The Arts in New York City

I remember sitting in a circle cross legged on the blue carpet of Ms. Marsh’s third grade classroom. I remember being so confused, kids were going home one after another, the number of children remaining was dwindling to a mere ten or twelve. All I could think was, Is this some kind of holiday? Where’s my mom? No one could tell us what was going on, they simply said that some parents wanted to be with their kids that day. Again, all I could think was, I want to be with my mom every day. When I got home from school that day, I remember my father was watching the news in the den. This struck me as really odd for him to be watching tv in the den during the middle of the day for he typically only chose to watch tv out there when he was watching a tv show we weren’t allowed to, like Sex in the City. I remember my mom sitting at the dining room table, tears were falling silently down her face. When I entered the room, she grabbed me, and she held me very close.

That day was one of confusion and disorientation; it was only in the days after that that I realized what was actually going on. It was everywhere, all over the radio, the tv, the news. My dad was watching the coverage twenty four seven, he couldn’t stop. I began to think that the coverage would never stop, and that people would never go back to being happy again. That the death toll would keep climbing and the tears would keep falling.. The entire country was in a perpetual state of mourning; a state of mourning that seemed eternal.

You would think that after such an event that people would flock towards the suburbs and New York City would experience a major shift in population, its massive eight million people fighting to get out. But that didn’t happen. People stayed, despite the fear, despite the terrible loss it suffered, people stayed in New York City. I guess that makes a statement about New Yorkers. While 9/11, I believe, impacted New Yorkers more strongly than any other people in the country, they still stuck around. People around the country heard about it, but New Yorkers lived…no…survived 9/11. The loss, the suffering, the violence. But still, They didn’t care that they were living in the core of what had happened, they weren’t going to move. Typical stubborn New Yorkers, eh?

Today, New York City is still as much of a tourist hub as ever, so one could argue that 9/11 didn’t change how people viewed it much, except that NYC will always and eternally be associated with 9/11. But 9/11 doesn’t stop people from looking at NYC as some kind of fantasy. It’s just what naturally happens in time I guess. When someone mentions Hawaii, the first thing someone thinks of is sandy beaches, mojitos, and sexy cabana boys. Not an attack on American soil that launched us into the second World War. Maybe in time, New York will  be able to dissociate with this tragedy, but maybe that in and of itself is a tragedy.

You can’t have something like this happen and forget about it. We need it as a reminder to ourselves that we as a country can survive anything, that we as people can survive anything, and that we as New Yorkers can survive anything. That is why I think that every piece if art centered around 9/11 is a good thing, whether it be movies, plays, books, sculptures, paintings, whatever. Each one is decidedly different in portraying the event, and that is what we need because everyone had an extremely different experience on that day. We need these artworks so that 9/11 doesn’t just become another chapter in the history books, so that it continues to be a living breathing thing, so that it remains an everlasting reminder of a day when we finally forgot our differences and united as one.

9/11. Just saying it gives me chills. This date, known all over the world to everyone, means so many things to people both New Yorkers and on the broader spectrum, to Americans.  To New Yorkers, especially to those directly affected by the tragedy, this date is forever imbedded in their memories.  It is a day of lost lives, lost chances, lost hopes, and lost peace.

My main recollection from this day is just confusion.  I didn’t understand what was going on and my parents wouldn’t explain anything.  All I knew was that I was excited to be able to be picked up early from school, but disappointed to see that I couldn’t watch my favorite cartoons.  My dad turned on the Egyptian channels and all I could see was burning buildings. Just burning buildings and fire.  At that I age, I knew what death was, and I could certainly count to 3,000. I had realized that this was a big deal but I couldn’t fathom it. Terrorists flew planes into buildings. That’s silly, planes fly in the sky, not in buildings. What’s a terrorist? People hurt others for no reason? But that’s so mean.  I could fairly say that my innocence and naiveté took a huge hit when I begun to understand the reality and impact of this occurrence.

But by the next week or so, while NYC, the city that never stopped even for a second, was at a standstill, I was moving on.  I was only a child; my preoccupations were on a very small scale.  I definitely overheard conversations about the mysterious World Trade Center (which I had not yet connected that it was the twin towers) and about this loss.  But I did not hear the endless stories about missing people, about mourning families, about foolish governmental acts, or even about the other planes attacks involved until quite a while later. Though I was alive during the time, I wasn’t involved. I didn’t have a stake in what happened, it seemed to only inconvenience my seven-year-old self for a day.  I could tell that this was going to be a part of history that the future generations would learn about. But it was only until years later, when I looked into the matter and really thought about it, did I form an opinion and somewhat of a reaction.

Though little me did not give much thought to it, other people certainly were.  I read a makeshift transcript of a memoir written by an older friend who was headed to work in the towers before the second plane hit. This text is a compilation of her journal entries that she wrote in a daze over the course of the year that followed. Through her I lived the up close agony and confusion of the attack and the utter loss and emptiness that followed.  She lost all that one could ever possibly lose: her soon to be spouse, her entire career, her best friends, her peace.  Her accounts still bring me to tears.  The date 9/11, to her, holds a completely different weight than to me, or a Minnesotan sitting on his couch watching these events unfold. To her, this ‘event’ changed the entire direction of her life.  It kept her on edge for months to follow and caused her serious health problems. To New Yorkers living in New York at the time, this event holds painful memories and terrible images, but to younger people now, it means next to nothing.  Do we feel the same way about the Civil War as say, a Civil War soldier or a resident of Gettysburg? No.  And it sad to think about, but that is what will happen in less than fifty years.

To those from other countries, 9/11 is a huge shake to America’s status.  A handful of people managed to completely confuse the country and kill thousands in one foul swoop.  They stopped people, literally, in their tracks and watched America hold its breath as the towers came down.  For months later searching and slowly cleaning up was all people could do. But it put the almighty United States in a daze.  These buildings, Pentagon included, held world affairs; they were centers of communication and business. And in an instant, they were replaced by a huge, gapping hole and hundreds of splintered connections.

In my opinion, no one can really portray these events in an accurate way.  Maybe a way that is pretty or thoughtful. But one that is truthful and alluring? I don’t think so. Nothing could say more than the video and images of the crash and the bewildered expressions of people standing in the middle of the streets trying to believe what they are seeing.  Just raw footage of people running, racing the dust cloud. No voice-overs, no explanations, no opinions; none of that will be necessary for the viewer to understand the impact. Each artwork that attempts to portray a certain aspect of the event could never do it justice.  Too much happened on that day to so many different people, we cannot even begin to tell the story.  The artist will only be able to see through his/her lens and some aspect of what they saw and felt may and will be lost as they try to translate that into a physical work.  That is not to say they shouldn’t try, but I cannot look at it and see 9/11 the way I look at a video and cry for all of humanity.

Maybe it’s because I was so young back then.  So naive, so unaware.  But learning this semester about 9/11, reading and viewing the artistic pieces on it–they made me actually think and consider the events of that fateful day.  I didn’t think that this unit would be so valuable to me when I first read about it in the syllabus because it was a topic I knew enough about–heck, I lived it.  But I realized that there was a lot I didn’t know, and what I did already know, got reinforced in me.  The emotions and feelings of that day are now stronger, the historical facts have been made clearer, and the contrast between the New York of then and now has been made sharper.  We are living in a whole different NYC.

We are living in a whole different NYC, and we are living with whole different mindsets about the city.  Before that day, did anyone consider September 11th a special date? It was as mundane as September 10th, as September 12th.  But once an event occurs on a certain day, everything about that day becomes associated with that event.  And so too, September 11th (“nine-eleven”) has become a cultural phenomena, if you will, one that has spread throughout the world.

In that, I would definitely say that the event has changed people’s perceptions of New York.  Again, it has to do with associations people make. The date of 9/11 has become associated with violence and terror, and New York has become associated with 9/11.  New York has that extra “baggage” of 9/11 attached to it, and people can not forget that.  “Always remember 9/11. We will never forget.”  It’s changed our perceptions of safety in the city, and the concept of terror has hit home, quite unfortunately.  We travel around with a heightened level of caution, look out for suspicious activity, and are instructed to report it if we see anything of the sort.  When traveling, we are extremely restricted in what we can carry, mainly because of this fear of terrorism.   I would argue that many of us do not feel as safe as we once felt because a terrorist attack happened here, in our backyard.  While Michael Moore described how Bush’s administration instilled fear in its citizens when there was no danger present, the fear was still there–people’s perceptions were changed.

And are those perceptions of the city more profound for those living in it?  I would say a definite yes.  That famous statement of “don’t judge others until you’re in their shoes” rings in my head. How can anyone understand the feeling of horror New York City’s residents felt watching its two towers fall, killing fellow residents, many of which were family members, friends, and co-workers.  When an event so horrific happens in your backyard, you feel connected to it, often in ways you wish you were not.  How often have you read a tragic story that happened “somewhere,” felt sad for a minute or two, and then got over it and moved on with your life?  Can you say that you “got over” 9/11 two minutes later?  How about ten years later?  If you asked someone living halfway across the world, would that person say that 9/11 is still meaningful to him?  He isn’t the one staring at the city skyline, thinking of the two towers that are now missing in the picture.  He is not constantly reminded of them when he gets on the E train and hears “this is a World Trade Center bound train.”  So no, I can’t really say that to a foreigner September 11th is as meaningful as to a New York City resident.

I think that for artists to portray the traumatizing events in a meaningful way is a difficult task, one that requires extreme sensitivity, but one that is not impossible.  Emotion is perhaps the greatest method and tool in doing so, because it is something that any person can be influenced by–everyone has emotion.  Some pieces are meaningful to certain people more than others, and that is because of our unique characters.  But the issue has been approached in many various ways, and a person is bound to be touched by at least one.  In watching Moore’s documentary, my sympathy was aroused when I saw wounded Iraqi victims’ bodies; contrastingly, a whole different kind of sympathy arose in me when reading The Mercy Seat.  I felt like I was there, in 2001, in the apartment, thinking of my dead co-workers. Because the artists were able to cause me to think and feel something inside, I would say that it’s possible for them to portray the events of that day meaningfully.  When you cause your viewers and readers to “feel something,” that often inexplicable feeling, then I think you’ve done a pretty good job.  Then you’ve really brought meaning to people’s lives.

I think I’ve made a case for myself this semester that I like meaningfulness.  I’ll leave it at that.