site of the World Trade Center or Ground Zero.

A cool November wind blows through the late night in Lower Manhattan as people pause at the fence and look down. Many stand still, contemplating, crying, praying. While others at the fence that late Friday night, including myself, openly ask the questions, Why and for what?

All of the debris has been cleared from the site but the legacy remains, as fresh as it did on that sunny Tuesday morning 14 months ago. The only reminder of what was is a rusted and burnt cross-constructed out of two beams that once made up part of the towers.

With tears in my eyes, I gaze up into the night sky. It seems strangely empty, devoid of light. The buildings around the site are cloaked in black sheaths, adding to the empty and eerie sense of sorrow that still lingers and simmers at the surface.

Across the street at Saint Pauls chapel, people from all over the world leave messages and condolences on a cast-iron rod fence. Messages from children, firefighters and tourists alike are next to posters and mementos celebrating the lives of those who were lost. Along the base of the fence, candles glow brightly, almost as a beacon of hope.

Also along the chapel fence are a few street venders selling items relating to the attacks. Postcards of people fleeing the site, news broadcasts of the towers collapsing and commemorative booklets with the word tragedy in big bold red letters are all for sale. At this point emotion and disgust overtake me and I began to shout at one of the venders as he turns towards me, seeing the disgust on my face.

Sorry that I hurt your feelings, he says to me coldly.

This shit is fucking disgusting, I respond back to him, walking away at the point of vomiting.

The next morning I call my father (a Vietnam Veteran) and tell him about what I saw and how I felt viewing the site. I tell him about my disgust towards the venders selling things, profiting from a national tragedy.

Thats the American way, he says to me.

Unfortunately money many times is the American way and one does not need to go any further than the World Trade Center site. One can also look at this as a way of not letting terrorists getting in the way of daily life.

Directly across the street from the site is the Century 21 department store. The next day, Saturday, the aisles inside the store are crammed with shoppers buying discount European suits, accessories, etc. The sound of cash registers serves as the backdrop for all this commercial activity. The only thing that looms through the windows are the steady glare of the floodlights illuminating the site.

Only seven streets south of the site thousands of people are enjoying a beautiful sunny afternoon at Battery Park. People are waiting in lines to take ferries to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and fishing. Children play in the green grass as parents sit on park benches talking. Roller bladers and bicyclists ply the paths along the water.

In Times Square tens of thousands of people fill the street, enjoying a balmy November night taking in a movie, going to a club or simply mingling amongst the various street venders selling tourist souvenirs. Life in New York continues.

As my friend Christian and I walk by the site, he begins to tell me about the nature of New York.

New York is a place of new ideas, he says. It remembers the past but move forward with the new.

We as a nation are only beginning to understand the events of September 11, 2001. While the impact is obvious and will be felt for a long time, it is important to remember that life does continue. While it is important to pause and remember those who were lost, it is also equally important to continue to live life. If New York can do it, than the country as a whole can as well.