I began this blog as a Moby-Dick inspired space for rants and ramblings, as a way to process my passion for a great book and to discuss ongoing scholarship in reference to it - I went offline for the summer and have been errant in my posts and sometimes it takes a kick of nostalgia, or memory, or inspiration to get back to the act of writing so today, on this anniversary of September 11, 2001 I am going to go off-topic and muse on some things I've been kicking around in my head lately - memories that all of the media coverage of late has reminded me of - Forgive me if this is a continuation of the media saturation surrounding this event but a friend recently reminded me that in this digital age of information we all have many choices of outlets from which we get our information and simultaneously have the same choices to ignore what we choose to - That being said this story, like my blog, is just one guy's ramblings, an amateur amongst a world of experts, another voice from the darkness giving his witness to history, perhaps, as Shakespeare said in Macbeth, "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Or perhaps this story has merit like all of our individual stories do, but either way, merit or not, this is mine...
ELEGY IN BLUE - Remembering the Pre- 9/11 World - September 11, 2011
I moved to New York City from Boston on April 1, 2001. I had vague yearnings to be a writer but more importantly, I just wanted to live in the city of my birth, to see for myself what my parents had seen in the 60's and 70's - to view for myself the actual blueprint of the silver screen depictions I adored - the inspiration and often main character of Woody Allen and Spike Lee films - the CITY ITSELF.
I arrived with a modest sense of self-protection - I had been weaned on stories of crime, rudeness, and danger- all portents which armored me with a caution I lost within hours of living there. I found instead a city vibrant, open, and most excitingly mine.
The first spring and summer in New York were, up to that point, the best times of my life - new york was expensive so I worked my butt off at a midtown steakhouse but I also visited every park, museum, restaurant, synagogue, cathedral and landmark I could find. I ambled through my old nabe of Cobble Hill Brooklyn, hung out in Williamsburg, hopped the water taxi to Hoboken, sat in the stands of Arthur Ashe Stadium at the U.S. Open, visited the Seaport and Battery that was home to Herman Melville, listened to shitty bands at CBGB, and had many many innumerable other escapades including visiting the grounds of the World Trade Center Plaza.
Years earlier a school trip had brought me to the Trade Center's summit and I remember being high inside with my hands pressed against the glass and the real sense of feeling it sway. It was transcendent - this colossus moved ever so slowly - and I and my classmates moved with it...
Early on in my time in Manhattan, I met a french speaking girl from Montreal who had just finished acting school in the city. We began dating and she brought me to my first off-off- broadway play. We saw theater in small venues all over town -even a few on broadway - My fondest memories were of late nights after work- she and I would duck into hidden diminutive french wine bars and I'd chill and reflect on the day as she'd converse with the waiters in french and I'd acquire a fondness for steak frites and bordeaux.
I toiled eagerly at a midtown gin-joint - a respected steakhouse and grill slinging steaks, wine, and martinis to Sony record execs, Disney sales managers, the cream of the crop of advertising agents as we were the epicenter of the ad world - and the place was replete with wall street guys; traders, brokers, bond guys, fund managers - including many of the Cantor - Fitzgerald folks who worked , and perished, in the WTC. It was a lively place - and for a small town kid from the coast of Maine - it was a refreshing mix of hardcore personalities - ranting lawyers, cheery brokers, grizzled ad execs, aging rock stars, beautiful models, oscar winning actors, foreign diplomats from the UN - Big-Hearted Cops, flashy wanna-be mob guys, modest, quiet, but huge-tipping ACTUAL mob guys, famous writers I admired, and Hall-of-Fame athletes sitting beside midwestern tourists - central casting be damned! - this was a cacophony of excess and joy- skippered by the best bartender in town, a stick thin tall puppet of a man who seemed to know everyone and their stories -Rich to poor, Society to Fireman - and treated them with the same smiling cranky indifference and simultaneous humanity.
I had a mountain bike at the time and it was my ticket to Manhattan and beyond. I lived in Mid-Town East - Turtle Bay - but I could be in Union Square in minutes. Moments later I'd be in Battery Park, the Seaport, the West Village, over the bridge into Brooklyn, back across a different span into Manhattan and then spinning over the Queensboro bridge bound for Astoria. In fact my biggest coup as a biker was to spend that summer peddling over all of the accessible bridges of Manhattan, the Brooklyn was the most iconic, the Manhattan bridge brought you to DUMBO - the Queensboro was a few blocks from my home, the Williamsburg Bridge was always fun - whipping the rider into a funny blend of hipsters and Hasids, and others but the one I looked forward to the most was the George Washington Bridge - It is situated on the far far upper west side of Manhattan and I got lost on my bike more than once attempting the approach in Harlem and Washington Heights - I even took the wrong ramp near the bridges' entrance and eventually had to scale down a 30 foot stone wall with my mountain bike slung around one shoulder - At the moment i was thankful I had once spent a summer free-climbing the sea-side cliffs of Monhegan Island back in Maine.
I rode across the GW on a brilliantly clear hot summer afternoon in august. I was a speck on the congested track, making my way to Fort Lee, New Jersey where I would lunch then return. On my trip back I marveled at the view down the Hudson River and of the Statue of Liberty in the bay - miles and miles away from my pedestal on that bridge - and of the behemoths that were those two sparkling Towers like giant goal posts within her visage.
In short those five months swam by and though less than half a year - I learned more, saw more, (perhaps drank more), and lived more than I had anywhere else in my life. I vividly recall walking around the corner from my small apartment on the way to meet a friend and I was struck - maybe possessed - with the instant realization that I was happy. Not content, not hopeful, but positively happy. At That Moment. It was visceral - my cynicism tried to shrug it off but it was too powerful -the morning sun shown down upon me, honking cabs blared around me, a tranquil waterfall of a synagogue park glistened beside me and my life and this city lay before me but right then - I knew I was happy.
The summer of my culture and exploration culminated with one thing I had put off - one thing I needed to do. I wanted to go to Yankee Stadium. I was a fair weather Yankees fan throughout my youth but I had grown up in New England and all of my friends were devout Red Sox fans - So early in September the Yankees were playing the Red Sox with the formidable Pedro Martinez on the mound. My girlfriend and I probably over-paid for shitty seats in the bleachers but I couldn't have been more pleased, It was my first trip of many to that stadium and the Yankees nipped the Sox 3-2 in an exciting game.
It was September 7, 2001. I was 27. I had returned to the city of my birth of which I only knew of from stories from my parents and from films, music, and books - I had a fun job - I was living in mid-town manhattan - and I was at a Yankees game with a pretty girl and a lifetime of memories. It was September 7, 2001.
And All Was Well With the World.
JTM
