I go to the World Trade Center on September 11 to remember. I say that others go to graves to pay tribute. I go to the place that did not become my grave to pay thanks. But it is becoming harder every year. That’s not because of the memories, which do indeed lost their sharpness and volume.
It’s because of the assholes standing outside the PATH station now: the 9/11 nutjobs, the 21st-century Holocaust deniers who exploit the day and its sacred memory to spread their poison and get on TV — and TV happily conspires with them to do that. How some people can be so starved for attention to do this is beyond me.
But the city is not helping. This year’s memorial was moved to a park across the street from the site — because the hole is well under construction — and nothing can be seen and little heard. So the public view of this day is left to the crazies. That is a shame. This should be a day for all New York and its friends to remember and pay quiet tribute.
But at the same time, I am relieved to see the building at the Trade Center: WTC 7 up and gleaming, the Deutsche Bank finally if fitfully coming down, the pit filled with concrete, steel bars, piles of dirt, and beeping machines. At long last, the hole is being filled, life is returning.
We need to find better ways for that life to live next to the memories.
