September 11, 2011

Please indulge me one more foray into the 9/11 remembrance pieces and then I will move on. I've got to, because I leave in three days.

My 9/11 Sunday morning began with The Cab Ride From Hell. I caught a cab right away on 3rd Ave. to meet my friends at St. Bartholomew' s Episcopal Church on Park Avenue. When I climbed into the cab, I noticed right off it was an older model, with LOTS of room between the driver and my seat, kinda like the old London cabs but not that nice, of course. After saying good morning, I said, "Please take me to St. Bart's Church...325 Park Avenue between 50th and 51st."
Silence. Dark brown eyes stared blankly at me in the rear view mirror. "What?" I finally said.
Then he said, "I new driver. You help me find, please?
Well, I should have bailed out right then, but being the thoroughly nice, patient person that I am, I said, "Well, sure. But you DO know where Park Avenue is, don't you?"
Silence. He then turns around and smiles, "You tell me, yes?"
So, thoroughly nice me gives directions and then sits back for the short ride. All of a sudden he slams on the brakes so as to not run a red light. I slip right off the seat, and my purse and I go sailing into the back of his seat. "Damn," I yelled, "did you just learn how to drive this morning or somethin'?"
Silence.
Brown eyes peered helplessly at me in the rear view mirror while I picked myself up along with the entire contents of my purse. Now, not-nearly-so-nice- me then told him to "Turn here on 50th...NOW!!!" which nearly put me back on my rear again he did it so quickly. Finally, we get to Lexington and there are police cars barricading the street and so I asked him to let me out there. I pay him and try to get out of the cab and the freaking door won't open! Expectedly, driver doesn't know how the door is SUPPOSED to open and I'm just about to lose it when finally, I manage to crack the code and push the right button and the door opens. Then,...and then...he starts driving off....with my right foot dangling outside the cab.!!!!!!
Let's just say that I screamed loud enough that he heard me and finally stopped. Just exactly what Thoroughly Nice Me said in parting shall not be recorded. What happens in NYC....well, you know the rest.

The barricades were there on the street because of a memorial ceremony going on at a fire house, and I arrived just as they were playing taps. This was sobering enough to 'sooth the savage breast,' and so I joined the assembled crowd to pay my respects to the fallen fire fighters. When it was over, I went inside, took some pictures and shook some hands.



Fire fighters are revered in this city.
Many of them from this same same fire house came on to the church service at St.Bart's. There was a special section set aside for them, but as the service began, the walls were lined with firemen in their dress blues, or whatever they call their Sunday best uniforms.




The church is beautiful, and so are my friends that brought me. This is Terry, who along with my friend Mary Jane, have squired me all around the city where they have lived for forty some odd years. We were sorority sisters and roommates at the University of Texas just a few years ago. More like 50, actually.




The church was packed and the service began with a full orchestra and choral group presenting a specially commissioned piece by composer David Conte entitled "September Sun." It was beautiful and poignant, as was the sermon brought by the Rector, Rev. William Tully. Afterwards, and with tears still on our cheeks, we spilled out of the church where we were met with an assemblage of fire fighters and two big red fire trucks parked in front.







Before I exit 9/11 altogether, I want to include a few pictures from an outdoor symphony presented by The New York Philharmonic that I attended in Lincoln Center the previous evening. Entitled, A Symphony For New York, the musicians played inside Avery Fisher Hall, and I and about 2,000 others sat in chairs outdoors on a perfectly beautiful evening listening to Gustave Mahler's Resurrection Symphony and watching the musicians and vocalists on a giant screen.








It was a magical evening and shall be one of the favorite things I have done while in NYC.

It's been an unbelievably busy week here in the city with events like The US Open, Fashion Week, and the many 9/11 ceremonies and tributes all going on at the same time.
The days of remembrance have left me thoughtful and spent. I am grateful there were no incidents and the terrorist threats came to naught.
Most of all, I am reminded of how proud I am to be an American. New York has shown the rest of us how, like the Phoenix, to rise up from the ashes. Thank you, New York. There's a mighty big heart here in the Big Apple.


Love,
Anna

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A City Remembers, Part 2

I had a most interesting day yesterday. It was a beautiful day but I took a cab (in effort to spare my ailing foot) and one hour later I arrived at Bryant Park. Now Bryant park is right behind the Public Library on 42nd Street and 5th Ave, so really not that far from my 64th Street hotel. Because of the terror threats, Mayor Bloomberg ordered check points all over the city and especially near the bridges. You've never seen the likes of frustrated cab drivers, mine included, who idled in snarled traffic and yelled when police rerouted them to other streets. He had had only 3 trips before mine, and it was 3:00 pm. From Morocco, he was married with 4 little daughters, information I learned in my self- serving attempt to engage him in conversation and get his mind off the traffic. By the time we arrived at Bryant Park, I felt so sorry for him that I gave him triple cab fare and blew him a kiss goodbye. He gave me the biggest smile and said thank you about a hundred times.











Anyway, arriving in Bryant Park was a relief, and to see what all was going on in this unusual park was most impressive. First, you must know that this beautiful green sanctuary was at one time very off limits to anyone who wasn't either a drug dealer or a prostitute. It now is one of the most beautiful parks in Manhattan.
I went there because I had read in the Times that there was a memorial exhibit of 2,753 chairs on display, one for each victim in the 9/11 collapse of the Twin Towers. This exhibit, unlike the Oklahoma City permanent memorial, lasts only through the weekend. It was very moving, and the crowd was somber and respectful.



The chairs were positioned facing the site where the Twin Towers once stood.



To see this memorial with a blue sky above and the Empire State Building in the distance was very moving.

I lingered there in the park for an hour or so, looking at all the activities that were going on at the same time.



Cafes, hot dog stands, restaurants, and outdoor dining.



Reading room in the park. There is also a special children's reading area with tiny tables and chairs.

Ping Pong tournaments, chess and checkers tournaments....on and on ad infinitum.
They also teach everything from yoga and Tai Chi, to knitting, juggling, and fencing.

From Bryant Park, I went to the New York Times building for a commemorative exhibit of 9/11 photos. Many of the photos were Pulitzer Prize winning photos, and I show them to you now without commentary.













You can just make out a part of the airplane in this one.
























On my way back to the hotel, I happened by a firehouse on Broadway. Several firemen were outside the station and I spoke briefly with one. Floral tributes and notes were clustered along an outside wall, and I heard about the baked goods and home cooked food that had been brought in from neighbors and strangers.















343 New York City Firefighters died in the holocaust of 9/11/01
Our heroes.


"We are not defined by tragedy, but by how we carry on."

Love,
Anna

A City Remembers

"Stories....If we don't tell them, they die. Then we don't remember who we are or why we're here....It's what everybody wants, isn't it? For someone to see the hurt in him and set it down in a story, like it matters."
Excerpt from A Secret Life of Bees

It's been an amazing time to be in New York City. I've fallen in love with this paradoxical city for many reasons, many of which I still want to recount to you before I leave. I have had the rare opportunity to be a voyeur...in the best sense of the word...a serial mingler of art and life, and a listener of stories, both great and small.

It was the sudden impact of numerous 9/11 stories in the papers this morning that nearly did me in. True, there has been a plethora of TV specials and newspaper accounts covering the horrendous event. True, I have sought out the stories of my NYC friends and casual acquaintances, asking them to tell me where they were on that fateful day 10 years ago. And true, I have listened to Mayor Bloomberg prepare his city for yet another apocalyptic event, and I have sensed a subtle, albeit very real, nervousness hovering in our midst. And true, I have come close to tears on several occasions, but it was the personal stories in this mornings' newspapers finally did it; I gave in and wept like a big ole cry baby.

There was one story from former Mayor Rudy Giuliani who declared a decade ago..."the number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear," establishing his position as not only crisis manager, but consoler-in-chief as well.

One story by Marc Sasseville, an officer in the DC Air National Guard who was one of the first pilots launched over Washington, DC after the 9/11 attack, was given the rare instruction that he had the authority to shoot down an aircraft if he believed necessary. He determined that he wouldn't be able to halt a passenger airliner simply by shooting at it. Instead, he decided that he would have to shear off one of the plane's wings using one of his own. He doubted he could safely escape but quickly put that thought aside as it could prove to be his only viable option.

There was another story from seminary student and part time police officer, Damone Brown, who after watching the planes fly into the twin towers, stepped into a recruiting station and signed up for the Army, hoping to become an Army chaplain. After his basic training, he joined the special forces and went to Fort Bragg to become a Green Beret. After 3 tours of duty in Afghanistan and South America, he returned to Afghanistan where he sustained a traumatic brain injury when his vehicle was destroyed by an improvised explosive device. Left with memory problems and headaches, Sergeant Brown didn't go into rehabilitation but became an Army Ranger instead. Ultimately he finished Seminary school and lives with his wife and 2 sons in Clifton, Md. where he serves as a government contractor and works closely with his church.

The widow's story was told by a 39 year-old native of Bangladesh whose husband left their apartment in Queens the morning of 9/11 and never returned. Two days later she gave birth to their son, Farqad. A year later she moved to Edmond, Oklahoma, to be near her sister (that's where my sister lives too. Hi sis !!!)

There was a story from a lawyer who lost his wife, Barbara, when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. And then more poignant stories from an educator, a train operator, a volunteer, a priest, and a little boy who was placed in the seat of a fire truck so his mother, a longtime volunteer with the fire department, could assist men and women preparing for dispatch that fateful day. One by one, fifteen stories...fifteen lives changed forever.

Then there are the expensive, full page ads in the newspapers taken out by companies that lost valued employees, and in grievous eloquence, go on to list their names one by one.

I think one of the most moving ads appeared in the WSJ, put there by the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation:


Entitled "The Pledge," the copy reads like this:

"If you are ever trapped under a ton of rubble, I promise to sniff you out.
I promise to be worth every cent of the $10,000 that it took to train me.
I promise to ignore all other more fascinating smells and concentrate on the scent of live humans.
I promise to go about my work with a wagging tail, even if my paws get sore.
I promise never to give up."

I don't know yet where I will go to commemorate 9/11 on Sunday except that for sure I will begin the day at the beautiful St. Bartholomew's Church on Lexington Avenue along with my dear friends, Mary Jane and Terry, both former Texans who have lived in NYC since we all graduated from The University of Texas in......well, never mind. That's a story that shall remain untold.

I will not go on the subway that day nor will I be allowed to enter the commemorative sight since it will be for families of the 9/11 victims only. I will not hang out in Times Square or walk anywhere near Wall Street, but I will go somewhere meaningful on this island of Manhattan. Somewhere, I'm sure, I will reflect my own sad memories of 2001 spent on another island, Monhegan Island, Maine, some ten miles off the coast and so wild and remote that I and my fellow painters did not even hear about the attack until hours after it had happened. As we pieced together bits of information from outdated phone systems and one lone TV station, we were left with the same sense of horror that the rest of the world was feeling. An artist standing next to me on the beach noticed that the flag on top of the Island Inn was being lowered to half mast. Quietly, and with tears streaming down his face, I saw him rub out the flag in his painting and then repaint the flag as we now saw it...at half staff. Another friend, Carol Raybin from NYC, was called out of our painting group the next day, and later I found her sitting in her room, numb and dazed from being told that the light of her life, her nephew, was one of the ones flying on the plane that hit the first Twin Tower. This beloved nephew, who had given her multiple shares of his wildly successful business, was the reason Carol had been able to retire from a teaching position and paint full time. Stories abounded for the next week as we watched fighter jets patrolling the coast overhead and as we waited for the opportunity to finally fly home.

There will be more stories to unfold as the clock ticks forward to 9/11/11. And like you and like me, New Yorkers will recall that horrible day and retell their stories over and over. Stories, like axes, that will serve to break up the ice within them. Tears will rightly flow and hugs will be given freely, and maybe.... just maybe, if only for a day, Americans all over this proud land will forget their financial woes and their partisan differences and remember how great is is to live in this brave, strong, resilient country of ours. Remember to tell your stories; don't let them die, because they matter.




God bless America. And God bless you, my friends and family.
And Audrey dear, I'm glad you didn't live to see the infamous day unfold. You were such a survivor yourself, and you would have had words of wisdom to give us. But it would have broken your heart. Rest in peace, my fair lady.
Love, Anna



Audrey Hepburn
1929-1993

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Central on Sunday

"I'm an introvert....I love being by myself, love being outdoors, love taking a long walk with my dogs and looking at the trees, flowers, the sky."
Audrey Hepburn

It's marvelous to have no schedule, no appointments, and no deadlines to meet. My whole agenda for this day was to have no agenda. So with the sunshine on my shoulder and a whistle on my lips, I spent the afternoon just walking around Central Park.



Central Park is one of those places that make NYC such a great place to live. It's huge, covering 843 acres in the very center of Manhattan, and is a welcome oasis in an otherwise hectic city.



There are several lakes, theaters, ice rinks, fountains, tennis courts, baseball fields, playgrounds, and Central Park Zoo.



Artists cluster around the entrance to the zoo doing portraits and characatures. One in particular caught my attention. See if you can guess why.


You can see mimes in every sort of costume....



Perhaps this one is a 2011 take on Audrey. Of course, she wouldn't say. But she did blow me a kiss to thank me for the dollar I put in her bucket.






This ballerina smiled and did elaborate position changes in response.
Money talks, even if the mime doesn't.





There are guitarists, violinists, and jazz players around most every bend.



You can rent remote-controlled sailboats....



Or take a nap under a tree....

You can see incredible, larger than life size bronzes all over the park. Here's my favorite, Alice In Wonderland, of course.


There were bronze plaques all around the base of the statue of Alice. Some were quotes from the book, and the simple dedication plaque read:
Alice in Wonderland
In memory of my wife
Margarita Delacorte
Who loved all children
GTD


What a good man you were, Mr. Delacorte. Thank you, from me, Anna, and all the other children.



It is a favorite place for photos....



...and for climbing.

Now for a bit of history. When the terrain for Central Park was bought for the city of New York in 1853, it was faraway from civilization. The area contained sheds from colonists, quarries, pig farms and swamps. In 1857, the city organized a competition for the design of this new park. A design by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux was chosen, featuring an English style landscape with large meadows, lakes and hills, and winding pedestrian roads. To convert the swampy area into the park, several hundred trees were planted, 3 million cubic yards of soil was moved, roads and bridges constructed, and a large reservoir dug out. It took 15 years and 20,000 workers to complete the park.
Robert Moses, the New York City Parks Commissioner for 26 years, constructed many sports facilities and playgrounds, renovated the zoo, and installed bronze sculptures, Alice in Wonderland included. But after Moses's departure in 1960, Central Park started to decline. Graffiti, garbage and criminality kept both citizens and tourists from visiting then park. In the '70s, Central Park became a symbol of NYC's decline.
The tide turned in 1980 when a group of concerned citizens created the Central Park Conservancy. Together with the city, it started a $50 million dollar renovation project. Critical areas we're restored, graffiti was removed and criminality was reduced by a large police force. Thanks to their efforts, Central Park is now a clean and safe place, visited by 20 million people each year.

I will close with a wonderful rendition of Three Blind Mice played every hour at The Central Park Wildlife Center right after the tolling of the hour.

It was a wonderful Sunday in the Park...a day well lived in the great outdoors. As I say this, I am reminded of a quote I live by, and one I believe Audrey would have loved as well:

"For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision.
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
And tomorrow a vision of hope."
A portion translated from the Sanskrit

Goodnight everyone. And goodnight, sweet happy girl.


Love,
Anna


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