World Trade Center:
  Afterward
 
 

Preface


After September 11, I realized that I had been in survival mode that day, photography notwithstanding. My thoughts were, in order, 1) I need to get out of here, 2) I need to get to friends or family as soon as I can, and 3) I want to take photos. Any time I spent processing what I was seeing would cause me to lose focus on getting out of there. My account of the attack, written that evening, reflects this through its descriptions of what I saw, and its lack of description of how I felt about it: there were no feelings, just an imperative need to get out of there.

I wrote the following account on a return trip to Manhattan later in September. I haven't published it until now because the wounds in my mind were too fresh.

Introduction


On September 11, 2001--the day of the World Trade Center tragedy in Manhattan, I wrote of my experiences as I witnessed the unfolding events and escaped them, showing images I saw with my own eyes and captured on a camera.

Two weeks later, on September 25, I revisited lower Manhattan, this time without my camera. The images I bring to you now are ones that you cannot see with your eyes: I can only paint them with words. There is more here than you have seen on the news.

8:30 AM


I exit the Subway at Wall Street. Looking up past Trinity Church, half hoping for proof that the last two weeks have been a bad dream, all I see is the sky. It is blue, with few clouds.

I cannot get to my usual breakfast spot: the street is barricaded yet busy nontheless, with a variety of vehicles and people carrying out their jobs. Instead I walk to another place I know of, one nestled on the ground floor of some office buildings and oddly quiet for the time of day. The street is filled with a foul smell: the trash has not yet been picked up. Walking into the take-out restaurant, I get my bagel and coffee then stand on line to pay. An employee of one of the trading houses is standing near me, the sullen look on his face--even as he looks forward to breakfast--reminding me that the tragedy that started two weeks ago is still happening.

Leaving the take-out place, I walk toward my office. I see a woman hurriedly walking to the entrance of a building, holding her nose. At that instant, I realized that what I smelled was not garbage but death, the decay of flesh under the ground, spreading beneath the city, escaping the horror of two weeks ago even though there was nobody left to save. I don't have time to process this now, and my mind stuffs it away for another time, and it strikes me that I have the luxury of dealing with the tragedy for a more convenient time, when time ran out for so many.

11:30 AM


My favorite lunch place, The Daily Soup, moved from a previous location that became unusable and unreachable. On the way there I looked to my left and saw the hulking remains of the steel skeleton that once held places that weren't just offices, but places where tens of thousands of people went each day to work toward worthwhile ends. I can't help but keep my gaze focused on the structure as I walk through the intersection, until I moved out of sight.

Today was apparently The Daily Soup's first day open, and I think I was the second customer. The manager is apologetic that some things aren't in order yet, meanwhile I'm happy to see that they were able to pick themselves up and keep moving.

I know how hard it was for me to visit Manhattan so soon after the attack. I can't imagine what it must take for these and all the other people who work here every day to do it. I can't imagine not moving away, but then again I don't have the same stakes in the ground that the New Yorkers have. I admire their tenacity.

5:30 PM


At the office I look out the window. Through the grimy remnants of the World Trade Center showered on the building's exterior, I see workers cleaning off a nearby building. This is a job that will last for a long time, not unlike the task of cleaning up and sorting through a part of my personal reality that was shattered by the attacks.

7:00 PM


I leave the office. After weeks of images shown on the TV, I have been frustrated by my inability to orient the pictures to match any vantage points I was familiar with. I tell myself I will view the wreckage because I am grasping at anything I can reach that will help me understand anything better, no matter how small or inconsequential. When I reach the street corner of my first few photos two weeks ago, I see the skeleton again, and I realize the source of my disorientation. The World Trade Center was so massive that my reference points were it itself, and only peripherally, the facades of the buildings to my left and right. Those buildings that were on the periphery, though only vaguely familiar, are now all that remain.

Next to me are dozens of people, all trying to get a view. I think of them as voyeurs then look at myself and realize that I can't be the only person who needs to see this for some personal reason. Or am I the voyeur while others look at what has happened to a part of their home?

I near the area where I picked up the business memo blasted out of the building two weeks ago. The ground has been cleaned but is still dirty. Everything is dirty, and the wind blows dust around and into my eyes. The towers were huge and left a lot of dust behind.

I continue walking. After another block or two, I see one of the smaller buildings, its frame still standing on the plaza; and I realize that the image I had seen on TV was not where I had done some work, and that the one I had worked in was leveled.

The TV cameras can't put the picture into perspective. They either focus on something and leave out the context, or they try to show as much of the scene as they can but lose the details.

I walk up Broadway some more, finally moving away from the disaster. I saw what I needed to see. With my attention now away from the wreckage, I realize how grimy I feel. Dust has blown everywhere, and some particles are stuck under the collar of my shirt, irritating the skin they were sticking to. I feel the dust in my eyes, and in my nose and throat. I don't know why I didn't bring a mask with me.

Approaching City Hall, I notice the police barricades are covered with yards and yards of paper, containing well-wishes from other places. "We love you New York, you are not alone." Tears well up in my eyes but I save them for when I can grieve privately. I pass posters of missing family members, but they are isolated. It would be unbearable to see, in person, walls covered with these and I am glad I do not pass any.

I slowly make my way toward the hotel where I had stayed the night of September 10th and abandonned my belongings during the evacuation the next day. On the way I can't stand the thought of the dust in my throat and I try spitting it out into the street, an act more symbolic than practical.

I think I may have to try passing a barricaded entrance into the police zone to get to the hotel, so I stand behind a few people wanting to get back to their homes. However, I soon discover that the sidewalk leading to the hotel was not barricaded and I don't have to justify my presence to the police officer.

I finally reach the hotel and end up chatting with the young man at the desk. He is bored out of his mind, as only 20 rooms out of 150 are occupied, and talks my ear off for the five minutes it took us to wait for my bag to be found. A couple of rescue workers are staying there, and the FBI is doing stuff on two of the floors. The phones are still out, but they will come on tomorrow but with different phone numbers because the lines are all screwed up. The old numbers will be restored in time. The bottom couple of floors are filthy from the dust two weeks ago and their mattresses had to be thrown out. My bag shows up, and I'm only being charged the one night I stayed. "Thank you, please come back soon!" he says in jest, knowing how ridiculous it sounds.

Bag in hand, I walk over to Broadway, up to Canal Street, then over to Lafayette where I hop on the subway to get back to the hotel I'm staying at on this trip..

Click here to return to the photos.  
 
Copyright ©2002 by Patrick Madden, all rights reserved.