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A Journey of Despair and Hope
By Audrey Blondin, Litchfield
The first thing you notice is the smell. As you drive down Broadway, past Times Square, heading south towards lower Manhattan, the lights and the traffic, people, sights and sounds beckon you to roll down your car window. As you lean out the window to drink in the essence of the city, your nose crinkles and you think to yourself, what is that smell? It's a dusty, murky, dark smell, unlike anything you've ever smelled before. Then, you remember—how can you ever forget?
Onward you go to Canal Street. Right after the attack, all traffic south of Canal Street was forbidden. Armed local and state police, Army personnel, National Guard, rescue vehicles and humvees stand three and four deep on each side of every narrow street leading south from Canal Street. Walking south from Canal Street to the site of the former World Trade Center is like being on a movie set. Flags fly proudly from tall buildings dark with no electricity and blown out windows. There is no vehicular traffic anywhere. All local, state and federal government buildings close by the site are triple-barricaded to prevent easy access. Only walkers are on the streets, all drawn like the pull of a magnet towards the site.
Three blocks from Ground Zero, you can go no further. People stand ten deep, staring at the rising smoke and giant red crane, speechless, praying and crying. Police officers urge the crowd to keep moving. Most people stand paralyzed, unable to grasp the sight before them, even from three blocks away.
Two months later, on a return visit to New York City, you can now drive down past Canal Street, with only an occasional stop for a random spot check. Closer and closer you approach the site. All of a sudden, you look to your right and there it is. Bright lights, construction trucks coming and going, and, almost surreally, the red crane still standing tall and the smoke still rising.
You park your car and walk one block. In front of you, staring you in the face, is the burned out, destroyed hulk of the former World Trade Center. It's like looking into an open grave. Thousands of people remain buried in the rubble. Once again, your feet are rooted to the ground. You gasp, you cry and you pray. It is unlike anything you have ever seen, or hope to see again. Television cannot begin to convey the depth and breadth of this horrific tragedy standing before your eyes.
Numb, you start to walk away. Lights and the sound of Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" draw you to the storefront of Chelsea Jeans, one block from the World Trade Center. Many people are crowded around the store entrance. You stop, look, and gasp once again. Polo shirts, designer sweaters, Calvin Klein jeans, all neatly folded and arranged on racks, are enclosed in a glassed-in area and covered with a thick layer of gray ash and soot. You can't help but think of the thousands of lost souls, forever a part of this ash and soot. The owner decided that after his store windows were blown out in the attack and over $100,000 in merchandise was destroyed, he never wanted anyone to forget what had happened. Rather than clean up and restore, he encased in glass this unbelievable sight so that those who came to remember would never forget.
As you walk away, past the candles still burning bright along the makeshift memorial wall, where pictures of those who lost their lives in the attack smile and stare, you have only one thought. Every American should make this journey. It is a journey of despair, yet a journey of hope. Hope that a tragedy of this horrific proportion will never happen again. Hope and a prayer that the sacrifices of those who are called by their nation to defend our rights and our freedoms will also be remembered, and that they will be justly compensated and never forgotten.
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