9-11 Commemoration Evokes Range of Emotions about Beloved City

The first time I got a glimpse of New York City, I was flying into the airport at Newark, New Jersey, on my way to board a connecting flight to Milan for an 8-day tour of Italy. If I had not been excited about getting to Europe, I might have paid better attention and would have easily seen the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. It was July 2001, months before the unforgettable terrorist acts of 9-11.

 I will, like so many others, never forget the morning of September 11, 2001. I was en route at 9:40 a.m. to teach my English composition class at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. I was listening to a local radio station when I heard the news about a plane crash as I exited I-40 near campus. By the time I reached my parking lot, I understood that a plane had hit the NYC World Trade Center. I assumed it was a small plane that had perhaps grazed the structure. I taught my classes and then spent the rest of the day working in the Writing Center. When we weren't tutoring students who needed help writing papers, we watched the TV footage.

 I must be honest, even at the risk of sounding callous. At the time, I felt no special affinity toward those involved in 9-11. Yes, I knew it was heartbreaking for those who had lost family and friends. Yes, I couldn’t imagine how frightening it would have been to have been trapped on an upper floor of either of the Twin Towers that morning. However, we are accustomed to viewing so much violence and tragedy daily on the news that I felt desensitized. I think that desensitization was also partly due to having been a lifelong resident of the South with no direct connection to a northeastern city.

I initially visited New York City in the fall of 2009. I have to admit that stepping into the neon-lit, concrete-filled jungle for the first time required some acclimation. First, pavement is ubiquitous in the city—with the exception of the grassy oasis known as Central Park that runs vertically through Manhattan. Furthermore, learning to maneuver the sidewalks of NYC is akin to learning a new percussion rhythm, a rather frenetic sort of jazz riff.

New Yorkers move in herds, in sync, very rapidly along the city streets. Once you learn that pace, however, you’ll do fine getting around. Yet, again, frenetic is the key word. Linger a second too long boarding the subway, for example, and you’ll discover why. Everything in New York has a rhythm, and you must learn to move to that rhythm, with that rhythm, or you’ll be left behind.

After I became accustomed to the pace, it was an instant love affair with the city.

It is place for which I had already formed a taste stemming from myriad pop culture references. I recall enjoying The Cosby Show in the ‘80s and ‘90s not simply for the humor of Cosby’s eponymous sitcom, but for the show’s representation of metropolitan culture, including the Brooklyn brownstones, of New York. It was a city filled with jazz and art, replete with venues offering a culture in which one could absolutely become absorbed, without any nocturnal or seasonal termination. Any given episode might have the Cosby clan venturing to a venue to witness a performance by any number of jazz greats, including Ella Fitzgerald or Lena Horne. And it was difficult to ignore the spate of visual art, most notably contemporary African American art, which provided a scenic backdrop for the show. Cosby piqued my latent interest in jazz, art, and a city such as this one.

However, from the time I was a young child, every bit of metropolitan culture I witnessed on television, from PBS children’s programming to the aforementioned sitcom, had stoked my desire to visit a place such as New York City, with its accessibility and broad spectrum of offerings.

Watching the recent programming intended to commemorate the September 11^th attacks evoked a range of feeling in me. Exposure to images of the city stirred a craving for return. Seeing the images of the Twin Towers embroiled in smoke again and eventually succumbing to collapse—in a city I have visited twice since the event—made me imagine more concretely what it might have been like had I been there that horrible day, or if I had had a loved one caught in that hopeless tragedy.

I have not visited Ground Zero, nor do I have any immediate plan or desire to do so. For me, it is not important to return to the scene of a tragedy in order to commemorate it. Re-watching those events of that day helped me to re-acknowledge the tenuous nature of existence and to recall the price paid by those who sacrificed much for the sake of others.

After watching the 9-11 commemoration, however, I was inspired to consider a June visit next year to a city I love to attend an annual jazz festival held in Greenwich Village. My pulse quickened with a simple Internet search for travel deals. I can’t stay away too long from a place for which I harbor such a great affinity, one that continues to draw me back with its irresistible charms and makes me feel as if I am pining for a lost lover when I cannot be there. It is a city that offers one of the best representations of what America was meant to be in both its diversity and its oneness—a place aptly termed by David Letterman, as well as numerous others, as “the greatest city in the world.” It is a city full of culture, variety, hope, and rebirth.