My missed flight and connection forced me in to New Jersey for a night. I only saw what I could see from the courtesy bus to the hotel and back but the 40 minute train journey in to NYC the next day confirmed that New Jersey is just as grey and as bleak as those opening credits to the Sopranos suggest so well. So, as Uncle Tony and his paisans saw fit to leave me on my own...I decided not to go looking for the bada-bing club and instead took the train in to NYC, it was 8am. 14 Bucks and 40 minutes of commuting later, I arrived at New York Penn station, walked past the Empire state building, and made my way up Broadway to Times Square for breakfast. New York is just as I imagined it would be. Masses of people all too busy and late to hold a smile, manhole covers billowing hot steam, and the faint smell of sewer/garbage everywhere. I took the subway downtown to the much quieter financial district where nothing could have prepared me for ground zero.
An eerie silence envelops the entire area, aside from the constant sound of rubble being scraped/moved around. Its an awsome and awful site, made no easier by the frankly piss poor, temporary looking memorials to all those thousands of people who died on that day. I suppose that New Yorkers should be commended for dusting themselves down and getting on with their lives but you cannot help feeling that the world will be never be the same again. It feels like the JFK asassination for my generation. A historical watershed. While one can't forget the thousands that die in the middle east, seeing ground zero in the flesh was a very difficult, emotional experience which I wasn´t expecting. I just hope that the shiny new structure that is planned for the site doesn't simply paper over the cracks...the people who died that day and their families deserve better than that.
