On May 1, 1931 the Empire State Building officially opened. Herbert Hoover, President at the time, pressed a button from DC and all the lights came on.
I can see that building from the end of my street. It is RIGHT THERE. It’s a part of my everyday life. It looms now … in the unbalanced skyline. It is a precious building to me – to all of us who live here. And probably to many people who DON’T live here. It is alone now. In the months after September 11, there were times when I would stare up at that spire, literally praying for it to never go away. “Please … don’t let anything happen to that building … oh God … please …”
In honor of the birthday of this extraordinary landmark, I’m going to re-post something I wrote awhile back. It’s about my trip to Baltimore to hang out with two guys I had never met before. Such nerve I had!!
Here’s the post:
I had a terrible dream last night that something happened to the Empire State Building. Overnight, it was as though an earthquake had happened – only a very neat earthquake – which opened up an abyss down the side of the building, separating the parts from one another. It was mysterious why this had happened. But New Yorkers woke up, and everybody noticed it.
And panic ensued immediately. New York woke up in panic mode.
I was clinging to something, very high up – staring at the opened crack down the side of the building – knowing it meant something very very bad. But it was mysterious. It was like the monoliths in 2001, or the lights suddenly appearing over Mexico City in Signs. Something’s happening. Something already has happened.
As I said, I was very high up, above the streets – and I could hear everyone screaming below. The air filled with screams.
Just like on September 11. That’s one of the things I remember about that day. The air filled with screams.
The first time I left New York City after September 11 was for a weekend in Baltimore at the end of September – I was going to visit 2 guys I had never met before in my life. But we had become friends in an online kind of way, in the summer before September 11. I felt no fear, NONE, as I went to meet these strangers. There was no danger. I was aware of no danger. My friends thought I was insane. “What do you know about these guys? Who are they? What are their phone numbers? Call me every day while you’re down there…” Etc.
Well, suffice it to say – that they were 2 of the loveliest men I have ever met, and they treated me like a refugee from a war-torn country. Which, indeed, I was. At that time.
One of them is still a good friend of mine, and comments on this blog often. I will ALWAYS have a soft spot in my heart for these guys. I went down there on the train, and I was – to put it mildly – a mess. I didn’t want to leave New York. I was still not sleeping. The city had not recovered. By the end of September, we were into the time of funerals. Every day there were funerals. The drones of bagpipes filled the air at all times – replacing the screams of September 11. I can’t explain it. I had not recovered – nothing was normal.
I almost didn’t go down to Baltimore, because I felt too much anxiety leaving my city. What if something else happened? I couldn’t not be there! If an explosion was going to happen, then dammit – I wanted to be exploded too. It’s MY city, Goddammit.
My 2 new online friends were voices of calm and reason. All of America was affected by what happened that day. But I was their friend from New York City, and they assured me that everything was going to be all right, and when I got down to Baltimore, they would show me around, they would take me out to dinner, they would take care of everything. No worries, no worries, no worries …
I am still amazed that these guys came into my life. I called them “my Baltimore Boys”.
On the day I was to leave, I had an extended anxiety attack. I was taking the Path to 33d Street and then walking over to Penn Station to take the train out of town. At every second, I thought I’d turn back. I could not leave the city yet. The whole damn island of Manhattan felt like an illusion. While I was in Baltimore, the entire thing could be liquidated. My home … my home … my family … my sister … my brother … Cashel … all of them there … I could not be separated from them …
I got off at 33rd Street and made my way to the stairs up to the street.
The station was packed with people. It was a Friday afternoon, your regular rush hour.
And suddenly – with no warning – NONE – everyone started to run. People were screaming. There was a mad RUSH for the stairs. I had no idea what had happened. What was happening? But I was part of that crowd – and the second the movement began, the crowd movement, I started to run too. Something was going to explode, something was in the subway station … There must be a REASON why everyone is running, right??
People were pushing and shoving, frantically, to get out of the station up to the street. I had my bags for the weekend. I couldn’t catch my breath.
It was completely catching. The panic.
And I emerged onto the nightmare of the street – it’s a block away from the Empire State Building – you have to crane your neck way way back to see the spindle – and there had been some sort of bomb scare. Which is probably highly normal for the Empire State Building – but in those late September days of 2001 – nothing seemed more fragile, more courageous, more precious and easily destroyed – than the Empire State Building. I would stare at it from my kitchen window in Hoboken, the only building in Manhattan visible to me. At least now. I used to be able to see the twin towers, but now … there was just one building left. The Empire State Building looked ENORMOUS. A huge target.
The streets were blocked off around the Empire State Building. Cops and National Guardsmen were literally everywhere. I am not exaggerating. It felt like we were under siege. The crowd (of which I was a part) was running this way – that way – panicked – trying to get away from the building, running towards the building – shouting at the cops, “WHAT’S GOING ON?” The cops were hollering at the crowd – “GET BACK. GET BACK.”
You have to remember the context of those days.
I started running down 34th Street, holding my suitcase. People were running, all around me. Some were running, as they were talking on their cells. The sound of sirens filled the air. As I ran, I kept looking back over my shoulder at the Empire State Building’s spindle … it looked so fragile you could snap it. I was WILLING it to still exist.
This all probably sounds really crazy. But there was such a crowd dynamic in New York in those days. At any moment, the crowds on the sidewalk were liable to start running. For no reason.
Oh, and randomly – in the middle of this crowd panic – something very very strange happened.
A woman grabbed onto my hand. I was literally running towards Penn Station. I was completely convinced that the Empire State Building was going to explode behind me … like in a movie. So a woman grabbed onto me. Stopped me. I looked at her with my crazy eyes.
And she said something so unbelievably incomprehensible to me – that I had to ask her to repeat it. She was speaking in English, do not get me wrong, but in that moment, what she said was so absurd, so out of place, that I could not, for the life of me, understand what she was saying.
Here is what she said:
“Do you have any idea where I could buy a Boggle game?”
I’m not kidding.
We’re in the middle of a Midtown-wide Bomb Scare, and she’s looking for Boggle.
It was only later that I was able to laugh about this. I did an imitation of the moment later for my friend Jen and we were crying with laughter. My insane running, looking over my shoulder, etc., and then this calm oblivious woman basically asking me to point her in the direction of Toys R Us.
I said, “Huh?”
She said, smiling, unaware somehow of the crowd running at her from the direction of Broadway, “Can you tell me where I might find a game of Boggle?”
I should have said, “Up your ass, lady. Why don’t you try there?”
But I pointed wildly uptown, and screamed, as I ran away from her, “THERE’S A TOYS R US ON THE CORNER OF 45TH AND BROADWAY – TRY THERE…”
Absurd.
Those days were so absurd.
Penn Station in those days was one of the most moving and mournful places on earth. You walked down the huge corridor to get to the terminal, and the walls were, first of all, lined with National Guardsmen and women who all looked about 12 years old. Second of all, the walls were plastered with notes from all over the world. And commuters and passersby would stop to read the notes. People were always weeping in that corridor. I would weep in that corridor. I think I read every note, over those weeks. There were notes from entire classrooms of 2nd graders in Tulsa, there were notes from fire departments the world over … clumsy English spelling from the fire department in Germany … there were notes from individual people, “Hang in there…” “We love you” “We will not forget” – there were letters in every language imaginable. Some were written by little kids who obviously had just learned how to write. So their sentiments were blunt. “I am very sad about the dead people. My dad says it’s okay to cry though.” Stuff like that. It was a corridor of mourning. Lined with people in military dress, and filled with crying people.
My God.
So the panic was still going on, as I entered Penn Station. I felt like I was making a getaway from a war zone, being air-lifted out of Nigeria or something. Everything dissolving into chaos behind me.
Now mind you: This was just an anxiety attack I was having. New York was still there when I got back. The Empire State Building was still there when I got back. But everything was messed up in my head, I couldn’t sleep – no one could – It felt like we were on the brink of utter destruction. It was only September 28.
I got on the train, my breathing high in my chest, and everything in me was saying: Don’t go. Don’t go. If the Empire State Building explodes, you will want to be here. You will want to be here for your city.
But … the train pulled away from the station … and I was off. I felt insane. Wild-eyed.
Boggle? What?
When we emerged into New Jersey, I could see the whole of the city spread out to my left, glimmering, and tragic. The gaping hole of lower Manhattan hurt me, like an actual wound. It doesn’t really anymore, but it did then. And I stared at that spindle of the Empire State Building, the tallest building, in the center of the island … teetering … It looked so … small. It looked like – wow, it would take absolutely nothing to get rid of that building! And I stared at it, craning my neck backwards, tears running down my face, until I couldn’t see it anymore.
I arrived in Baltimore to meet these 2 strange men, in this state of mind.
We had never met. We knew what we all looked like, pictures had been exchanged … but nothing else.
And these men were my heroes. They took care of me. They showed me the sights. They listened to me talk. They were sensitive. I couldn’t talk about anything else. And I needed to have the TV on at all times, in case something happened. They were fine with that. They introduced me to their friends as “our refugee”. They gave me (why?? I have no idea!! I was a stranger to them!!) 2 days away from the stench of death and the bomb scares. They were kind enough to take me in. I was, to put it mildly, NO FUN to be around. This was not a whoo-hoo kind of weekend. I was jumpy, and tearful, and needy, and a little bit insane. They expected nothing from me. They just wanted to take care of me, and give me some time away. They were thrilled to be able to do that for me.
Writing this down, I realize it doesn’t make all that much sense.
But I’ll alway be grateful to my Baltimore Boys for their kindness to me during that weekend. I will never ever forget it.
And one of them has remained a true friend. For which I am also very grateful.
They weren’t really meeting “the real Sheila” that weekend. Who I was that weekend is not who I am normally, obviously. I couldn’t stop shaking, all through our first dinner out – I sat at the Mexican restaurant, shivering, as though they had the AC on full blast. Then I said I wanted to go to a bar where they had a TV, because I had to make sure nothing had happened to the Empire State Building. They did whatever I wanted. “You need a TV, darlin’? Okay, then, we’ll take you to a TV.”
These men were miracles to me.
Nothing was normal. We all clung to one another, and for a couple of days at least, I was away from it. I needed to get away.
When I returned to New York a day and a half later, I came back into Penn Station at about 9 o’clock at night. It was rainy and dark.
And the sadness hit me like a wall. It wasn’t MY sadness, per se. I didn’t own any more sadness than anyone else. It was like there was a wall of grief around the city. And I was stepping back into that atmosphere. I am telling you: I could feel it the second I got off the train. It was in the air, between the molecules … it WAS the air.
This post… where to begin?
You know, my father is a huge New York City freak. As you would say, NYC is his “stark raving mad obsession”. He knows the city as if he had been born there, although he only traveled there once in his life, for two weeks, in September of 2000. His love for NYC finds the height of its expression in the Empire State Building; he’s got pictures of it hanging in the walls at home, he knows its history and its layout and every detail of that building as if he himself had designed it!
I remember the aftermath of September 11 so vividly… My father’s face, his silence… he was mourning, and so were we, not only for the people who died and the survivors, but also for this wonderful city that he loves. And all his fear turned then to the ESB. He was so afraid that this magnificent building, this landmark, would be attacked! And I was afraid too. I swear to you, on the night of September 11 I dreamed that the ESB would be a target, and I remember waking up completely freaked out, scared… Awful.
Fortunately, the ESB was not attacked and still stands proud, beautiful. My father is constantly sending me emails with pictures of the ESB, in all seasons, from every perspective possible… Stunning pics, I can’t imagine what it is to stand at its base and look up! Through my father, I learned to love the Empire State Building, and that is why your post touched my heart.
This might sound odd but I felt bad for the ESB after 9/11. I felt like it was lonely or something. I know that seems silly since it’s a building and therefore, does not have feelings, but it’s how I felt. Do you remember the cartoon that was published shortly after 9/11? It showed the ESB, the Citibank bldg and some of the other bigger NYC buildings crying. They mourned the loss of their sibling. It totally made me cry. It’s amazing how these structures of concrete and steel have become like real people to us.
curly – I don’t remember that cartoon – I wish I had seen it, it sounds amazing.
The Chrysler Building is, I think, my favorite – but the ESB definitely looked so vulnerable without the two giants balancing it out downtown. I truly felt like I was going to see it explode into smithereens at any moment in that weird panicky month following september 11.
I too felt reassured by its presence after 9/11 and SO worried that it would be destroyed as well. I still worry about it. I adore the Brooklyn Bridge to no end so you can probably imagine my freak out when I heard about the plot to destroy it. For me, it’s not worry that I’ll be on the bridge or in one of the buildings during a terror strike, but it’s the gaping hole afterwards. Risk doesn’t concern me at all. It’s the absence that is so painful.
The first time I was in NJ after 9/11 was really traumatic. I was living in Manhattan at the time. A few days later, I took a bus to NJ. For the first time, I was seeing the skyline from a distance — and from the perspective I grew up with — and it just devastated me. I covered my mouth and just sat on the bus in stunned silence. The whole bus became quiet and reverent. Ground Zero was still smoldering and the skyline was obscured by a sheen of gray dust. I expected the smoke but I couldn’t prepare myself for that gaping hole.
Sunny days are supposed to be cheerful and welcomed but when I’m downtown and the sun hits my face, I’m reminded of the cooling shade those two huge buildings used to provide. It’s a strange sensation. I’ll never get used to it.
They weren’t as pretty as the ESB or the Chrysler Building but I loved them just as much. I want them back.
I remember the ESB being visible almost anywhere, from ANY window. Seeing it from a distance felt like looking at a Supernatural being. The fact that it was in line of sight with me was nearly intimidating. I kept telling myself, ‘It’s not on TV. It’s right there.’
I came to NYC in February of 2002. Nothing was completely better, but you could certainly feel the grief. Before coming to a party at Red’s that night, I was with friends in Brooklyn. We got on the Subway, and went down to Ground Zero.
The Airplane Fuel. You could still smell it.
Regardless, being where I was, everytime I saw sky I got my bearings be looking for the Empire State Building, and after gawking at it for a few moments (fellow gamers would say I failed my Awe check) I’d try to pretend that I was listening to what my friend Rob was saying while striding purposefully down the road.
It really is a massive structure. Understatement, I know, but the sight of it really reminds you of how small you are.
It’s a great building.
-W
Oh, and if you’re in Baltimore, head to Federal Hill, and go to the ‘No Way Jose Cafe’. That’s the ‘Mexican Joint’ mentioned in the post. Their Salsa is thick like Ragu. Another great place is in Canton, called “Nacho Mama’s”, an Irish-Mexican joint with a Pizza carry-out next door.
Red, when are you coming back down?
I can’t pass Ground Zero to this day. It makes me mad. The vicious little bastards could never dream of building anything even remotely impressive, important, or memorable – all they have is the power to tear down and destroy. If it’s not the WTC it’s those ancient buddhist statues, not to mention all the lives and families and shops and homes and churches. Small minds, small hearts. Miserable punks.
curly – I feel just the same way about those buildings. Stand strong, ESB!
wutzizname – I should definitely come down again. See your dining room set in person!! :)
And member you bought me that can of Old Bay as a souvenir?? I ended up using it quite a lot when I cooked. Yummmmmmmmm
Old Bay. Used to be one significant item for the State of Maryland, Now you can buy it at Sam’s.
Utz potato chips are in Airports from here to Maine.
They’re stealing our culture, I tell ya!!
Soon, they’ll know how to season crabs Chesapeake bay style in Rhode Island…Utz salt & Vinegar chips bags will be seen blowing down the streets of Brooklyn…the horror…the horror…
Oh no!!!!
If it’s any consolation, Wutzizname, when we “cook” crabs at my in-laws in Charleston (got two crab traps hooked to the dock out back of the country house), I always make sure we make ’em “Maryland” with an ample supply of Old Bay seasoning.
Sadly, I’m allergic to something in Old Bay. It’s just cruel.
But I loves me some Utz potato chips. Mmm. I think I need to go on a deli run.
My mouth is watering. :)
Thanks Folks. Glad to know you appreciate the seasoning, and the Maryland delicacies.
Sorry to hear about your allergy to Old Bay, Curly. You might want to try Season all instead.
Oh, and for all “y’all” who haven’t experienced it, try sprinkling old bay on French Fries.
…I may have ruined you all by making that suggestion. It’s just so damned good…
Nacho Mama’s is indeed very good – love that place.