i woke up this morning with my usual set of plans only to realize that my cousin from Oklahoma remembered i would meet her in the city today, and i had sorta kinda forgot. So after about 10 minutes of brooding and deciding i should go and then there were 100 reasons why i shouldn't go, i brushed my hair, put on my converse and made my way into new york city. To lower Manhattan. On a Saturday.
anyone who knows me will tell you that getting me within 15 minutes of my place of work in the daytime weekend is not something I strive for. I only do this if i have to go into the office, and if I have to do that I am pretty pissed. The area is insanely crowded. Manhattan in general is insanely crowed on the weekends but Soho and China Town are monstrosities.
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Of course there were the usual train delays and reroutes that make this all the more an enjoyable experience. While I was on the train a veteran of our fine war (the current one) came in to tell the riders a tale of how he was injured in the war and denied benefits and needed some money for food so I gave him all the quarters I was not going to be using because i nixed laundry to go see Oklahoma. I felt so good doing this. Not too minutes later, a second man came in, to tell us all he had suffered a stroke, he was a war veteran (of our last fine war,Vietnam) and needed some money for food. He only got 11 cents from me because that was all i had left. I felt miserable about this until I was distracted by the realization I was being kicked off the train at 42 street because of track work.
I got off the subway all together at bleeker street because they were going to skip a whole bunch of stops, including mine, so i decided i might as well walk because at this rate, i was wasting too much time with this mass transit nonsense. I bought a watch at swatch (hey, i like them. They hold up in my hectic lifestyle) and heading down crazy Broadway towards wall street. To meet my cousin and her family at the Trinity Church. And to walk the World Trade Center site.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I have no desire to walk the world trade center site and anyone who knows me knows why. I decided that today I wouldn't say a world, because the people from Oklahoma would probably think one of the following things-
- How unpatriotic! Never forget!
- You've never done this and you work by here? You must be too cool for the room.
- Wow. she is still traumatized by the event. Poor gal. We can go somewhere else.
None of these are entirely true and none of them are entirely false. I've seen the site 100
times - i just never go to see it. I don't like to breathe when I am down there. And it isn't because of the Deutsche Bank building and the horror stories about asbestos, which i should add I stood in front of for 10 minutes today, but just because....Some people simply became dust that day. You know....this disturbs me. I bet it disturbs you too.
Anyway....I made the best of it. I mean, what could i do? Be myself? Not today! I was amazed at my numbness and actual pleasure during the walk. People asked me questions and I had answers. We went into some of the Financial Building Centers that had been rebuilt and looked at plans for the future of the wtc site. I took a picture of the miniature construction diorama. (And by the way, it looks better as a diorama then on paper.) I sat on the stairs, relaxed, and talked to my cousins daughter about how i loved to shop at the World Trade Center. Told her about the great Century 21 (just the shopping, not how it saved one of my best friend's lives.No morbid stuff). I wasn't sad or sentimental or melancholy (an abnormal state attributed to an excess of black bile and characterized by irascibility or depression. ok.). I just was.
It seemed to take ages to get around there...and that is another reason I don't go. It is, after all, a construction site....it shouldn't take as long as it does to get anywhere as it does to get a few blocks down there. However, we then head up to Canal Street, to get Chinese food, and I see then where the exercise in trying to get from A to B is truly going to be tried. The place is lined, smushed, wall to wall people, everyday, so they can buy unbelievable, fake, gaudy, un-capitalistic crap. It's thirty times worse on a Saturday and I can see I am losing Oklahoma. I also learned today that many restaurants in Chinatown only take cash. I would have to tell them how much better they would do if they took plastic. The restaurants are closing down at an alarming rate. Oh well, no bother.
I couldn't have gotten off this crazy day of tourism at this point but for some sadistic reason I couldn't let it go. I was having the full on tourist experience. And now my team needed me where i excel. The Subway! I could have just walked them to the station and told them where to get off but I shivered at the concept of the 5 of them using the metrocard machines, not to mention the fact that the train may not go where it is supposed to and they would be faced with the same detours and delays as I had been. So we went - all of us. I also learned that if you buy a 10 dollar metro card, to be used for 5 people at 2 dollars each, the MTA will stop you at 4 people and say "exceeded limit". Why? Because it's inconvenient. That's why.
We stopped at Grand Central Terminal. Everyone was pleased. I was especially because it is my favorite place in NYC. No matter how busy, or how fast paced the day may be, the main concourse has a silence to it. Like a library. It is never as loud as it should be. It's simply the acoustics. It is beautiful. We spent more time in that room, looking at the ceiling and being bored by my knowledge about the cleanup of the station in the 90's, then I expected to. Finally, we got them to Port Authority so they could catch their bus. i had a long talk with my cousin walking east to west and i remembered why i like her so much, so this actually mad me sad to let her go away, which was my second change of heart for the day.
i love the city so much for it's history that I should really not be such a bitter pie about any part of it all. These are the things I am going to have to tell someone someday about....I know entirely too much about what happened 20-100 years ago and too little about what is going on now I guess. This new development boom bores me to tears I guess.
So now I am home and exhausted as could be from all the walking. Just sat down to eat some Tuna.
Do you know what it is like to try and eat Tuna with 3 cats in the house? It is f**king mayhem.
I am going to go read and pass out and hope my ankles do not hurt like holy hell tomorrow morning.
"Is it not cruel to let our city die by degrees, stripped of all her proud monuments, until there will be nothing left of all her history and beauty to inspire our children? If they are not inspired by the past of our city, where will they find the strength to fight for her future? Americans care about their past, but for short term gain they ignore it and tear down everything that matters. Maybe… this is the time to take a stand, to reverse the tide, so that we won't all end up in a uniform world of steel and glass boxes." - Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis (on the potential destruction of Grand Central Terminal/Station)
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