*Flashback*
Date: September 11th, 2001
Place: New York City
There I was. Sitting in Mrs. Marcus’ third grade class, without a clue as to what was about to unfold. My day started off like any other day, breakfast, morning cartoons, failed attempt at trying to stay home from school by faking some sort of ailment, and eventually ending up at my elementary school, P.S. 46 located in Bayside. Mrs. Marcus had just told us to take out our grammar workbooks, when the commotion began to start. Being seated right next to the door, I could see that teachers started to roam the halls and whispering to one another. Since I was a mere eight years old, my logic was that the teachers were about to throw some major surprise party for everyone in the gymnasium… sadly I was wrong. RING RING RING! The phone rang and student number one was told to leave the room. My jealously raged as I saw this child freed from the tortures confined within this jail they called school, until the phone rang again. RING RING RING! Another student is told to gather their things and meet their mother downstairs. I could not believe how lucky these kids were, until the phone rang once more. RING RING RING! Astonishingly, I was the next kid told to go home. Jumping with joy, without thinking twice about why parents would be picking up their kids from school, I picked up my Scooby Doo backpack and skipped down stairs to find my mother in the office. All of a sudden my smile was wiped clear off my face. My little brother was being taken home too after being home sick for three days! That’s when I knew something was wrong. The phones were ringing off the hook in the office and parents were flooding the main entrance. We leave school to pick up my older brother, and I asked my mother what was wrong. She says, “I don’t know.” We get home and I turn on the T.V. to two buildings on fire, tons of smoke, and people in fear. I asked, “Where is that?” and my mother responds “In the city.” “Isn’t that where Dad works?” “Yes, his building is a couple of blocks away.” “Is he ok?” “I don’t know.”
This memory will forever be a part of me, and my perception of New York City. I didn’t know it at the moment, but with time I realized that this memory would always give me a sort of intimate connection with the city itself that no one else would understand. Yes, the nation was attacked and, as Americans, we all felt vulnerable for the first time in I don’t know how many years, but when you could see the cloud of smoke from your window, it’s difficult to actually take it all in. At first, it was the fear for my father’s life, then it was the fear for the people in that building, and eventually I was worried about my own well being. I’m not saying that the 9/11 experience New Yorkers felt was more traumatic than someone who wasn’t living in New York City, but it was very personal. Everyone was scared, nobody knew why or what was going to happen next, all we knew was that something terrible had happened.
I can definitely say that although 9/11 was a tragic event, it did bring out the best in most New Yorkers. For the next couple of months, my father told me how people were much more willing to help one another and console one another as if we were all one big family that had just experienced a death in the family. He said that he had never seen the city pull together so closely in his entire life. If you weren’t a New Yorker, you wouldn’t have been able to see the direct effect 9/11 had had on the people of New York City, which makes it that much more meaningful to New Yorkers in my eyes.
The artists who portray 9/11 in their work will all get the same emotion, fear, sadness, maybe even a little anger. But it’s those who take such a tragic event and use it to convey a sense of hope that I feel portray it effectively. Within all the heartbreak and tears, emerged a sense of good will and hope that urged people to pull together in under such tragic circumstances. The 9/11 Peace Story Quilt is a perfect example of an artwork that displays the events in a meaningful way. Not only does it present the stories of multiple New Yorkers on that day, but it also bestows people with that sense of hope felt afterwards that everything is going to be ok. Michael Moore and his film Fahrenheit 9/11, on the other hand, was a piece of artwork that not only exploited a tragic event to convey a political message but took advantage of people’s emotions. The last thing someone should do is take a terrible event and use it for his or her own personal gain, which is far from meaningful. Despite artists similar to Michael Moore, there are people out their who can and have effectively taken the events of 9/11 and portrayed them in way that brings hope into our hearts.
Everyone has their own memory of 9/11 that is just as important to them as it is to me. If one can remember the events as clearly and vividly as I do to this day, it definitely was a major milestone in one’s life. The traumatic events gave people a new perspective on New York City, and that all depends on how you look at it. Maybe it was some sort of sympathy, understanding, fear; regardless New York City would never be the same to anyone. The World Trade Center, two of the largest buildings in the world, were taken off the face of the earth only to live within our hearts and minds.
