Practically everyone whispers at ground zero, where the World Trade Center towers used to stand, as if speaking in full voice would violate the solemn mood of this place. Even the recovery workers hauling debris say little to one another, and when they do, it’s in muted tones.
But walk half a block from the destruction and onto Broadway, the main street connecting the tiny side streets surrounding ground zero to the rest of Manhattan, and you might think you had wandered onto old Coney Island.
Street peddlers hawking souvenirs, pretzelmakers pushing refreshments, strip joints beckoning visitors, TV news cameras edging for position, tourists shooting home video using portable tripods — the din has transformed lower Manhattan into an American-style open-air bazaar.
Morning, noon and night, the tourists flood in here from as far as Singapore and as near as midtown Manhattan, carrying all sizes of cameras — from tiny disposables to monsters with telephoto lenses. And to serve their needs, all kinds of entrepreneurs have sprouted. “Souvenirs, souvenirs, get your souvenirs, show patriotism,” shouts Alvin Gillespie, a uniformed security guard for an office tower on lower Broadway, standing about two blocks from the wreckage. Though Gillespie doesn’t sell anything himself, he clearly relishes drumming up business for the street-corner entrepreneurs, many of whom speak little English.
“We’ve got Osama here — get your Osama picture, have target practice with Osama,” continues Gillespie, urging passers-by to slow down and take a gander at the aluminum folding tables that line lower Broadway. Because the street has been closed to most auto traffic, the shoppers can walk freely about, as if a new, impromptu mall had risen where Manhattan’s famous financial district once thrived.
But the junk on sale here has to be seen to be believed: Perfectly scaled sculptures of the white twin towers, women’s scarves covered with Old Glory, Osama bin Laden posters with a bull’s-eye on his face, fake-diamond brooches spelling out “USA” and seemingly endless piles of NYPD and NYFD T-shirts, caps, polo shirts, sweatshirts and the like. A small cottage industry thrives in portraits alone, with pencil drawings, oils and watercolors of the World Trade Center (available with or without frames) going fast for $20 or less.
Even the strip joints have gotten into the act. The phones may not be working at New York Dolls, on Murray Street between Church and Broadway, but the newspaper ads proclaim that it’s open for business: “Free Admission For All Rescue & Recovery Personnel! Thanks To All Of You For Your Extraordinary Efforts.” Should any tourist have qualms about patronizing such a place, the club points out that “All Other Admissions Will Be Donated To The WTC Relief Fund.”
Viewing the aftermath
When they’re not spending cash, the tourists press their noses against the many shuttered storefronts, ogling the merchandise that tumbled onto the floor on Sept. 11, and the dust that stretches wall to wall.
By almost any measure, this entire spectacle seems a less-than-appropriate response to an international tragedy, yet it flourishes within a couple of blocks of New York’s City Hall, under the watchful eye of local government.
“Do we know that more people are going down there?” asks Arlene Kropf, of the New York City Convention & Visitors Bureau, speaking of Manhattan’s hottest new tourist attraction.
“Yes, we know that they are down there. Initially, we had been asking people to stay away, asking people not to take photos, because it’s a crime scene.”
On a recent afternoon, however, as visitors elbowed each other for better position, the free-for-all stretched several blocks along lower Broadway, a 24-hour carnival in the city that never sleeps.
“Initially, going back two or three weeks ago, there were signs posted — the mayor had said the police would give tickets and confiscate cameras, but that has come and gone,” Kropf says.
Situation coming to light
“We have not come out with a real statement on this, because it’s just coming to light.” Indeed, the mayor’s office did not return phone calls inquiring about the burgeoning tourism business in southern Manhattan.
“A lot of these folks actually were selling things here before Sept. 11,” Gillespie, the security guard, tells a visitor. “It’s just the product that has changed.
“The Fire Department logo is what’s hot with the tourists who come to town, so that’s what these people are selling. Nothing wrong with that.”
True enough, it’s the American Way, with self-styled, hard-working entrepreneurs responding quickly and adroitly to the needs of the marketplace.
That virtually all of the peddlers working lower Broadway are foreigners speaking halting English underscores the point, for they’re simply trying to make a buck the way generations of immigrants before them did.
“I’m not giving my name — I’m just trying to survive,” says one, who specializes in Navy blue NYPD hats and shirts.
“Don’t speak English,” says another. “Want beautiful jewelry?”
Exactly where these sellers find this tacky stuff proves difficult to ascertain, with only one — a middle-aged Asian woman who speaks a few words of English — saying simply, “28th Street, 28th Street,” presumably the location of a wholesaler of junk for all occasions. But if her stars-and-stripes lapel pins and barrettes look as if they may fall apart within 24 hours, at least the prices are commensurate with the goods, most in the $1 to $3 range.
“A bargain,” she says.
Even so, only a few visitors reach into their wallets to make a purchase, though practically everyone stops to check out the inventory.
“It used to be that by 4 p.m. it was deserted in this part of town,” adds Gillespie. “The Financial District used to clear out by then. Not anymore.”
Street musicians
No great civic gathering really is complete without music, which helps explain why street musicians have flocked to the scene. One block from ground zero, the sound of a flute chirping “America the Beautiful” cuts through the street noise.
“I planned on being here for a couple days, but it’s been three weeks,” says street musician Henry T. Cobb Jr., who normally panhandles in Boston but heard opportunity knock.
“The idea is to play all patriotic songs all the time. Three days ago I worked out `Battle Hymn of the Republic,’ and I already knew `America the Beautiful,’ `The Star-Spangled Banner,’ `My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ and the Army fight song.
“When I first got here,” Cobb continues, “I was making real money, good, good money. But it’s been slowing down the past couple days, and I don’t know why.
“I died here today, man.”
He simply may have picked the wrong spot on Broadway, because a couple hundred yards south, violinist Dave Achong was raking it in.
“What you have to do is pick the right patriotic music,” advises Achong, who was born in Trinidad but lives in Brooklyn.
“`Yankee Doodle Dandy’ is good. `The Star-Spangled Banner’ played fast is good. People will support you if you make them feel proud.”
But the closer you stroll back to the scene of destruction, the quieter the setting becomes. At the steps of St. Peters Roman Catholic Church (founded in 1785), less than a block from the ruins, visitors mostly stand still and stare.
“I was inside those towers just a few months ago,” said Chicagoan Yiming Wong, a DePaul University business student.
“That was my first trip to New York, and from inside the World Trade Center I took pictures looking out. I still cannot believe that those buildings aren’t there anymore, and I had to see it for myself, not just on TV.”
The tragedy in-person
Like Wong, practically everyone compares the real scene with televised images of it and finds that the two don’t really connect. The tiny, flat images on the tube pale alongside a three-dimensional view of so many tons of twisted metal.
Add to that the lingering scent of singed wire and the taste of fine dust that collects on the tongue, and the scene in fact becomes all too real.
“I saw the second plane hit, and I haven’t been able to come back until today, I’m just too emotionally torn up,” says George Eshleman, who works in an office building a few blocks uptown.
“So I delayed coming back.”
No one stays very long, the close-up view of ground zero too grim to bear. So the spectators perpetually turn over, one set of awed visitors replaced by the next.
“We were a little scared to come here, but we couldn’t stay away, either,” said Joris Van Denbosch, a college student from Holland, expressing the ambivalence that most visitors probably feel.
“It’s very overwhelming to see, more shocking than I expected,” he added, before picking up his digital camera to continue shooting.
In the distance, a flute played “God Bless America,” meaning that Boston street musician Cobb hadn’t yet given up hope of making a few more bucks before dark.
