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globetrekker
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Name: Christin
Country: United States
State: New Jersey
Birthday: 7/11/1982
Gender: Female
Interests: art, traveling (and looking longingly at maps when i can't), languages, photography, music (almost anything, with the exception of country), books, tennis, films, theatre, musicals, baseball, coffee shoppin it, hanging out with friends, etc. etc.
Expertise: doing instead of discussing, deutschsprechen, procrastinating, london, shopping without buying, italiano, walking by faith not by sight, living as an urbanite, singing when no one is listening, observing, staying up late & sleeping in
Message: message me
Member Since:
4/27/2004
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this is where i work
this is what i see from my office window
Old New Yorkers, Newer Ones, and a Line Etched by a Day of Disaster
Five years ago, on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center. Downtown smelled like Coke cans and hair on fire. It was televised live.
In New York City, 2,749 people were killed. About eight million remained. Since that day, the numbers have changed.
The population grew by more than 134,000 from 2000 to 2005, the citys latest Planning Department calculations show. In that time, 645,416 babies were born and 304,773 people died. A half-million more people came from other countries than departed for them, and 800,000 more people left for the 50 states than came wide-eyed from them.
The meaning in the math is that today a great many New Yorkers lack firsthand knowledge of the citys critical modern moment.
Five years on, New York is a city of newcomers and survivors. And between them runs a line. The line makes for no conflict, no discernible tension; it works a quieter breach.
Borne of the routine comings and goings of urban life, of births and deaths, the line divides views of a singular moment. Across the line, consummately familiar events can appear contorted.
On one side, the newcomer side, a man seeks accounts of that day; on the other side a man withholds his account. On the newcomer side, a woman visits the absent towers to feel some connection; on the other side a woman feels connected, and then some.
On the side of those who lived in New York, you can share a sense of trauma both layered and ill-defined.
Its like someone who has been in a war zone, said William Stockbridge, 50, a finance executive who was working downtown during the attack. Its different.
On the other side, you can feel like the new boyfriend at your girlfriends family reunion the year somebody died somebody young, somebody you never met.
You feel like youre on the outside, said Matthew Molnar, 26, a waiter in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who lived in Middlesex County, N.J., in 2001. You feel like you missed out on a little bit of history.
Newcomers and survivors: those terms ring harsh and blunt only because the line is so often unspoken. It runs soundless and invisible down Broadway from Harlem over the Williamsburg Bridge out to Coney Island and to Fresh Kills, up past the airports across the Grand Concourse into Yankee Stadium, through the bleachers where you cant drink beer anymore and up out of the park into the nighttime sky.
The line flashes into view on the city streets for moments at a time. When jet fighters buzz the skyscrapers for Fleet Week, some of the people below the ones who were here on Sept. 11 flinch. More frequently, though, the line operates beneath the surface of conversations, of interactions, of transactions, of life. The line controls small things, controls the way people react to the phrase and then Sept. 11 happened, as though a date on the calendar could happen.
The lines contours emerge in conversations. Ask about the attack, and people will describe a sense of ownership.
You either experienced it firsthand, said Amanda Spielman, 30, a graphic designer from Jackson Heights, Queens, who was in the city, or you didnt.
Others describe that sense differently, but draw the line in the same place.
I think for the people that seen it on TV, it is more painful than for the people who saw it here, said Paolo Gonzalez, 29, who manages a parking lot under the Brooklyn Bridge and who saw the attack. For the other people it was real. If you was here, when the buildings came down the only thing you were thinking was, Run.
Across the line, the new arrivals recognize that sense of ownership.
Ive been told that I just dont get it and that I could never understand what it was like to be there in New York on Sept. 11, said Laura Bassett, 27, who moved to the city from North Carolina after 2001. I hate that five years later, people still debate which bystander is allowed to be more upset, the New Yorker or the American.
The line emerges perhaps most powerfully around the fallen towers, 2.06 acres of concrete known as ground zero. Because of the line, the site is a paradox, an emotional contradiction, a mass grave and a tourist attraction.
Some people feel so strongly about the place they cannot agree on an arrangement for listing the names of the dead; others feel so strongly about the place that they make sure to visit between Radio City Music Hall and the Statue of Liberty. Between those emotional poles is a middle ground, and the line runs through its center.
People who moved to New York, everyone wanted to go down and see it, said Dede Minor, 51, a real estate broker who was in her office in Midtown on the day of the attack. For New Yorkers, it was too real.
Jose Martias, 57, a construction worker who was drinking coffee near the East River when the attack began, said he knew why the newcomers visit the site.
They dont understand it so they go down there to see the hole, Mr. Martias said. Its an attraction to them, like going to the circus.
But across the line there is genuine emotional curiosity, a feeling that people in less cynical times used to call empathy.
Id didnt think Id be that affected, said Leah Hamilton, 24, a logistics consultant who moved to Manhattan from Washington State last year. But when I went to ground zero, it was the first time Ive felt an emotional reaction like that to something I wasnt a part of. You feel the energy and you could feel the sadness.
The line can reach into the future, forging perceptions of New York and its destiny. Some new arrivals speak of the attack as a reason to come to the city.
We felt like there was a lot of energy here, said Meg Glasser, 26, a student who moved to the East Village from Boston this year. We wanted to be a part of it in some way.
But across the line, that sense of energy is tempered by standards for comparison.
I know people who have been here a year or two, and they find New York fantastic, said Father Bernard, 67, a Roman Catholic monk who was born in Brooklyn and who goes by only that name. Theyre right, but they didnt know the New York before.
The line reaches into the past as well, dividing memories. Each generation tells the next where they were when the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, when the Kennedys and Martin Luther King were killed or when a space shuttle exploded, but a major act of destruction in a major American city creates more firsthand accounts.
Psychological studies suggest those accounts have played a role in drawing the line. After the attack, a group of academic researchers interviewed 1,500 people, including 550 in New York City, to gauge memories of detail, said Elizabeth Phelps, a professor of psychology and neural science at New York University. Proximity to Lower Manhattan during the attack, Dr. Phelps said, increases your confidence in your memories, and your accuracy as well.
In a separate study, the researchers measured activity in parts of the brain connected to memory. With verbal cues, subjects were asked to conjure visions of the terror attack and of personal events from the summer of 2001. Only half registered a difference in neural activity.
Those who did show a difference were, on average, in Washington Square Park, Dr. Phelps said. Those who didnt were, on average, in Midtown.
Among those who have come to the city since 2001, the line dividing memories is undisputed.
I had been there as a tourist to the World Trade Center, so I have memories, said Marielle Solan, 22, a photographer who moved to the city from Delaware this year. But obviously I cant have any sense of what it was like. Every Sept, 11, you get a sense of fear and depression, but in terms of actual visceral reactions, I dont really have that.
The new arrivals have found a conspicuous void of shared memory.
Im amazed because it was such a big event, and people never mention it, said Deenah Vollmer, 20, who moved to the city last year. When you do mention it, everyone has these crazy intense stories.
Across the line, many of those who lived in the city hold their memories close.
The people I already knew know my stories from that day, so theres no need to repeat them, said Ms. Spielman, the graphic designer. The new people Ive met dont ask me. Its not something I bring up.
But each year the calendar brings it up. Alexandria Lambert, 28, who works as an administrative assistant, sees the line run through the center of her office. Each year, a co-worker who witnessed the attack asks for the day off, and each year a boss who did not declines the request.
His point of view is, Don't let it get you down, Ms. Lambert said, but she just doesn't want to be here.
taken from the New York Times
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| oy. the last few weeks have been a clash of craziness, disappointment, and unexpected joys.
:::got my concert fix for this month...went to my first 'underground' concert (literally--it was in the basement), where i listened to a demure young collegian (a.k.a. gregory and the hawk) sing beautifully arranged acoustic melodies...then came the death cab/franz ferdinand concert, and let me just say that franz ferdinand definitely lived up to its reputation of being an amazing live band...finally, there was the strokes concert last weekend at the borgata...they were also rather good live...the crowd, however, left something to be desired--i'm sure the atlantic city concert goers were quite different than the crowd at irving plaza
:::that weekend also came to be known as the weekend of a series of unfortunate events, as a fatal mix of miscommunication, stubborness, and irresponsibility resulted in the failure of best laid plans (we'll just leave it at that)...and of course that happened to be the same week when i was told i did not get a job due to--and they did not tell me this part--stupid corporate crap and ph.d's who think they're smarter than they are, which then made me want to either cry or punch something really hard (i think i did both)
:::when it comes to love and all that other gushy stuff, i've never much been for all the hearts and roses and chick flicks (and for the sake maintaining a tough exterior, i'll still pretend not to be)...but i think at some point, to some extent, all girls secretly want that, which is why it's so appealing in the movies...of course, it's also extremely unrealistic in the movies, but nevermind that...so i what i'm really trying to say is that, for all my fighting against the idea, it's kinda nice...to rely on and be relied on...to laugh with and complain to...to miss and be missed
:::thursday was a good day...it's about as confident as i've ever been in saying that a day was 'good'...it was an ebb and flow of a random convergence of friends, which is sometimes the best dynamic there is...embraces from old friends, introductions to new ones...and to have my favorite person from the past and my favorite person from the present by my side in my favorite city on a perfectly warm, sunny day? that was good | | |
| so in a word, florida is B-O-R-I-N-G...some would say that the slower and simpler pace of life is relaxing, but there is a definite line between "relaxing" and "boring"--that line being an endless amount of Publixes, Walgreens, miscellaneous furniture stores, miles of roadway nothingness, and the largest and most concentrated geriatric community in the country...part of relaxation is not having to worry about things you'd rather not be concerned with, in addition to having resources easily accesible to you which you find personally beneficial or enjoyable...florida meets neither of those needs for me...now maybe if i was chillin' on south beach for a week, i would have found my floridian experience to be more satisfying this time around (this was my 6th trip to sunny florida)...but for goodness sake, when you're looking for Banana Republic and all you find is Caribongo, the store "where everything changes under the sun," there's something wrong...when you want a good meal with some SoHo or Rittenhouse flair and all you find is the Loony Bin Pub, there's something wrong...and when you try to embrace your youthfulness only to realize you're the only one in sight (or who can see, for that matter) that doesn't qualify for an AARP credit card, something's wrong...so yes, the northeast is the over-populated, over-priced, hustle and bustle place that most people say it is--but i think i like it anyway | | |
| i love the olympics...and i think i grow to love them even more every two years that they roll around...i know some people think the games are just a pompous show of bravado, or that they're rigged and that's why the americans always come out on top, but whatever...at its core, it's common people from all over the world who have perfected their craft and are brought together to participate in one of humanity's most primitive pastimes: sport competition...and, every time a new generation of olympians are glorified, it never fails to make me think of how i've always wanted to be really, really great at at least one thing in my life...i've gotten to be pretty good at a few things, but have managed to stop when the going got really, really tough (i.e., piano lessons, gymnastics)...granted, i've had legitimate excuses to stop (i shan't use the word "quit"), like broken bones and strained ligaments, but i'm sure that anyone who ever got really good at anything never stopped because of a few bumps in the road...so i think i'll make a post-new year's resolution: to become really, really great at at least one thing in my life, be it playing an instrument, learning another language, or being a good friend (and i'm posting this on the internet people, so you'd better hold me to it)
[and speaking of the olympics, can i just say that the announcers' continued mispronunciation of italian words is driving me crazy? and all of this italian-ness and the panoramic shots of la bella regione piemonte have been making me crave a real macchiato and some gelato............ok, i'm done whining] | | |
| and thus a new year begins
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since i've been tagged twice now, i think i'll take time to do this little survey
5 Things I Want To Do Before I Die:
1. go on an around the world trip
2. remain in touch with close childhood/college friends
3. be happily married = not end up like my parents, i.e. divorced
4. fluently speak 2 languages other than english
5. know that i've had a permanent and meaningful impact on someone else's life
5 Things I Cannot Do:
1. walk quietly
2. eat a meal without feeling hungry 10 minutes later
3. slam dunk a basketball
4. go to bed at a decent hour
5. not procrastinate
5 Places I Love:
1. London!!!
2. Deutschland
3. The Ohio State University
4. New York City
5. Barnes and Noble
5 Things That Attract Me To A Man:
1. smarts (book and street)
2. kindness (towards me, towards children, towards family, towards those who are different, towards friends, etc.)
3. desire to self-improve, yet comfortable with who he already is
4. funny (smart funny, not i-stuck-a-booger-in-sally's-hair funny)
5. able to lovingly support (somewhere between "i told you so" and 'i need you, because i can't function on my own')
5 Things I Say Most Often:
1. well, um, yeah, like, er.......whatever (yes, all of those things, in one breath, in that order)
2. i'm hungry
3. sick!
4. hey, what's up?
5. awesome
5 Books I love:
1. the Bible
2. A Tale of Two Cities
3. The Very Hungry Caterpillar
4. The Lord of the Rings
5. Please Understand Me (a.k.a. the blue and silver letter book)
and since it seems nearly everyone has already been tagged, i'll leave any untagged person to decide for themself if he or she would like to continue this trend | | |
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