Symbols, Sympathy and Solidarity

Looking up Broad Street at the New York Stock Exchange.

Those lines of hundreds of people, circling blocks of lower Manhattan near Ground Zero, are gone [Democracy’s Line, January 11]. On January 9, the City of New York instituted a ticket policy for the Ground Zero viewing platform. What had once been a three-hour wait was reduced to an hour on the first day of this new policy.

Tickets are distributed at Pier 16 at the South Street Seaport, at Fulton Street and the East River. The viewing platform is a 10- or 15-minute walk west on Fulton Street to Broadway. Tickets are free and are distributed from 11 a.m.-6 p.m., or until all the day's tickets are given away.

The viewing platform is open from 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Two hundred and fifty tickets are distributed per half hour, meaning more than 5,000 are issued per day. (The "00" on my January 9 ticket means that it is good on the hour—as it happened, I was permitted on the viewing platform at 12:25 p.m.) Tickets marked noon-8 p.m. are to be used on the same day they are issued; tickets marked 9-11:30 a.m. are good for the next day.

The ramp to the viewing platform runs parallel with the south side of St. Paul's Church, the front of which is the site of memorial tributes from across the nation and overseas. On January 9, I noticed a firefighter putting his department's T-shirt among the great many memorials on the fence there, and learned that he is Steve Schneider, a firefighter from Normal, Illinois. He agreed to pose alongside the T-shirt with Lt. Dan Hite, a field instructor with the Illinois Fire Service Institute in Normal. Firefighter Schneider told me he placed the T-shirt on the fence "so they know we've been here and are still thinking of them." These firefighters indicated to me that they came to pay their respect at Ground Zero and also at firehouses in New York City.

I was not aware of the drawing behind the stuffed animal when I snapped this photo at Greenwich Street and Park Place.

On January 6, I took some photos of the smaller memorial at Greenwich Street and Park Place. This shrine faces the office building at the northern perimeter of Ground Zero with exposed girders. Later that day, I went to Broad Street for another look at the New York Stock Exchange Christmas tree, only to learn that it was gone. The American flag, formed on the columns of the NYSE building, was still in place, however.

On January 3, I took a photograph of a licensed vendor who told me she worked till 11 p.m. selling police and firefighter caps. On December 30, the day the viewing platform was first opened to the public, a number of such vendors could be found along Park Place. On January 9 the New York Post began a campaign against these vendors, and there were only two vendors on Broadway, a few blocks from Fulton Street, when I returned to the area that night. As I was making a purchase, three policemen approached the vendor and asked to see her license. When she produced it, one of the officers glanced at the caps and ruled that they were "counterfeit," ordering her to move as soon as I made my purchase.

We moved around the corner to Park Place and I made a few more purchases, as surreptitiously as possible, in an alleyway—out of sight of the police, one of whom had told me he liked my cap. (I was wearing a cap with the letters "NYPD" on the crown!)

Not even Rudy Giuliani had moved against the licensed vendors as the new administration of City Hall did—at the apparent demand of the New York Post. The quick response of the City to the Post's instant campaign against vendors (who had been selling these caps since early November) could indicate that Post owner Rupert Murdoch will have a cozy relationship with new Mayor Bloomberg.

This building is on the northern perimeter of Ground Zero.

The Post seemed very annoyed that these $5 "counterfeit" caps were taking money that would otherwise be spent on the "official" caps sold by the police and fire departments. This view is to be compared, perhaps, with the comment a firefighter made to me a few days after I attended the funeral of one of his firehouse colleagues. He said that perhaps now we will appreciate what is important and learn that material things are not at the top of the list.

And, of course, the sheer force of the Post's outrage is to be compared with the memorial tributes at St. Paul's Church and at other places in the vicinity of Ground Zero. Coming from across the country and overseas, these tell us that a great many people are expressing "communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments" with the people of New York City. Let's hope the new tenant in City Hall sees fit to do the same.

A view from the platform. The ticket booth at Pier 16. The ramp to the viewing platform, looking west toward Ground Zero. Dan Hite and Steve Schneider of Normal, Illinois. A vendor selling caps on January 3.