Tales of Manhattan

Gorgeous day again yesterday, bright sunshine and New York sub-zero temperatures, walking and walking around lower Manhattan. First crossing the Brooklyn Bridge (see left), taking lots of pictures along the way - including an update of my "panoramic collage" that hangs on my wall from 1992 when I was last here.

Then on down to ground zero which, of course, is just a big hole in the ground - even more so because it is a building site at the moment develping, I believe, a memorial park on the site of the twin towers. Nevertheless photograph the "space" where they were, now filled with sunbeams of glory (see below):


Is that the shadow of a dove I see at the bottom of the picture ...?

Also visited the Episcopal Church of St. Paul which is right by here - a Church that provided hospitality, care and counselling (as well as foot care!) to the thousands of volunteers who came in the aftermath of 9-11 to clear the site and recover what remains of loved-ones they could. The Church itself has now become something of a pilgrimage site for thousands of visitors who make there way here - there was a steady stream of people coming through when we were there and I get the impression that this is constant. Inside there are memorials and memorabilia from that traumatic time - a scar on the psyche and on the heart of the nation (and the world really - e.g. insgnia badges had been sent from police departments right across the world as a mark of solidarity - including Thames Valley in the UK and the Carabinieri in Italy). I was not prepared for how moving this place and this experience would be. There was nothing to do after sitting there quietly for a while but to walk in silence through those streets of lower Manhattan, remembering and imagining what is was like.

Strange that we were there just two days after another plane had come down in Manhattan - the one that had to force land in the Hudson River on Thursday. I'm sure the sight of a plane coming in low over the city must have froze people's hearts, no doubt descending in eery silence having now engines. The world's largest glider, but in the hands of a superhero for a pilot. We didn't see the plane itself but we could see through binoculars from the top of the Empire State Building where they are trying to bring it out of the river.

On the way to the Empire State we wondered through Greenwich Village and thought of Dylan's early days in the bars and coffee shops there, and of Kerouac and Ginsberg, and Thomas Merton too, stopping by 35 Perry Street where he wrote his Secular Journal before going to the monastery in Kentucky.

From the Empire State we made our way in the gathering dusk down Fifth Avenue, then Broadway and the Bowery all the way back to the Brooklyn Bridge attempting some pictures along the way (with moderate success) of the sparkling jewels of Gotham night. Click on the photo below to fill your screen with New York nighttime skyline....