Ten Years of Funerals

One of the first things I ever did for the Lower Manhattan construction website for which I write was cover the first anniversary of 9/11.

I worked among five other communications professionals, but I was the only one who went downtown for that heavy day. Security was tight, but I had a special entry in place through our City Hall connections. After all, the website was created especially for and about all-things-rebuilding. 

I remember meeting a married couple down in “the pit” (as we affectionately called our place of business). The woman told me about her brother, a firefighter who perished 365 days prior and on the same ground where we stood.

I humbly took the couple’s photo, her facing me, her husband with his back to me to show the t-shirt they had made in their brother’s honor. They were sad, but seemed to have a grip on it. They appreciated the commemoration, but were not using it as a reason to tear open the wound again and re-feel the incomparable loss of the actual day.  Many commemoration participants were like that. There were tears, but it was a kind of closure.

Then the same thing happened the next year. Another ceremony to mark the day, with nearly 3,000 names being read, this year by parents of the victims (in Sept. 2002, it was their children reading their names).

The north Memorial pool with the Freedom Tower 

I wept. I relived 9/11/01. I couldn’t believe that I was sitting there hearing yet again about all the pain caused by terrorism, and propaganda about our precious freedom. Yes, propaganda – because how free are we if we limit some people’s rights while exalting others’? (Gays and lesbians, immigrants, blue-collar workers, pot smokers – yes, our freedom is limited.)

Is reliving the horrors and emotional assault on each of us really what they meant by “rebirth”?  Because to me it’s more like re-hashing.

Now we are here in the future. This weekend will bring the 10th anniversary of the attacks, of hijackings and violence, confusion and pain, the start of lifelong illnesses for victims and emergency responders – and it will also mark the 10th funeral for 2,977 people (plus 19 hijackers) who died that day, or because of that day. By the way, that’s only counting the direct deaths, not those whose 9/11-related deaths perhaps went un-memorialized.

I have many questions now, 10 years later:

Is the City of New York hosting these commemoration ceremonies because they’re afraid to forget what happened that day, and without a ceremony that is sure to happen?

Why do victims’ family members want to relive that pain every September?

Is fear driving this commemoration event, as in, fear of what people will think if NYC doesn’t put on a big show?

What are the benefits of having an annual funeral?

Are any family members outraged at the pressure to participate, lest the risk being deemed callous?

Why are those who died of 9/11-related deaths, whether physical, mental, or emotional illnesses, not also included in the ceremony? Are their deaths less significant because they weren’t literally at the WTC?

OK, I can understand why a major 10th anniversary event is warranted.  But I do not see why funerals number two-through-nine were necessary.

This year, I had wanted to be there for the anniversary event. I lobbied my bosses for a media pass, as had been previously granted.

Instead of giving me permission to be there, however, the agency I work for decided it would be better to send someone from their own office (not a humble ‘consultant’ like me; after all, my nine years of writing about the WTC site doesn’t matter much to New York State bureaucrats, devoted to the chain of command and to firing people six months before their pension can kick in). 

The agency guy who will attend instead of me will take soft-focus photos and sketch ink drawings and make wee watercolor works – for he balances his inner arteest with his directorship. Agency guy will likely not speak to another soul, nor take a single written note, nor write an article about the day, nor even draft captions for his non-investigative photography.

And I will stay home, witnessing my 9/11/11 from my window to Lower Manhattan and via NY1. And I will probably wonder why I ever wanted to be part of the funereal festival in the first place.

The south pool of the new National 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center

Entitlement

I enter a packed bus heading home from downtown Brooklyn. A dozen more people are jamming on. We all have bags and bulky coats. I try to squeeze my way through the people standing and see that not one, not two -- but FOUR different women have decided it's totally fine to sit on the outside of the two-seat bench seats.

Why? Is it that much of an inconvenience to just take the wall seat? Are they really getting off next, two stops from where the bus originated?  People are looking, lusting after those empty seats, but no one's bothering the rude-ass ladies who are blocking them.  Finally I can't take it anymore and go to the nearest one. "Can I sit there?"  She's on her phone, but huffily complies.

I scoot next to the wall, and feel her trying to jam her big ass and marshmallowy down coat back into the bus' outer bucket seat. I know she's got at least half a cheek falling off as she keeps pressing into me. I feel happy that I'm not the one hanging off the edge of the seat -- super-satisfied that I'm sitting for my mile-long ride home that I know will arrive before this jerkstore's stop. I almost want to thank her for giving me the cushy inside seat.

But then, if I said anything it would erupt into a fight faster than her smacking her condescending mouth at me and what she would probably deem my white privilege.

This is what the women of Brooklyn are like when they're in self-entitlement mode.  The bus is their primary domain, and anyone who tries to encroach on their space risks their wrath. They are quick with the rude comments and ugly attitude, seeming ever-ready to form a fist.

I do not understand it -- esp. why it's particularly acid on the buses that traverse the Fulton Street Mall -- yet it's the most consistent part of my commute.  I do encounter such entitled women elsewhere in the city -- in fact once I bumped into one on a crowded downtown sidewalk at rush hour, and she responded "I ought to punch you in the fucking face."  Luckily (yes, luckily) I was in a crappy mood that day and threw it right back -- "Do it!" - and she kept on walking.  If I hadn't been in that mood I might have just said "sorry" and felt lame the rest of the day.

The rage rises fast in New York...oh city of vicious competition and deteriorating transit!

More to come on this topic, as more outrage bubbles up.  Because once upon a time I had sympathy and modesty...but I've learned by example, and now I have a growing sense of entitlement.

Macho, Macho Man

Among the abundant flights my emotions take me on, here is one uncontrollable knee-jerk reaction that I may hate the most: Despising certain people upon sight, and for no sellable reason.

Unfortunately, one of those people—OK, there’s more than one but I’ll just take this one as the prime example—attends some of my same regular meetings. He is a tall chubby young bald man with the face of a boy and demeanor of a pubescent. He wears baggy jeans and ballcaps to office meetings, cradles both a Blackberry and an iPhone, and does the big-hand handshake with the cop and the oversized city planner he usually nestles in between. He sits with his legs spread wide like he’s giving birth to a wife-abusing super-bowl football, and talks deep-voiced about street infrastructure to back up that he’s a professional engineer…though really he’s clown in hardhat clothing.

See what I mean?  Nowhere in this rant will you find an actual reason to loathe him. Guys like him are a dime a dozen. I guess that’s part of why I hate him even more for being recently engaged—because men who are this stupid shouldn’t be singled out by any woman enough to marry.  Apart from the engagement, I can surmise that the bride-to-be also must be a dolt to be able to tolerate him, as we all overlook the premature hair loss and steadily inflating spare tire. I hear their ceremony is going to be in a reception hall on the south shore of Long Island. How enchanting. You can almost hear the Buttafuoco family applauding for them over open-bar bottles of Bud Light (for men) and rum-and-cokes (for the ladies).

 

I think it is a mutual disdain. I can’t have this much hatred for someone without it coming out of my pores, and he has sat next to me a few times before. Of course, a key trait of male cluelessness is that short-haired women go unnoticed. So then, I guess it’s my secret.

Non-Assigned Predestined Seating

What was it about the first meeting in that room that made me pick that seat? I knew I wanted to be in good earshot of my boss leading the meeting. But then, not so close I seemed like some kind of authority figure, or even that I’m someone to pay any attention to (I’m shy that way). I also knew I had to face the window for emergency zoneouts and weather checks.

Now, after years of meeting with the same people, it would cause confusion, questions, and possibly gossip if I were to change that seat. Sure, sometimes I pick the chair to the left—but that’s my only indulgence in predestined meetin’ seatin’.

I sometimes wonder (see ‘zoneouts’, above), what if I decided one morning to take the cop’s seat, over on the corner with his back to the windows [where no one can see the porn on his  crackberry]? I can be fairly certain he’d tell, not ask, me to move.

He did that once to another agency flunky, despite the fact that that particular flunky has “director” is in his title. The flunky relocated without even a shrug. (And we wonder why the NYPD has such inflated egos. Guns, not the officers, command a lot of compliance.) But what would the cop have done in the face of resistance—throw a tantrum? Tattle? Put a bullet in him?

Now that I think about it, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anybody but the cop make someone move from his non-assigned-but-still-predestined seat. Everyone else is just totally predictable and never strays from their lily pads.

The reasons for our return to the same seats is part of the collective subconscious. It returns us to a familiar perspective. There we can avoid the distractions of new views and pay better attention to what’s going on. It also instills complacency, a sense of community in which each of us knows our place. It also reflects our inherent agreeability, routine, and muscle memory.

In the room where the meeting is held, the seating also is hierarchical, with “regulars” around the table and “others” back in the additional-chair rows. The Others include both non-regulars and the men who wish to talk as little as possible. They mumble their answers and never offer information that’s not specifically asked for. Con Ed reps are always in the back rows.

Government People are Addicted to Crack…berries

So maybe we’re all a little guilty of it. A meeting is droning on and on, and you’re wondering why you were even invited, so your phone creeps out for a quick e-mail check. Next thing you know your boss’ boss is repeating your name to get you to snap out of your crackberry den while you’re texting about dinner plans.

Smartphones: The New Heroin.

In my construction meetings this happens every day, and the culprits are surprising. Almost always it’s the ‘higher ups’ with their noses buried in their Blackberries, nimbly wailing on those miniscule keys like their lives depended on it. Do they think it makes them look important? Are they driven to the crackberry by the dullness of the meeting or is it legit?

But more than the executive director, I always wonder what that NYPD sergeant is tapping out. Surely he’d say it was some highly confidential criminal-management communiqué. But when the meeting leader starts repeating his name, the sarge can barely look away. Obviously he’s looking at porn.

Most amusingly, I’ve seen a representative from an integral city agency typing on his crackberry WHILE GIVING A PRESENTATION. Damn that must be an important message. Probably something about a traffic signal going out, or a bicyclist struck by a wilding Access-a-Ride driver (‘driver’ is a loose term; ‘kamikaze’ is more fitting). No wait, they don’t take immediate action about such things….

Regardless, the cacophony of teeny ticking keys gives me bountiful food for speculation. The most consistently recurring thought: What did people do before ‘smart’ phones numbed their brains?

Community of a Bored One

There are contingents of local citizens that comprise New York City’s community boards. NYC.gov says about them:

“Community Boards have an important advisory role in dealing with land use and zoning matters, the City budget, municipal service delivery, and many other matters relating to their communities’ welfare.”

For around eight years now, I’ve been attending the meetings of Manhattan’s Community Board 1 and its various committees. The World Trade Center committee is the biggie, of course. It’s the place where the Port Authority, MTA, NYPD, LMDC, and all kinds of other agencies and project leaders come to get credit for keeping the downtown “stakeholders” (buzzword!) in the loop.

True, it’s a raging river of information about all construction work, big and small. I know this especially because presenters usually go through their projects in great detail as if discussing it for the very first time. (e.g. “Here is a diagram of the World Trade Center site. These are the streets that it borders.”)  And as such, the forum also serves as a tepid pool of redundancy that comes at the hands of a few CB members more committed to trying to sound smart and control the forum than actually respecting fellow attendees’ time.

For instance, one member who has, mercifully, recently moved out of town, used to pose the same question to every presenter: “Will there be benches in the [concourse, station, lobby, platform, etc.]?”

Only, he wouldn’t just ask it simply and then listen to the answer—which by the way, usually was something like “We’re just now drawing up the plans for the substructure, and procuring structural steel, so we won’t have the details of how the space will be designed for at least another 18 months.”   

No, this guy would ask it, then rephrase it (“Because there are people with packages who may be tired and need to rest… will there be benches there?”), then re-rephrase it (“Often times I walk through the [concourse, lobby, station, hallway, daycare center], and I might be a little tired, or have an injury…so will there be benches there?”).

Usually he’d follow up by explaining why it’s important to have benches wherever we humans choose to walk. Sometimes he’d follow up with a question about whether or not there would be public restrooms, and what their capacity and accessibility would be.

Then there are the members who bury a simple question, like “Is the project on budget?,” with a lengthy introduction to the question. “As we all know, local residents here and in other areas of the city have had to endure delays on projects because of changing budgets and…[insert 250 more words].”

My favorite, though, is a tie between two incidents that occur nearly every meeting:

1. The thirtysomething guy who gives the impression that he’s a youthful retired firefighter (though I think he’s really just the fire marshal in his condo or something, so he gets to wear a whistle every now and then), who always notes something about how everyone in Tribeca is still breathing 100% contaminated air, and/or infers that the city is somehow neglecting to remedy the ailments of the entire CB1 population.

2. The genius who has his cell phone turned on near his microphone, so we all get to enjoy the rousing electric feedback every 30 seconds or so.  But at least it helps keep us awake.

Did I mention the next meeting is tonight?

How I Got Here, or, Cubicle Without Shackles

I moved to New York City a shy country girl…OK, no, but when you come from a smaller city New York makes everywhere else seem like hillbilly country.  My first job was a potent cubicle culture. People kept their heads down, darting from desk to bathroom lest we be stopped by a supervisor and asked to turn our attentions from the riveting paperwork that otherwise awaited.

Getting used to Gotham was an adjustment, but I broke onto the scene with the joie de vivre of an ex-con with a stolen Cadillac. I was a true buff, a geek who dove into books about city history and the subway system and walked around gazing up at vertical architectural details. I delighted in my time off, rapturously absorbing and observing my new home.

One day at work, our big PR company won a big new an account: the City of New York. They initially put another mindless worker in charge of writing about anything relevant to life below Houston Street…and then three weeks letter she turned in her notice, hanging up her cubi-shackles to open a B&B in Maine. No I’m not kidding.

Suddenly, the beat was mine. For the shiny ‘showcase’ account and new website, hardly a single topic was off limits. The city—specifically the southern tip of the city, where the city really was born—was mine to cover however I liked. History, art, road rebuilding, skyscrapers, businesses, transportation, personalities, events, Tribeca, the Seaport, Chinatown—all mine!

In October 2002 I found myself traversing the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge, interviewing the city’s top bridge inspector. We reached the top of the eastern tower, wearing harnesses that were no longer attached to anything, and there was the city and harbor splayed out before me.

The cubicle that contained me had become a springboard, and I landed on top of the world’s greatest bridge.