New
York City
December 31, 2001
"Ground Zero"
Sue, Karla and I decided to spend the last day of the year seeing the devastation at Ground Zero.
The gate agents in Atlanta were humorous and upbeat as they made the boarding announcements. They reported the weather in New York as 22 degrees with a wind chill factor of -4.
We were not deterred. After our first class ride up to LaGuardia, we donned our gloves and scarves and headed for the taxi stand. After almost making us nauseous with his accelerate decelerate accelerate decelerate style of driving, he finally dropped us off in front of the viewing platform.
We backtracked along the line of people for about 8 blocks before finding the end of the line. We were told it was a 4-hour wait. We were still not deterred. We stamped our feet, ran in place, danced and chatted with our line mates for 3.5 hours (some Delta folks from L.A.). We took turns holding our place in line while the others went in search of a warm place for a few minutes. We kept waiting to turn the corner so we would be in the sun, but by the time we did, the sun had gone behind a building.
When we had almost made it to the church in front of the platform, people started trying to break in line. We had to keep a constant eye out for breakers and report them to the police officers that were monitoring the line. It was a real distraction from the memorial in front of the church.
When we finally rounded the corner to the platform, the wind really kicked in and it seemed our blood slowed to a crawl. It was difficult to make our legs move to walk up the platform. The view really didn't have the impact that I was expecting. It was hard to concentrate because of the cold. I took some pictures. I am hoping when I look at them from the warmth of my home, I can reflect on the experience and get more out of it.
We found a warm place for a beverage before venturing out to look for a cab. It was a typical New York cab experience - we were ignored as we whistled, waved and ran from corner to corner before we finally got one to stop.
I think we drank most of the red wine they had on the flight home. As Karla was asking on the train at the Atlanta
airport how many bottles of wine we had, I looked up and noticed we were on the train
heading for E-Concourse... I guess the answer
to Karla's question would be "Too many!"
BJ Morris
bj@bjandtony.com