i don't intend this to be a post on the ground zero mosque (formerly known as the ground zero burlington coat factory i think). for me there is no debate - the building type is "as of right", americans have the second amendment right to the freedom of religion and for what it's worth - the mayor backs it. also the u.s. president. scott simon makes a better presentation of the same point of view i have anyway. the bottom line is, and as my favorite republican buddy, vin, would say, "it's a free country dude."
i want to say a word to the part of simon's piece that tears me up. it's the part that remains nine years later as distilled memory for anyone who was in town during 9/11 and it's aftermath. posters asking if anyone knew the whereabouts of their loved ones (a hope that they hadn't perished in the attack and the knowledge that even a big city like nyc would come together and help if it could). the barricaded line of latitude that was canal street from the day of to many months on. no unauthorized personnel allowed below it and many gathered there to support aid workers coming to work and those leaving a long shift.
the A train subway station at that same point that i reluctantly entered around 11am the morning of just to try to get home to lori in brooklyn. who were those heroes driving the trains and buses trying to get us home to our families instead of getting themselves home to theirs? that train literally runs under ground zero. the throngs of people already on the train that literally pulled me on and made room.
smells of burning building that carried for miles. whether at my home in brooklyn or my work a mile uptown from ground zero you knew which way the wind was blowing if you could smell that smell. the fire burned for weeks.
paper and ash fluttering through the brooklyn neighborhood of carroll gardens where i was eventually able to rendez vous with lori. a couple of miles away and across the river.
seeing tower 1 on fire, rushing to my office, watching the news, learning it was a plane, thinking it was a horrible accident, seeing tower 2 hit by the second plane, watching tower 1 fall. seeing all this like millions around the world saw on their tvs. but then walking out into 5th avenue and 26th street with a direct view of the burning tower 2 still standing. we knew what was going to happen and then we saw it drop. grown men including my boss fell to the pavement weeping.
so many firefighters were rushing down there and so many would die. i think it must have been months of funerals held - each fallen hero deserving their own ceremony. towards the end i remember they were looking for ny-ers to attend them because the families and fire department brethren were too tired and spread too thin to attend anymore.
i remember never really crying like so many did.
i remember going via plane to a wedding in north carolina a couple of weeks later and realizing how much sympathy other parts of the country had for new york.
they say it takes 10 years before you are a new yorker so i'm not there until 2011. i had only moved to town a few months prior to 9/11. given that fact, i'm not sure if i have the right to take the recent mosque controversy so personally. but i do.
the decision to build a constitutionally encouraged, legally filed mosque hardly warrants a emotional argument. but if i could offer one it would be that this a local issue - our issue. a place of worship (how many mosques must there be in nyc 50? 100?) for a religious denomination that hosts nearly 2 billion members (yes they have a few crazies included but don't we all?) to be built a rather healthy new york distance of 2 blocks away from ground zero isn't really too big of a deal. and i'm not alone when i think that. around the city this news story isn't even much of a news story.
this is why i take such great offense at the national right wing media frenzy (likely used to excite a sleeping mid term electorate more than anything else) focused on a local new york city issue.
i may not be a real new yorker until next year but this is our issue not the nation's. we've done a lot of healing in nine years but the memories persist. memories of a city coming together and healing ourselves ever since the tragedy occurred. we've been helping one another out since 9/12 and seeing this mosque built is just another step along the way.
additional listening:
- john stewart's daily show "extremist makeover homeland edition" from his 8/19 show. around 7 minutes in he uses a charlton heston speech (made famous in bowling for columbine) to illustrate , by association, how it is an american religious group's second amendment right to build a community center wherever law permits no matter how sensitive the area.
