Visit to the World Trade Center

During our WJI class last Friday, we received an assignment to go interview someone who worked in New York. We were broken up into groups of two or three (and some singles) and given the afternoon to find an interesting New Yorker and tell their story via photographs and audio recording. James H. had the idea to visit the World Trade Center in hopes that we could interview a construction worker, so we headed that way. Camera, pens, steno pad, and DAR (that's digital audio recorder for you non-WJI/non-technology readers) in tow, we formed our interview questions during the subway ride to Manhattan.

As the train roared through the subway, James pointed out the former Cortland Street stop, which has been closed since 9/11. They are doing construction on it and several of the subway signs indicate that it was expected to be opened by fall 2006. Looking at the reconstruction was a solemn reminder that the planes didn't just take out buildings; they took out subways, too.

After we got off the train, we had to walk for a few minutes to get to the site. I honestly didn't know what to expect. We walked down a dim street and rounded a corner...then I saw it. Not the site, not the gaping holes, not even the crowd of onlookers by the fences around all the construction.



Not a particularly moving picture, but it's a lanyard - a reminder of a person's identity - tied to part of the scaffold from what appears to be a new monument. Attached to the lanyard is a decorative ponytail holder, the kind that only a small child would wear. It suddenly hit me: this item represents some one's father, mother, sister, brother, cousin, best friend, co-worker who died at 9/11.

I hadn't even looked at the actual site, seem the memorial, or listened to the sounds around me and yet I was already overwhelmed. I swallowed, took a deep breath, reached into my camera bag, snapped on my lens, and started shooting, telling myself, "There's a story that needs to be told. Do it."

We kept walking and dodging tourists, vendors, workers, and commuters. We were surrounded by the noise of the city, but I still felt like it was quiet; something was missing. That something was laughter. It will be seven years this September and yet the area's still solemn and missing something else beside the towers.

James and I found Harry Roland, a self-described advocate who worked at the South Tower prior and during 9/11. Roland comes to the site every day with a backpack loaded with photo albums of the site prior to, during, and after 9/11 to remind people that seven buildings were destroyed at 9/11, not just the towers. It was an incredible interview and photo opp. Our audio from the the project is pretty rough (thankfully not our fault), but it turned out well. We told Roland's story. (I may post the link later.)

This is one of Roland's albums; I loved this photo simply because it reminds me of a Bible - it represents this man's story.



The site itself wasn't particularly moving or impressive. It looks like a massive mess of a construction site. Once I got up high enough, I could see that there's damage and not just reconstruction. I saw holes from where the towers stood and underground where the mall was under one of the towers. (Until I met Roland, I had no idea that there was a shopping mall under the WTC.)