26th of July, 2010. Lower Manhattan, New York City.
There are some places on this beautiful planet of ours that are quite simply breathtaking. They're rare, and they encompass all landscapes, climates, countries and continents, but the one thing they have in common is that they are awesome. Not awesome as it is commonly used today by anyone under thirty as a synonym for cool. Awesome as in commands the visitor to stand before it in awe. They demand respect. They literally take your breath away.
Most of them are breathtakingly beautiful. They inspire writers to wax lyrical over colour hues, artists to spend hours at the site with oils and watercolours and tourists to take cheesy snapshots of themselves with said wonder in the background - just to prove to family and friends back home that they were there.
This place is breathtaking, but it is not beautiful. There are no painters here. The writers write, but their stories are of tragedy and death, chaos and destruction, tears, lost loved ones and fallen heroes. Even the tourists don't linger - they come, they wander awhile, trying to imagine what used to be here. They take a few photos of what remains, then they leave the shadows and windswept emptiness in favour of sunshine and light.
Behind me is the Cortland Street subway station. In front of me is an immense construction site. Ten years ago, it looked very different. There used to be five tall office buildings and two immense skyscrapers here. Together, the seven buildings were known as the World Trade Center, the heart of the New York Financial District.
The eleventh of September, 2001, changed all that.
Ground Zero - actually being here - is strange. Like the other tourists visiting New York for the first time, I too am trying to imagine that this huge crater in lower Manhattan was once occupied by two of the tallest buildings ever built, and am finding it a little difficult, to say the least. Some guy flogging an A4 photo book with "Tragedy 9/11" scrawled in red across the cover told me as part of his sales pitch that if you want to get a sense of scale here, double the height of the tallest remaining building in the area, and you're getting close to the height of one of the twin towers.
You can't see much of the site - well, of the ground anyway. All that's visible are the umpteen cranes, each with the stars and stripes proudly, resolutely, defiantly fluttering in the breeze from the topmost point. The two-metre cyclone fencing barricading the area is completely covered with a long plastic banner advertising the visitors' centre, which I had no intention of visiting.
I remember waking up the morning of the 12th of September in Australia - it happened at about 11pm local time in Melbourne. A Tuesday. I watched Rove, then turned the TV off before Sandra Sully's face popped up on screen with the late night news so I could get some sleep and make it to my Italian class at 9am the following morning. My mum woke me up long before my alarm though - she said something, a strange look on her face, then turned the TV on in my room. Like so many people, I thought at first it was a new action movie, then I saw the CNN logo in the corner of the screen, and the footage of the second plane. The coverage had been going all night, and there was no escaping it during the next few hours, days, weeks and months.
That was more than enough opportunity to hear all I ever wanted or needed to know about what happened. Not only does the visitors centre have a photo display and various other informative resources, but they also coordinate guided tours of the site run by volunteers - living victims: people who experienced it firsthand, or who lost their partner, sibling, parent or child that day. There was no way I was going to do that. I wanted to visit Ground Zero, to see the area, see what's left, try to imagine what used to be there. Then I wanted to leave the area and not return. If I wanted to know more from someone who was there, I could listen to one of the hundreds of interviews, read one of the many written accounts or watch one of the several documentaries or feature films. To see the look on someone's face as they talk about their memories of the buildings coming down around them, or as they remembered someone they lost that day, someone they dearly loved and sorely miss... I couldn't do it.
So I didn't. I sat on the steps outside one of the buildings around the outside. For an hour or so. I just sat there, thinking, writing, remembering, imagining. At one point, a fire engine roared past, sirens blaring, lights flashing, and a spectacular American flag emblazoned all the way down the side. I took a deep breath. Listened to the sirens fade into the noise of the city. Then I left.
If you happen to be in New York and can handle an intensely negative experience, go down there. Walk around. See the memorials. Pay your respects. Experience the site. It's worth a visit. But I won't go back.
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Taxi driver of the year
I don't usually take taxis. My habitual way of getting around Berlin is either public transport, walking a lot further than most normal people would, or cruising around on my beloved bike.
In foreign cities, that changes. Some are the perfect size to walk around, some have amazing public transport networks, and some are just too big and too hot to avoid taxis for the entire trip.
When I was in New York recently, my options were just those three: subway, walk or taxi. I'd happily walk, especially in a massive city like New York (you never know what gems you might find when you wander through the smaller streets and laneways), but the two weeks I was in New York, every day was over 35°C with high humidity, and I just didn't have the energy to walk for miles and miles in the sun. No one did.
The subway... well, the New York subway has earned its very own blog post. Suffice to say it's hot. Very hot. And very humid. The day I met the subject of this blog post was my last day in New York, and I was on my way to the airport. At the other end of the overnight flight back to Berlin, I would have to go from the airport straight back to work, so I'd just showered and was clean and shiny. The thing about the subway in summer, from my few days' experience, is that while the upper level where you buy tickets is relatively cool, the lower level is a public sauna. Anything more than about ten seconds on the platform and you're sweating as if you were standing on St Kilda beach at 3pm on a scorching February afternoon in Melbourne, wearing thermals and a ski suit, wrapped up in an alpine-warmth sleeping bag and a foil heat blanket, demolishing a chicken vindaloo. Yeah, you're sweating. A lot.
So since I definitely didn't want to be all sweaty for the next twelve hours at the airport, on the plane, at Heathrow Airport, on another plane, and for my entire shift at the other end of the flight, I decided to splash out on an air-conditioned cab ride. Just as I went outside the hotel where I was staying, a so-called "town car" pulled up - a sleek black sedan with a leather and mahogany interior, air-con and tinted windows. As the door man helped the passengers out and the bellhop got their luggage, I asked the other doorman to hail me a taxi and I waited with my backpack in the shade at the door.
"Well, instead of a taxi, would you like to take this town car instead? Same price, just a little more comfortable."
Is this a trick question? Uh... yes. Yes. Definitely yes.
We set off in air-conditioned comfort through the streets of Midtown and I watched my last few scenes of New York through the tinted windows, and had a bit of a chat with the driver along the way.
First question: "So, where are you off to?" he asked me.
"Berlin." And that started the rest.
After I explained to him that I live there but that I'm not German, and told him a bit about my studies, my work, and why I had tried so hard to get a place in Berlin, he began to tell me a bit about himself.
Turns out his name is Mike, he's originally from Brooklyn and he served in the US military in the 1970s and 1980s... in West Germany. He was sketchy on the details, but the one thing he would tell me is that as a way to earn some money on the side, he and some of his army mates worked as couriers, smuggling various small but valuable items across the border into East Germany. Among the more regular requests he received were Beatles and Rolling Stones records, Milka chocolate, food and particular groceries only available in the west, and bottles of Coca Cola (the fourth time he smuggled Coca Cola over the border was the only time the border guards' searches ever found anything).
When I asked him about the strangest thing anyone had ever asked him to smuggle over, he laughed, and said it was a tie between women's stockings in all manner of colours and styles for a 46-year-old cross-dressing accountant in Erfurt, and a Harley Davidson.
I had to ask.
Apparently a motorbike enthusiast in East Germany kept them in business for two years with a special order: he had arranged to have a Harley Davidson motorcycle delivered to a friend in West Germany, who then dismantled it and paid couriers like Mike and his army colleagues to smuggle it bit by bit across the border to him in East Germany, where he put it back together. The whole process took about two years, and amazingly none of the parts were ever found during border searches.
After having received all the parts and having reassembled the bike in his barn, this Harley nut could only ride it because he lived in a very rural area well away from border patrols, and then only in the darkness of the very early hours of the morning. On top of that, the amount he paid to have the bike dismantled and smuggled over was almost as much as the bike itself.
There were so many more questions I had for him - about his experiences with the border guards, what it was like when the wall fell and in the months and years after reunification, but as luck would have it, just as he finished the Harley story, we turned off the freeway, and a few moments later we pulled into the parking bay at the main terminal of JFK.
He seemed genuinely happy that I was so curious about his experiences, but by the same token, I got the distinct impression that just sharing the Harley story and telling me about his time moonlighting as a smuggler reminded him of other things he would rather not remember. Earlier in the conversation when I showed interest at the mention of his military experience in Germany, he started to tell me about the first few months living in Germany, and how the whole courier idea started. Apparently one of his mates had the idea, before -
And that's where he stopped, mid-sentence. It was as if Mike had suddenly remembered that he didn't know me from a bar of soap, and whatever came after "before" was something that he had just realised he didn't particular want to share with someone he'd known for all of five minutes. He didn't talk for a few minutes, and when he started again, it was the Coca Cola story - lighthearted, as if nothing had happened.
He didn't bring it up again - his friend, nor how the courier idea came about - and I knew better than to ask.
The moral of the story? Public transport is cheap, and walking still cheaper, but taxis, while pretty darn expensive comparatively, can pay dividends in story-telling material and invaluable experience, if you just ask the right questions.
In foreign cities, that changes. Some are the perfect size to walk around, some have amazing public transport networks, and some are just too big and too hot to avoid taxis for the entire trip.
When I was in New York recently, my options were just those three: subway, walk or taxi. I'd happily walk, especially in a massive city like New York (you never know what gems you might find when you wander through the smaller streets and laneways), but the two weeks I was in New York, every day was over 35°C with high humidity, and I just didn't have the energy to walk for miles and miles in the sun. No one did.
The subway... well, the New York subway has earned its very own blog post. Suffice to say it's hot. Very hot. And very humid. The day I met the subject of this blog post was my last day in New York, and I was on my way to the airport. At the other end of the overnight flight back to Berlin, I would have to go from the airport straight back to work, so I'd just showered and was clean and shiny. The thing about the subway in summer, from my few days' experience, is that while the upper level where you buy tickets is relatively cool, the lower level is a public sauna. Anything more than about ten seconds on the platform and you're sweating as if you were standing on St Kilda beach at 3pm on a scorching February afternoon in Melbourne, wearing thermals and a ski suit, wrapped up in an alpine-warmth sleeping bag and a foil heat blanket, demolishing a chicken vindaloo. Yeah, you're sweating. A lot.
So since I definitely didn't want to be all sweaty for the next twelve hours at the airport, on the plane, at Heathrow Airport, on another plane, and for my entire shift at the other end of the flight, I decided to splash out on an air-conditioned cab ride. Just as I went outside the hotel where I was staying, a so-called "town car" pulled up - a sleek black sedan with a leather and mahogany interior, air-con and tinted windows. As the door man helped the passengers out and the bellhop got their luggage, I asked the other doorman to hail me a taxi and I waited with my backpack in the shade at the door.
"Well, instead of a taxi, would you like to take this town car instead? Same price, just a little more comfortable."
Is this a trick question? Uh... yes. Yes. Definitely yes.
We set off in air-conditioned comfort through the streets of Midtown and I watched my last few scenes of New York through the tinted windows, and had a bit of a chat with the driver along the way.
First question: "So, where are you off to?" he asked me.
"Berlin." And that started the rest.
After I explained to him that I live there but that I'm not German, and told him a bit about my studies, my work, and why I had tried so hard to get a place in Berlin, he began to tell me a bit about himself.
Turns out his name is Mike, he's originally from Brooklyn and he served in the US military in the 1970s and 1980s... in West Germany. He was sketchy on the details, but the one thing he would tell me is that as a way to earn some money on the side, he and some of his army mates worked as couriers, smuggling various small but valuable items across the border into East Germany. Among the more regular requests he received were Beatles and Rolling Stones records, Milka chocolate, food and particular groceries only available in the west, and bottles of Coca Cola (the fourth time he smuggled Coca Cola over the border was the only time the border guards' searches ever found anything).
When I asked him about the strangest thing anyone had ever asked him to smuggle over, he laughed, and said it was a tie between women's stockings in all manner of colours and styles for a 46-year-old cross-dressing accountant in Erfurt, and a Harley Davidson.
I had to ask.
Apparently a motorbike enthusiast in East Germany kept them in business for two years with a special order: he had arranged to have a Harley Davidson motorcycle delivered to a friend in West Germany, who then dismantled it and paid couriers like Mike and his army colleagues to smuggle it bit by bit across the border to him in East Germany, where he put it back together. The whole process took about two years, and amazingly none of the parts were ever found during border searches.
After having received all the parts and having reassembled the bike in his barn, this Harley nut could only ride it because he lived in a very rural area well away from border patrols, and then only in the darkness of the very early hours of the morning. On top of that, the amount he paid to have the bike dismantled and smuggled over was almost as much as the bike itself.
There were so many more questions I had for him - about his experiences with the border guards, what it was like when the wall fell and in the months and years after reunification, but as luck would have it, just as he finished the Harley story, we turned off the freeway, and a few moments later we pulled into the parking bay at the main terminal of JFK.
He seemed genuinely happy that I was so curious about his experiences, but by the same token, I got the distinct impression that just sharing the Harley story and telling me about his time moonlighting as a smuggler reminded him of other things he would rather not remember. Earlier in the conversation when I showed interest at the mention of his military experience in Germany, he started to tell me about the first few months living in Germany, and how the whole courier idea started. Apparently one of his mates had the idea, before -
And that's where he stopped, mid-sentence. It was as if Mike had suddenly remembered that he didn't know me from a bar of soap, and whatever came after "before" was something that he had just realised he didn't particular want to share with someone he'd known for all of five minutes. He didn't talk for a few minutes, and when he started again, it was the Coca Cola story - lighthearted, as if nothing had happened.
He didn't bring it up again - his friend, nor how the courier idea came about - and I knew better than to ask.
The moral of the story? Public transport is cheap, and walking still cheaper, but taxis, while pretty darn expensive comparatively, can pay dividends in story-telling material and invaluable experience, if you just ask the right questions.
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