Lower Manhattan

With the neon and hyper-activity of Midtown Manhattan, it's easy to overlook the historical significance of Lower Manhattan.

For most of the latter half of the 20th century, Lower Manhattan was simply "the financial district." Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange, World Trade Center, Woolworth Building, Federal Reserve. Commerce was the main draw. When the banks and exchanges closed in the late afternoon, everyone went home. The streets that were lined with (literally) millions at noon were empty at night and on weekends.

My most vivid memory of Lower Manhattan was seeing a ticker tape parade honoring the astronauts who first landed on the moon in 1969. It was an incredible event. Millions of onlookers, tons of confetti and ticker tape (who knows what that is any more?), and an hour after the parade passed by my building at 25 Broadway, the streets were clean and there wasn't any evidence of the event.

The only historical significance to me was that during the 2 years I worked in Lower Manhattan I watched the construction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers.

Then came the tragedy.

In its aftermath the focus changed. People were drawn to Lower Manhattan, particularly to the site of the former Twin Towers. For whatever reason, the area became known as Ground Zero not just as a geo-militaristic term but also as a geo-tourism term.

As Mayor Giuliani encouraged visitors to come to New York City, to support the City, to help the City rebuild economically, tourists arrived in droves. They stayed in Midtown, but for the first time that I know of, they wanted to visit Lower Manhattan. They needed to see, to pray, to pay respects, to seek closure, to get mad, to cry, to blame, to ask questions for which there were no answers. Regardless of their motives they converged on Lower Manhattan and Ground Zero.

Our company, New York City Vacation Packages, was (and still is) 100% invested in New York City tourism. For several months following the tragedy visitors who responded to the Mayor's plea asked our help in getting them to Lower Manhattan.

In March of 2002 we decided to hire an experienced tour guide, Tony DiSante, and operate a FREE tour from Midtown Manhattan to Ground Zero and Lower Manhattan. Tony, himself a resident of Lower Manhattan, had familiarity with the area both before and after the tragedy and conducted a respectful mission to the scene of the tragedy, as well as to many of the other sites in Lower Manhattan.

On our first such tour on that sunny but chilly Saturday morning in March 2002, we were accompanied by a reporter and photographer from a New York newspaper, a CNN film crew and reporter, and about a dozen or so tourists who paid nothing for the tour - it was after all a FREE tour.

CNN ran a mostly factual 8-minute feature on the tour later that afternoon.

The newspaper, however, never quite got the story right. According to the article in the newspaper, we were charging $1,900 for the tour! And since the incorrect story was picked up by the wire services, I got plenty of emails and phone calls when the story appeared in USA Today and many local papers.

I spent the next several months explaining the true story to newspapers and on radio talk shows. "No," I'd say, "We're not charging $1,900 for a tour. It's FREE. Tourists are asking for help getting to Lower Manhattan and we're arranging it for them AT OUR COST."

My most trying time was responding to questions from author, sports writer and radio talk show host Mitch Albom. "We are not profiting from the tragedy," I told him after he accused us of doing what we knew our hearts would never let us do. But he has an audience to entertain.

His last remark to me was, "The market will decide if what you are doing is right."

Mitch, the market decided. We still operate the tour. In fact, not long after appearing on Albom's radio show, I had the pleasure of escorting three private tours for the entire staff of the City's convention and visitors bureau.

I learned a lot about the media from that sunny Saturday in March. I learned a lot, too, about Lower Manhattan from Tony DiSante. I'll share that knowledge with you soon.