Zeroing In

A trip to New York City these days is not complete without a visit to Ground Zero to pay your respects and try to grasp the enormity of what happened there. Being Crowden, of course, we didn't just visit, we paid tribute in the form of a mid-day concert at St. Pauls Chapel, an amazing little church that has been around since the days of George Washington and miraculously escaped unscathed when the twin towers collapsed right across the street on 9/11. The chapel has become a well adorned memorial to 9/11 and was an extraordinary venue for our early afternoon concert, which was performed wonderfully and captivated many an unsuspecting visitor. The highlight of the performance was the premiere of two movements of Laurence Rosenthal's Vienna: Sweet and Sour, which was attended by none other than the composer himself. The waltz movement was particularly well played, moving some listeners close to dancing in the chapel!

Following the performance, we walked back through the weathered gravestones of the churchyard to Ground Zero, just a hundred yards or so away, where we met with our tour guide to explore a few historic parts of lower Manhattan. Ground Zero is one of those things that you can't really explain and we walked over to the site and just stared into the great, grinding construction pit, not quite sure what to make of it, wondering what they've been doing down there for the past 6 years and what will appear there in the future. So we just stood there, with hundreds of others, presumably sorting through the blur of the thousands of images that have filled our heads since that tragic day. Ultimately, it's just impossible to fathom what makes human beings so want to annihilate one another.

We moved on, in our giant tour bus, weaving chaotically through bicycles, cars and pedestrians, usually with only inches to spare, accompanied by occasional gasps from the front passengers, to Little Italy, where we took to the streets and walked through what is probably still one of the most Italian neighborhoods outside of Italy itself, streets closed, endless shops overflowing with jewelry, handbags and sunglasses, and every inch of sidewalk blanketed with outdoor cafes and restaurants, packed with people, many of whom appear to be families out having their weekend lunch at the same family-standard restaurant they've been attending for decades without thought or question, taking a break from work and life in general to enjoy the company, food and atmosphere.

We boarded the bus for our next destination, for what some thought was going to be a simple drive-by or walk-through tour of the Lower East Side tenements, but this, in fact, turned out to be much more intriguing when we arrived at the Tenement Museum for an interactive immigrant experience. Our museum guides began by thrusting us into a discussion about the question of what makes Americans American... Diverse, free, tolerant, inventive, hard-working and wealthy? Or are we really obnoxious, self-centered, obese, over-achievers? No easy answers, but it got us to talk and think about the shift that immigrants make from foreigner to American, and what that meant then compared to what it means now, in this day and age. We proceeded by moving into an authentic, tiny, claustrophobic tenement apartment where we played the role of an immigrant family just off the boat, and asked questions of a more experienced tenement inhabitant–an actor in full character, including eastern European dress and heavy, yiddish accent–who gave us tips on life in the tenements, including finding jobs, food and doctors and how to survive and stay out of trouble. Hard to complain about the size and condition of your own house or bedroom after this experience.

The evening was spent at the South Seaport (Manhattan's version of San Francisco's Pier 39), complete with questionable food, kitschy souvenirs of all kinds and spectacular views of world famous bridges including the fabled Brooklyn Bridge across the East River. What a day!