FOR THOSE WE
KNEW,
FOR THOSE
SAVED,
FOR THOSE WE
LOST
THESE WERE OUR TOWERS
AND THIS IS HOW THEY SHOULD BE REMEMBERED
THE BROODING CYNYX HAVE NEVER AND
WILL NEVER POST ANY PHOTO OR IMAGE
OF THE WTC TOWERS FROM 9/11.
IT HAS BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL BE OUR POLICY
TO USE ONLY PHOTOS THAT
PORTRAY THE WTC AS THEY WERE AND,
AS FAR AS WE ARE CONCERNED,
OUGHT TO BE RECALLED
(September 2, 2016 120 Cedar
St, NYC) There are many shadow in this neighborhood; these narrow streets are
among the oldest in our City originally cobble-stoned by the Dutch settlers who
purchased Manhattan Island from the Natives for a pittance. The narrowness of these shadowy canyons
shouldn’t let anyone assume that the buildings that block the overhead sun
aside from a few brief minutes each noon are inconsequential. This is just one border of the famed World
Financial Center with the “catchall” Wall Street, as the heart and soul of
commercial finance, banking and trading.
Here, on Cedar Street is O’Hara’s an old time NYC “Irish Pub” in the
classical sense of the term. It’s a fine
place for a power lunch or for happy hour Monday through Friday; dinner is as
good but the joint closes around midnight.
For a Manhattan bar O’Hara’s is almost an unheard of oddity but it is
common for establishments in this part of Town that rely on the “Wall Street
Cro
Between the end of lunch and
before the after work rush of commuters wedging a few quick drinks before
heading out to the suburbs and home, this is a bar that knows how to treat a
single patron. Good drinks at a fair
price, bartenders who actually know how to tend bar while delivering fine
service for the lone drinker. On this
first Friday of September, a month many of us had come to dread, we met here
for a few cocktails and to catch up.
Some of the cohorts had long since retired; others of us were still On
The Job. This early September gathering
had become an annual ritual that began in 2002.
It began casually enough but has persisted for 14 years. After a few drinks, a couple of bad jokes,
and some plain old bullshit small talk the conversation shifts and becomes
focused; an individual set of memories that are at least collective in their
experiencing, that craft the images, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, loss and
anger into a cohesive telling of that which can only be told by those able to
tell it. This is not a conversation for
outsiders and the memories given voice will never be heard by ears that did not
hear what this small band of comrades did on that painfully clear Tuesday
morning, that day of infamy, September 11, 2001.
Next Sunday will mark the 15th
year since the terrorist attacks on our City, Towers, and Country. The events of that day and the immediate
aftermath have altered the passage of time for some. In ways the time since then has been
elongated by the continued sense of sorrow and loss. In other iterations time has been compressed
as survivors have watched children grow and mature; perhaps humans never again
undergo a more important 15 period of their lives. Humans go from newborn
infancy to the adolescent threshold of young adulthood in the first 15 years of
existence; from complete dependency to a rebellious stage as they attempt to
find some measure of independence. No matter
how you cut it, 15 years is a long time and the fact that for many families of
the 9/11 deceased, these past 15 years have been a disorienting trek. It is for this reason, if no other, that it
is vital to keep our memories of those prematurely taken alive and vibrant.
Our small cadre of greying MOS
knows the gravity of remembrance. It has
become a duty, a Sacred Duty at that, to keep the memories of those we lost
alive. Not in the hyper-sensational
portrayals of bumper sticker slogans and “Salute To Heroes” banners. No, our Sacred Duty is to the men and women
we knew, men and women some of us depended on for our lives over the years
before 9/11. That day was not an aberration,
it was not in any way unusual. Every day
before and since 9/11 MOS respond to the calls that come in; the incidents, the
conflicts, the response to the injured, wounded, trapped, suicidal, victimized,
scared, and every other scenario under the Sun the men and women of the FDNY,
FDNY EMS, NYPD, and PAPD respond and render the assistance they are able
to. The rest of the United States and the
media made a large fuss about the unselfishness of our MOS. What they failed to recognize is that,
initially at least, no one among those who responded know the nature of the disaster
nor the scale and scope of the calamity that followed in short order. All MOS where simply doing their job; yet
merely by being who they were, who we are, and what we do, that was just
another “day at the office” until we learned otherwise.
And “otherwise” it was; an
egregious assault on us as Americans in general and New Yorkers in
particular. But we all rose to the
challenge from the brawniest MOS to the most slender office worker, we rose to
the challenge of an event that we had no way of realizing just how much our
world would be changed once we escaped the highly pressurized, noxious-fumed
fires of Our Towers. And make no mistake
about it; they were OUR TOWERS…Bless all who perished, all who survived, and
those left to mourn unconscionable death…
Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2016 © All Rights Reserved
Copyright Brooding Cynyc 2016 © All Rights Reserved