World Trade Center Reborn

I had an amazing experience on my way to the BBC's NYC bureau for my recent Halloween appearance (topic: The Addams Family vs. The Munsters). The journey there took me by the World Trade Center, which I hadn't visited in several months, perhaps as long as a year or two. And to my delight, for the first time since Sept 11, I felt there was a THERE there, that it was no longer a work in progress or a construction site. It felt for the first time much as it had back on September 10, 2001, before the attack, a humming, vibrant place, full of workers and tourists bustling about, enjoying the various spaces as they were meant to be enjoyed. Make no mistake, there is a memorial to the dead there now, and there was no such thing there before. And while that corner of the complex is appropriately somber, it no longer feels oppressive. As those horrific events recede into history it feels something more like the nearby Irish Hunger Memorial. It is something to reflect upon; it is not something to crush and paralyze us. It has been almost 20 years now. Moving throughout the WTC, I had a sort of calm feeling that though the hundreds or thousands of people around me were not necessarily New Yorkers who had been here on that day, in fact the odds were that they weren't, that that was okay. Time has passed. The city has moved on and that is healthy. People have worked together and they rebuilt this place and it seems to be working out. It gives me hope for the future.

This sculpture, once in the middle of the plaza between the Twin Towers, was damaged when they fell. Now it rests in a raised green space not unlike the High Line.