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In New York I found a friend to drown out the other voices Voices on the cell phone, voices from home Voices of the hard sell, voices down the stairwell in New York. I just got a place in New York. In New York you can forget, forget how to sit still. Tell yourself you will stay in But it's down to Alphaville. In New York I lost it all to you and your vices. Still I'm staying on to figure out my mid-life crisis. I hit an iceberg in my life, but you know I'm still afloat. You lose your balance, lose your wife, in the queue for the lifeboat. You gotta put the women and children first 'Cause you've got an unquenchable thirst for New York. --lyrics from "New York" by U2  This is an account of my trip to New York, which was September 20th-23rd, 2001. I don't intend this to be an entirely self-centered page, but I just felt like since I went there at such a historic time that I had a kind of obligation to tell people what I saw. Because I did see some interesting stuff...and that's why there are photos here too, so you can see what I saw. Okay, enough of the introduction already, let's get into some...other stuff. I went with my mom and my friend Natalie, and we'd been planning this trip for a couple months in advance. When September 11th happened, we weren't sure if we still wanted to go, but hey, we had The Producers tickets. ^-^ And with all the extra security meausres, well, it was really the safest time to fly, wasn't it? Funny, though...at the Tucson airport they did a whole search on us, first with the metal detector and then we each got patted down, but nothing like that at La Guardia. They just did a random bag search there, and I was glad I wasn't the random one because I've had bad experiences with bag searches before...demmed paranoid British...*grumbles about London Gatwick* Anyway.      On our first full day in The City, guess what time Nat and I got up at? Eleven AM. The evil jetlag strikes again. Since our hotel was on Times Square, we were going to go to The Today Show, but yeah. That didn't happen. We would've had to get up at five, which would have meant about three hours of sleep total that night and we would've been standing around all grumpy and stuff. Al Roker: Well, good morning!
Where are you girls from?
  Then we went to the Museum of Radio and TV, and we went to Sardi's for dinner and I'm sure you all care SO much, right? You want to hear about the gory stuff, right? I'll get to that in a minute. We went to a very forgettable musical called Kiss Me Kate that night, but on the way back we saw something very interesting. There was a firefighters' memorial, but it wasn't in its permanent location, it was just kinda...sitting there in the street. Probably going to be moved somewhere else. It was a big bronze statue of a firefighter, with a big plaque too that had a lovely prayer type thing (click here for text, which Natalie kindly wrote out for us). What I want to know is how they dashed that out so fast, just a week after the attack and it was already complete and ready to be moved to its permanent home. It was very cute...people had left all sorts of stuff by the monument. Flowers, candles, and religious icons, of course. Then firefighters from around the country had left their badges, as a mark of respect. And people left offerings of food. I kid you not. I saw quite a few little packets of candy and Lifesavers. Verrrry interesting.   Our hotel happened to be right above Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, so of course we had to visit. I love wax museums...this was my third (London, Dublin, and New York). Heh, they had a statue of Bush right outside, so people could take pictures with him...I couldn't pass it up. ^-^ Unfortunately when I stepped up to have my picture taken with ol' Bushie, all my comic inspiration left me and I couldn't think of any particular pose to do except to just stand there with an expression of proper liberal disgust and "oh man, do I HAVE to do this?"  Inside the museum was much better. At the foot of the stairs they had this wax dude who was dressed in the staff uniform...he was CREEPY, man. Some of my favorites were Elton John, Jodie Foster, Salvadore Dali, the Dalai Lama...I know there were more cool people I'm forgetting. The obligatory "chamber of horrors" rooms weren't so bad...I couldn't even go all the way through them in London, I chickened out. Heh. It was the guillotine that freaked me out. Oh, speaking of things with high freaking-people-out potential...Li-chan and I were going into the room where the Dalai Lama and Picasso and Colin Powell and everyone are...forget what that place was called. And there was another wax guy dressed in the staff uniform...well, here's what happened. Nat: *sees wax dude* They really need to stop having these fake peoples. *continues on into room* Wax dude: *moves towards Natalie* Boo. Nat and Will: WAAAAAAGH! *both nearly have an attack* Wax dude: Heh, heh. Once we both got over the shock, it seemed funny...although my heart was still going *dokidoki* throughout that whole room, and thereafter I regarded all the semi-normal-looking statues with suspicion. Mom didn't fall for the "fake guide" prank, though...she probably heard us shrieking about it before she went in and put two and two together.  That afternoon we went to see a matinee of The Producers, which was pretty demmed good, I say. Nathan Lane was taking a break, but the understudy was just as good and even looked like him. As for Matthew Broderick...okay, now it's time for me to launch into the Tale of the Matt. See, on our way back from Kiss Me Kate, we saw something very interesting. (Besides the monument and the Lifesavers.) Outside the St. James Theater (where The Producers is showing) there was a big crowd, and they'd blocked off the whole area from the stage door to this car that was waiting outside...not a limo, just a regular ol' black car. With a flag on it, but that's a minor detail. Nat and I were both, "What da?" but Mom figured it out. "They're waiting for you-know-who." My first reaction (which I did not say aloud; Nat would've drop-kicked me across the East River) was, "Who, Voldemort?" Yeah, too much HP, I know. But Natalie was intent on waiting for him, so...we waited. After half an hour we expected he might've sneaked out the back door, but he arrived at last, after much suspense and much singing of Producers songs (that was Natalie: "Springtime...for Hitler...and Germanyyyy!"). When I saw him, I had half a mind to go "Simba!" but I kept my mouth shut, otherwise, again, Nat would've kicked my ass. She pushed her way to the front to get an autograph, but I stayed back and just watched. You know something? I officially have a crush on Matthew Broderick now. He is really, really cute. *blush* He's not _hot_ like, say, Joseph Fiennes, but he's just...cute. In a totally unassuming, non-pretentious, non-threatening way. He's like everyone's neighbor, or everyone's son. He's really nice...I know he must go through this whole walking-from-stage-door-to-the-car thing every night, but he doesn't make it seem like that. He was talking to some guy in the crowd about baseball, and he smiled and said "you're welcome" to Natalie when she thanked him for the autograph. And to me, too; the next night we went again like the good little stage door Johnnies (Judies?) we are, so I could get an autograph too. Hee hee. So I have a crush on him now, and Natalie's crush on him from before just amplified x45...which also happens to be his age, around forty-fiveish (but he looks so young! This guy cannot possibly be old enough to be my father!). And this is not unusual for either of us, to have a crush on a middle-aged dude. We have...issues...  The night I got Matthew Broderick's autograph we went on a boat cruise on the Hudson River...yeah, that was fun. We went past the Statue of Liberty, but we never got very close to her. Bah, and my pictures of her all turned out badly, anyway, as did most of my pictures from the boat. BAH I SAY! And the boat went right past Ground Zero, which would have made for some pretty interesting pictures...had they TURNED OUT! Grr. We could tell right away where Ground Zero was, because it was the big floodlit place where all the smoke was coming from. It made it look all foggy and made the buildings look like tombstones...I thought so, anyway. Creepy stuff. We only saw a tiny tiny bit of the ruins of the WTC from the boat, but again, no pictures. *sigh* *kicks disposable camera* Weak, vile camera...I shall SMITE thee! The next day we got a much closer look, about as close as they'd let us get without actually _being_ right there amidst the rubble, inhaling all the asbestos and lovely germy stuff they say is floating around down there. We took a taxi as far as it could take us into the Financial District, and then we walked the rest of the way. We got within three or so blocks of the site, and a whole crowd of mourners was already there. D'you know, there's still a six-story high pile of rubble there? And a whole wall, about three stories high, is still standing (so I've heard, we didn't get close enough to verify that). I hope they keep the wall there as a memorial. Nat says they should rebuild it, but into four towers, each half the height of the original. "The Tower Quartet," she calls it. I don't believe in rebuilding it exactly how it was...because no matter how much we'd like to just get back to normal and tell Bin Laden where to shove it, let's face up: we're never gonna be the same again. There's never going to be a September 10th, 2001 again. That's gone, guys. For a while, anyway, maybe a few years, or until whenever this "war on terrorism" is over and done with. And I think we should rebuild the WTC accordingly, to show how its destruction has marked our nation. Everyone, quit playing tough: this has scarred us forever, and we know it.  You know something? I've never seen so many American flags in my life before than I did in New York when we went. It's like whole streets were lined in the Stars and Stripes. Even though things were beginning to seem like normal there again (not that I would know what normal was...this was my first visit to New York, and I didn't get to see it before all the war crap started) there was still an atmosphere of patriotism. I think people tried to hide it, but you could still see how they felt. I saw some really moving things, like the offerings left at the firefighter's memorial, and the "Missing" posters of people who were in the WTC when it went down. But then again, some things disturbed me...like the t-shirts with pictures of the Twin Towers on it with "DECLARATION OF WAR" written in big, obnoxious orange letters. Then there were those harboring "Bombs away!" sentiments, whom I hope are the minority. Ugh. You've got your best of humanity, and then you've got your not-quite-worst-but-still-pretty-bad parts of humanity. I think that now more than ever we're seeing what a diverse city New York is. Soooo...that's my trip, in a nutshell. Nat's dad said it would be a very historical time for us to go there, and it was. I leave you with this hypothetical dialogue-let to think about: Grandkids: Grandma, where were you when the World Trade Center collapsed in 2001? Grandma Will: *on rocking chair* It's kind of funny, actually...I woke up a few hours after it happened, and I turned on the TV, and I saw-- Youngest grandkid: Grandma, what's a TV? Grandma Will: *laughs in that cute old grandmotherly way* Oh, you kids these days. Anyway, a week after the bombing I was able to go to New York, with your Great-Grandma and Aunt Natalie...you remember when we went to visit Aunt Natalie? Granddaughter: Yeah, the one who sings. Other Grandkids: You went to New York in 2001? Wow...what was it like there? Grandma Will: Well, I'll tell you...I was fifteen, and I'd never seen so much red, white, and blue in my entire life...*rambles on and on* Oldest grandson: Grandma Will...you must be really, really old.  |