I've been spending a lot of time in the Wall Street area lately and I've noticed something that I didn't think would bother me as much as it does. Tourists swarming around the World Trade Center site as if it's the freaking Met.
I can't tell you how many foreigners I've had approach me and ask in their broken English, "World Trade Center, please?" At first I would point them in the direction of the site. Then I started to really get disgusted with them. Really? Taking pictures and peeking through the fence to see the rubble? Now, just for kicks I'll respond with a "It doesn't exist; the buildings were BOMBED!" or a "No speekee dee eenglish" or a simple side eye and walk away.
Fuck you and your morbid curiosity! Are you kidding me with this bullshit? And while you're at it, tell Bloomberg and all the rest of those assholes to sit on a crab-infested dick for allowing this tragedy to become a tourist attraction. What the hell do you hope to see over there? A skeleton? Bomb remnants? WHAT??? Just go ride the ferry or annoy people along 5th Avenue trying to shop for things you can't afford and LEAVE THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ALONE. I totally want to go all Julia Sugarbaker on them for real:
September 11, 2001 was a terrible day. I was all the way in the Bronx TERRIFIED that those two buildings were not the only targets, knowing that my mom and aunt were working in midtown and unable to get to them. I knew Irene was close by in the Chase building and I couldn't reach her, either. Phone lines were fucked up and I couldn't reach anyone and I was freaking out because I just KNEW they weren't done. I just KNEW the Empire State building (two blocks away from my mom) and the Chrysler building (a few blocks away from my aunt) were next and I wasn't afforded the opportunity to freak out because I was at work, starting my new job at a private school in Riverdale. And that's just one story from someone who was far, far away from all of it up on W242nd Street. There are much more horrifying, first-person accounts of that day. We all STILL have nightmares about it, and to this day loud noises in Manhattan make me jump and fear for my life. FOR MY FREAKING LIFE!
Is THAT what you're hoping to get from visiting the site? Well lookit there, I just saved you the trouble. Now you can avoid a Jaded beat-down and NOT GO TO THE WTC SITE AS IF IT'S A STOP ON YOUR WORLD TOUR!
And don't even get me started on this mosque nonsense I keep hearing about! Give me a freakin' break already! Now you want to control what religious institutions get built? Today it's a mosque, tomorrow it's a synagogue... When will it end?
*smooches...so done with tourists & politicos it's not even funny*
----------
let one mo' fool ask me how to get there and see if they don't get assaulted right there in front of Trinity Church!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
I understand your annoyance but what's the difference between them visiting this site and us going to, say, the Alamo or the Vietnam Memorial or the Civil Rights Memorial?
Yeah, maybe part of it is that it actually happened here and that you were a part of this bit of history. But there are plenty of sites commemorating plenty of tragedies all over the world (right at the site or in general) and a lot of people go to remember, to mourn, to come to grips.
Who are we to judge how other people remember horrible events? You know what I did to keep mentally stable that day? I spent over an hour cleaning my mom's peephole with peroxide. I'd walked there (16th Street) from work (53rd Street), along 3rd Avenue and it was madness. Mom's place became a central location for anyone who could come. I thought I was calm til I look back on it now.
How would you feel if you went to one of the many sites commemorating tragedies in this world, asked for directions, and were not only rebuffed but mocked?
Sorry if that sounded harsh. I work right above Times Square and avoid it all costs because I loathe dealing with the idiot tourists that hog the sidewalks, stopping smack in the middle as they and their throngs point to the sky or look down at their maps. I'm from Indiana but I call this wonderful town my own now. I get that it's annoying to have the site of what I consider the most horrible tragedy in my lifetime treated like a sideshow. But I also get that these people probably weren't here when it happened and are probably here now to just try to understand.
The mosque? I agree, don't get me started. How dare we judge any other race or religion when we, as Americans and many as Christians or Catholics or whatever (they're all the same to me), are far meaner and nastier, with a bloodier history?
Kelly- I thought someone might bring that up, almost made a note about it in the post...
my main gripe is that they are going to see the rubble, not the memorial, because nothing is built there yet. The other places you mention already have structures in place, etc for remembering and paying respects. There are monuments in DC in memory of the fallen, not tour groups in Vietnam, you know? I'm sure the Vietnamese people wouldn't be too cool with tourists stopping through asking, "Is this where the bomb was dropped on your country?"
Right now all we have is a huge hole in the ground and tons of construction and fencing to keep people out. But they don't care; they stick their cameras through the holes in the fence or look for cracks in the fence, etc. Very intrusive and disrespectful.
If I were behaving that way then I'd most certainly deserve to be rebuffed and ridiculed.
I don't know. Maybe it's too soon. Maybe in 100 years no one will care but right now, it's too soon. Even 10years later is too soon.
And no worries about your comment! It was not harsh at all and I'm not the type to get offended over a difference of opinion! We are more than cool, Miss Kelly :)
Now that mosque debacle...ugh...I don't even want to be associated with this country sometimes, you know? Just the level of ignorance that pours out of people whenever race is involved just really turns my stomach. But I can't even blame the US alone- from what I hear it's like this all over the world *sigh*
I just realized I forgot to comment ont eh Mosque thing...
I believe in religious freedom. I am not in favor of banning the mosque at all.
However...
One has to take a look at the people who would want to build a mosque just a couple of blocks away from Ground Zero. I mean, why would they want to build it there? It's like rubbing salt in a wound.
That's like me insisting on moving into a neighborhood where KKK members are the majority - why would I do that unless I was looking for trouble?
Irene- I honestly don't know enough about it to speak on who the people are behind the mosque and what their motives are; I keep avoiding news items about it because I'm just disgusted with the outright racist reactions to it. None of the protesters have come with anything other than hate towards the project.
Sadly, the memorial isn't there yet in part (and in my opinion) because the money grubbing a-holes haven't been able to get over themselves; have wasted time bickering over who gets what rights and paid how much to "properly" memorialize.
But why do you need a physical piece, something finished, an actual memorial? Don't you think the space itself (with rubble or a gaping whole or whatever) is a memorial of a sort?
I agree with Irene with the why. Why a mosque there? Why now?
@Kelly
there is a reason why those places are called memorials. the vietnam memorial btw was designed by a vietnamese woman and it is located about 3,000 miles away from where the GI's were killed. same with the Lincoln Memorial
my issue with the WTC site is that there is so much controversy over something that we really haven't processed yet.
i say let those folks build what they want. its not like NYC can't use the construction contract for jobs. its not like folks won't be able to utilize the building. we should be thankful that a building we can use is being built versus just another office site for those corporate gangstas to figure out new ways to screw us.
heck, catholic churches are built near playgrounds all the time. no one is making a rif about that..
oh, heck, the WTC was built on top of African burial grounds where thousands of slaves were buried.. hmm where are the protestors for that?
Post a Comment