I was on my Rollerblades headed downtown along the West Side Highway.Coming around the 23rd Street bend I saw only One Tower Standing. Then the Second Tower collapsed.

Recently I’ve realized that my life in New York is like living in a bubble. Most national news events do not concern me, unless they happen in New York. That includes the recent
tragic event at Virginia Tech. I’m not heartless by any means, but I really wasn’t all that affected by it. It’s horrible, yes, but I am not in a state of bereavement, much like I imagine many New Yorkers felt after 9-11. On Thursday I wrote in my personal blog:
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On my way to pick up some lunch this afternoon I notice that they have all of Leonard Street in Williamsburg closed off, and tons of huge film vans and trucks are lining the surrounding blocks. According to the signs they are filming FX’s “Rescue Me” the Denis Leary firefighter drama right around the corner. There seem to be principle photography in front of the funeral home on Skillman between Leonard and Manhattan Ave, as I can see a huge mess of cast and crew out there. This is the back of John Scurti who plays one of my favorite characters, Kenny “Lou” Shea on the show and is much shorter than you would think in real life. He’s standing across from a trailer labeled “Franco”, so it’s obviously meant for actor Daniel Sunjata.

I don’t think much of this and go about my business of getting lunch at the nearby Lorimer Market (they had a delicious broccoli rabe casserole) and I’m carrying my food back the same way, rounding the corner and I spy Sunjata standing in the door of his trailer. He sees me coming up the sidewalk and scurries inside, so I figure he thinks I’m so rabid fan who wants to talk to him, but then he reappears and comes up to me with a flyer in his hand for ‘11 Remarkable Facts about 9/11‘. He hands it to me and walks back to the trailer but not before I ask “what’s this for” and he says, ever so dispassionately, “it’s about 9/11, read it and go to the website”

Man, you’re going to have to do better than that if you want to sell your conspiracy schlock to me. Still, love the show.
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I just returned from picking up my mom at JFK. As I sped through the exit from the Belt Parkway onto JFK Expressway I read a sign that was beyond nerveracking. All Vehicles May Be Inspected. Talk about the Patriot Act at work. I’m not sure how long the sign has been up but I don’t recall ever reading it before. Maybe it was there prior to 9/11 but I doubt it was…just another step in further intruding the lives of innocent New Yorkers.

It is odd reading a sign that says that you have no rights in a certain area. If I was on the Belt Parkway driving and was pulled over, the cops would need a warrant to do a search. But if I had gone .1 of a mile onto that exit - I suddenly lose all my rights.

Homeland Security, I salute you.

Manhattan-based Fox News may have accomplished what the Bush Administration failed to do: bring down Osama bin Laden. By linking his name with presidential candidate Barak Obama, Fox has seriously undermined the terrorist leader’s standing within his own party.

“Osama, Obama,” says one Taliban follower, “makes you wonder…” Rivals for the jihad leadership are discrediting Osama by mispronouncing his name, creating a subliminal suggestion that he harbors the political views of a senator from Illinois. A report circulated on Radio Kabul further suggests that Osama may have attended a secular school when he was six years old. Furious loyalists insist that the 9/11 mastermind is resolutely Middle Eastern, not Midwestern, but even so, the unfortunate name association sticks.

Observes Fox News commentator Dexter Ailes, “It probably doesn’t help bin Laden any that his middle name is Hilari.”

I walked around some of the streets of the Lower East side the other night and parked my car in front of a “we carry everything” store. What do they carry? Fur coats, leather jackets, belts, luggage, hats, scarves, and seasonal clothes & accessories.

The entire block carries the same stuff - it’s like Chinatown or some place along Fifth Avenue with the difference being that they all really carry the same stuff. There is no variety of goods, the pricing is all the same.

I always wonder how anyone along this strip makes any money. So I asked a man who was standing outside his empty store about the details…the conversation as I recall it appears below…
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It was great driving towards the Lincoln Tunnel and looking at the cranes from far away on the ground zero site. A very uplifting pre-winter evening.

In news that is hardly shocking, former mayor Rudolph Giuliani has taken initial steps toward candidacy in the 2008 presidential election by filing to form an “exploratory committee,” the traditional precursor to an official campaign.

While his people have stopped short of saying he will run, it is generally thought that he will not only run in the primary, but has a fair shot at becoming the Republican nominee. Considered a moderate Republican, he appeals to people on both sides of aisle with a liberal social viewpoint and a fiscally conservative background. The “America’s Mayor” mystique, which he gained from his perceived expert handling of the 9/11 crisis, lends him a significant amount of appeal and national fame. His moderate views may be a perfect fit for the Republican Party where many moderate Repubs are disillusioned and frustrated from eight years of hard-line policy.

However, the fact that he is Catholic may hinder his political hopes, as only one other president has been Catholic, and religion is traditionally a very key issue for voters. Additionally, he has a history of infidelity with his past wives, and his two divorces will also hurt his image.

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I’m not going to talk about 9/11 itself. Everything that could possibly be said on the subject, already has been. What I want to talk about is how we commemorate 9/11.

It bothers me deeply when we single out a specific group of dead for special consideration. After all, the loss a family feels for a loved one who dies unexpectedly in a car accident, for example, is no less painful than the loss felt by any family whose loved one died in the attack on the Twin Towers. All too often, when we single out an event or group for commemoration, a process of division occurs. These people are “special” and we are told we must act and feel a certain way to commemorate that “specialness.” Inevitably, the “memory” becomes a tool used by cynical people in the pursuit of power.
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I’ve been putting off writing a post about 9/11 every year since it happened until some reasonable amount of time went by. At five years it still doesn’t seem like the right time. I’m not sure what I am waiting for, but only half way through the day I am already oversaturated with 9/11 stories and nostalgia. Of course people need to tell their stories and other people find comfort in reading them, but I guess I am just not there and I am not sure I will ever be there. Instead of telling you my 9/11 story, I’ll tell you my 9/12 and 9/13 stories sometime, as I find them much more unique and interesting. But for now, here’s my pared down 9/11 story, as much as I can muster telling anyway.

My memories of 9/11 are probably pretty much the same as yours. I had a meeting in downtown Manhattan that morning that had been postponed the night before, so I was home. I inexplicable woke up at around 8:45 which was odd on a day that I could have slept in a bit. I got onto work email minutes after and saw the back and forth about the plans hitting, wondering if somehow it was that impact that awoke me so early. I spent most of the day like you did; glued to my TV watching the same footage over and again, all the uncertainty and terror being punctuated with every passing hour and every single time they showed the planes crashing into the towers. Seriously, did anyone not know what was going on at that point? Why did we need to see it over and over again? I was disgusted and offended by the TV so I headed upstairs to see what I could see. I watched the first tower crumble from the roof of my old building on 24th Street, but went back down to my apartment before the second tower fell–I couldn’t take it anymore.
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