10 years on

I was at work, like a lot of us were.  The one advantage I had over most people was that I was able to see what was happening on the TV right above my head.  I was able to see it but I was not able to comprehend it, could not process that two planes had flown into the World Trade Center, and denied to myself that both towers had collapsed in a matter of hours.  I could not believe that the towers I had watch being built, had been in them on both business and pleasure, had seen where the tightrope walker had autographed his name on the wall the day he traversed the distance between them, had both come down in a huge tragic pile.  Just recently, I looked through a book I had bought at the time and the pictures of the huge fireballs, and the people hanging out the windows and then hurtling in the air, the piles of rubble, and the clouds of smoke and ash and debris, all still have the power to take my breath away.  As always, my thoughts turned to the people I knew there and the thousands of others who lost their lives that day.    

What have we learned in the ensuing 10 years?  A lesson that has been reinforced is that violence begets more violence.  We have lived in a near-constant state of war since then, and the grim statistics keep piling up.  Another lesson that’s been reinforced is that we leave the killing and warfare to our military; us civilians have very little to do with the war.  We ask our soldiers and sailors to put themselves in harm’s way, but we do very little to help them except pay them lip service and applaud them when their pictures are flashed on the message boards at ballparks.  If we were asked to sacrifice our plush lives to end the war, would we?  Would we accept rationing to bring the men and women home quicker?  I wish somebody would ask those questions; I’d like to know how I’d respond.

Hey buddy! Wanna buy a bridge?

For Labor Day weekend, your Center City Correspondent and Mrs. CCC agreed that it was time to get out of town.  We needed to see different zip codes, to slip the surly confines of Center City, to give our spirits a lift.  So we traded one big town for another, and went to New York for the day.  In the past we’d see a show for half-price, but this time we had our sights set on bigger things to do and see.  One thing that has always captured my imagination is the Brooklyn Bridge with its sturdy stone towers made almost spiritual by the beautiful Gothic arches along with the spider web of cables and suspenders.  To know that a man designed and men built the bridge lets me know that we are all capable of higher goals and accomplishments.  To me it transcends being a utilitarian conveyance and becomes almost a work of art.  A few years back we read a book, The Great Bridge by David McCullough which describes the concept and the building of the bridge, as if you were there.  I’d highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know the political, social and economic stories of two big American cities separated by more than a river, but ultimately brought together by a common undertaking.

So we got into lower Manhattan on a warm summer’s day, and after a quick walk around Ground Zero, we took the subway over to Brooklyn to start our stroll back across the bridge.  It’s all very clearly marked and up a short flight of steps and you have the whole bridge in front of you.  A lot of other people had the same idea too, and they weren’t all New Yorkers.  From what I heard there were people from all over the world who came to see the bridge, and if they are like me, they weren’t disappointed.  It’s less than 1.5 miles over the bridge and you are on a walkway suspended over the roadway so you hardly notice the cars, and it affords you a good view off both sides of the bridge.  Along the way you are treated to the sights of Manhattan, the river and harbor below, the Manhattan Bridge right next door and in the distance, the Statue of Liberty.  But the real treat is the bridge itself.  From a distance, the towers look small, but as you approach them you realize how big and massive they are and the delicate interlacing of the cables gives it a light open feeling.  You are truly standing on a work of art.  After a leisurely stroll back into Manhattan, we rode the subway up to midtown and did some shopping and sightseeing and caught the train back home, all in the same day. 

 
So if your spirit ever needs a little lift, spend a few hours on top of the Brooklyn Bridge.  And don’t let anybody try to sell you the bridge, because I already bought it.