Use Scott Brinton's headshot: Scott Brinton, senior editor
Suddenly in 2006, NYC
didn't seem so scary
I went to ground zero in August to photograph the site of America's worst terrorist attack for the Herald's Sept. 11 five-year anniversary issue, not knowing what to expect. I hadn't been to Liberty Plaza since April 2001. Part of me felt funny even stepping on this hallowed ground. But as I walked around, looking for photographs to take, a thought suddenly struck me. Lower Manhattan seemed so normal.
Businessmen and women, dressed in immaculate blue suits, scurried by with hot pretzels and briefcases in hand. Tourists stood in rows to be photographed by friends and family. Construction crews were hard at work inside ground zero. And here and there -- but not everywhere -- a uniformed police officer stood guard.
I felt better. I felt hopeful.
In the weeks and months after Sept. 11, 2001, I covered 13 funerals for the Herald. In my 10 previous years as a journalist, I had covered fewer than five. The pain felt by the loved ones of the lost will never be erased. I knew no one who died in the World Trade Center. Still, the expressions of sorrow on the faces of fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, boyfriends and girlfriends, were etched in my mind. And to one degree or another, I, like so many South Shore residents, internalized all of the psychic pain I saw around me, particularly, I believe, because I was reporting on it for months on end.
In making my August pilgrimage to what has become sacred ground in many Americans' eyes, I found a small sense of peace, the belief that the U.S. will, one way or another, overcome the threats against it; that we, as a country, can face the gravest hardship and prevail.
My wife and I took the kids to the city a number of times this year. I'll always remember our trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in July. The skies threatened rain, and we spent the day milling around the museum, our young children's eyes lighting up with wonder with each new room we entered. Then we hopped a cab to the Central Park Zoo and spent a half-hour just watching the seals play.
We also visited the Bronx Zoo three times, as well as the Museum of Natural History. Suddenly, thankfully, the city didn't seem like such a scary place in 2006. It was as I remember it when I was growing up, a place full of wonder, with a new discovery waiting around each turn.
I only pray that the world can find such peace in 2007. It is a big wish, but one for which we cannot stop hoping.
