Sunday, September 11, 2016
As a little boy in my microcosmic world of Miami I learned of the outside world from movies. I watched ferociously whatever my mother allowed me to see on TV and in those days before VCR and movie rental places, movies from all periods were shown on TV. And my earliest memory of seeing New York in film, and the Twin Towers, was Godspell (1973) on TV around 1974 or 75.
Then when I was 8 I went to movies to see King Kong (76) with Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges and I saw the Twin Towers featured prominently as they replaced the Empire State form the original 30's movie as Kong's last stand. Then came The Wiz where the WTC plaza was the scene for their emerald city and of course dear to my heart, Superman: The Movie where NYC stood in for Metropolis while Reeve flew by the Twin Towers. I fell in love with NYC proper through many movies, like Arthur and Fame and so many I can't count.
When I finally got to visit the city as a college student in Boston (ironically now, I flew on the long defunct Trump shuttle regularly between the two cities) I felt as if I had come home. And when I finally moved there in 1996 I followed Jessica Lang 20 years later to the top of the tower. My generation is the one that barely knew a NY before the Twin Towers and is the generation that can barely imagine a NY without them, except that it's our unforgettable reality. Sept 11, 2001, was our "where were you when Kennedy was shot" moment. It was our Pearl Harbour.
I moved away from New York shortly after my mom died. I couldn't separate the memory of the one from the experience of the other. And I left in 1999. But still I visited from Boston where I spent the longest day of my life on Tuesday, 9/11/01.
This past spring I went back to WTC for the first time since I went to Ground Zero in December 2001. In my trips to NY after I moved away, I just couldn't go down there again and then I was gone for ten years.
April 2016 I went back to visit NYC and went down to the new One WTC and the memorial pool footprints and the memorial museum and my old favorite Winter Garden. and I just felt numb. Like someone just painted over the blood stained walls and I was the only one who knew what was behind the veneer. I thought I could feel jubilant as if the area grew like a phoenix out of the tons of dust and concrete and mangled steel. But toast can never be bread again.
But still I love you NYC (even if I can't live there). You held so many of dreams once. Maybe one day, once again.
Friday, September 09, 2016
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