Lower Manhattan - Part 3

I met Tony Di Sante in January 2002. New York City Vacation Packages, the company I work for, arranged several overnight bus excursions into the City for folks in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area of Pennsylvania. The plan was to test a new sightseeing tour with these vacationers. We hired Tony, a licensed New York City tour guide, to escort the group to Lower Manhattan and visit not only Ground Zero, but also the highlights of this historic downtown area.

Although I had worked in Lower Manhattan in 1969 and 1970, I knew very little about the area. I do remember watching the construction of the Twin Towers, and I remember seeing a ticker tape parade for the Apollo 11 astronauts who landed on the moon. Other than that, I can only recall how vibrant and lively Lower Manhattan was from 9am to 5pm weekdays, and how quiet and desolate it was at other times.

After the tragedy, however, Lower Manhattan became a "must-see" for visitors. No longer were the streets empty after hours. Especially on weekends, the area around Ground Zero was always crowded. This is what prompted us to offer this new, controversial tour taking visitors from Midtown Manhattan to Lower Manhattan.

The beauty of the tour wasn't in just taking people to Ground Zero. That might have been the original intention, but it became apparent to me that there was so much history and so many stories throughout Lower Manhattan that made the tour interesting, relevant, educational and stimulating.

It was Tony Di Sante who, along with company President Barry Tenenbaum, planned the itinerary to showcase not just Ground Zero, but also St. Paul’s Chapel, the Woolworth Building, City Hall, Trinity Church, Wall Street, Bowling Green and Federal Hall.

Tony’s matter-of-fact style worked well, especially during the always emotional visit to Ground Zero. He would speak to the group at several brief stops after exiting the subway, but once he reached his previously scouted-out location for the day’s best view of the tragic site, he was always quiet.

Not so quiet, though, when he led everyone down Broadway to Trinity Church, then across Wall Street to Federal Hall and a close-up view of the New York Stock Exchange. That’s when the real narrative began – the race to build the world’s tallest building, the site of the City’s first terrorist attack some 80 years earlier, the buttonwood tree, the sculpture that mysteriously appeared in front of the Stock Exchange one morning; then the story of the Hamilton-Burr duel and what it meant to Trinity Church, and how the world’s tallest building in 1913 was paid for in nickels and dimes. All of a sudden the area came alive. Its history, from a Native American trading spot to the inauguration of the nation’s first president, to a virtual skyscraper museum, to the tragedies of 1920 and 2001, was real.

Lower Manhattan has certainly changed in the almost 40 years since I was one of the million or so who worked in that area. The Charging Bull, the Bronze Sphere, the new Sports Museum of America, South Street Seaport, the world’s most unique McDonalds – it’s definitely worth a day or more on any visitor’s itinerary. Especially if you could spend part of that day with Tony Di Sante.

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Lower Manhattan - Part 2

It was an atypically warm Saturday in November. There was a bit of a breeze when we exited the subway, but what we noticed was the odor in the air.

Neither of us knew what to expect, so we weren't surprised by the crowds. We were surprised, though, that even after seven weeks had passed the air was thick and the odor unlike anything we had ever experienced. Someone was handing out dust masks, which my wife put on immediately.

Not knowing where to go, we just followed the crowds. At each corner we'd peer to the right, straining to see through the hordes of people. We'd catch glimpses of twisted metal or crushed concrete until we'd snake and inch our way to the front of the masses; there, separated from the activity by a police barricade, we got a better view of the horror.

Just why we went to Lower Manhattan that November day, I really can't say. Why we had to get to the front for a better view, I can't say either. Nor can I speak for the tens of thousands others doing the same. What I know is we had to go.

Several firemen, dirty and exhausted, answered questions as they stood on the other side of the barricade. I remember I wasn't interested in what they were saying because they didn't have the answer to the only question I had. No one had the answer. Even today, 7 years later, no one has the answer.

St. Paul's Chapel, just one block away, somehow escaped damage. It became both a sanctuary for the firemen, police and rescue workers, as well as a makeshift memorial (it's wrought iron fence became the perfect gallery walls for some of the most touching, most emotional and most heartbraking artwork one would ever see). The Reverend Lyndon Harris of St. Paul's put into words the importance of the historic church during this trying time. "Emerging at St. Paul’s was a dynamic I think of as a reciprocity of gratitude, a circle of thanksgiving—in which volunteers and rescue and recovery workers tried to outdo each other with acts of kindness and love, leaving both giver and receiver changed. This circle of gratitude was infectious."

Outside the chapel it was the silence that was infectious. All of these people and not a sound. Very few spoke, and then only in hushed whispers. There was nothing anyone could say. The scene, the St. Paul's memorials, the thought of the horror less than two months earlier, the stories of heroism, the rescue and recovery efforts of the volunteers, the thousands of innocent victims, the overriding question "Why?" - no single person would dare compete by speaking. There was a lot of crying though. Silent, keep-to-yourself crying. The kind of crying that doesn't make you feel better. The kind of crying that lasts forever.

To be continued ...