The following article appeared in the October 25, 2001 issue of Rolling stone.
At approximately two o’clock in the afternoon on Thursday, September 13, a chain-link fence was placed along Chambers Street on the West Side Highway, five blocks north of the World Trade Center. I simply unloaded it off a truck and within half an hour it was functioning as the main entrance/exit to Ground Zero, manned by FBI guys checking to see if you had any legitimate reason to be there.
If you intended to do so, it wasn’t difficult to get through the first set of checkpoints on Canal Street and down to Chambers. Even from a few blocks away, the pile of rubble looked like a small mountain range, and much wider and higher than I expected. In some places it was thirty meters high, still burning massively, smoke rising to an astonishing volume and the backdrop of abandoned buildings glowing with heat even hundreds of meters high. Officials had just begun expelling firefighters from other cities from GZ, as a matter of liability. I talked to a departing firefighter for a while while smoking Pall Malls (almost all the firefighters I’ve met smoke). I asked him what it looked like up close and he said, «It’s a fucking dump. But the coolest dump that ever existed.»
Men in every uniform imaginable walked in and out of GZ’s door. National Guards in fatigues, the NYPD in their blue suits, the FDNY in their shiny bunker gear, blacksmiths and sandhogs in reflective vests, Con Ed and Verizon guys in corporate jumpsuits, and FEMA, FBI, ATF, and even, inexplicably, DEA officials in blue jackets with orange lettering. These were the people in charge now. Before, the city seemed to have been ruled by bankers, media professionals, fashion people and celebrities, but now Manhattan had been handed over to men in urban warfare attire, with muscular forearms and high, tight haircuts. The official voice of the city used to speak in a stolid Northeastern tone, but now it spoke with the accents of Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island.
Around the barricade, Chambers Street had become an aid station of epic proportions. A guy named Harold, fifty-five years old and from Brooklyn, who had been able to get around the roadblocks wearing a Red Cross T-shirt he had bought at a thrift store, said, «If it weren’t for the burning buildings at the end of the street, it would look like a street fair.» A Voice-Stream truck offered free calls to mobile phones. Two McDonald’s trailers dispensed quarter pounders and chicken McNuggets with the same military efficiency displayed in the restaurants. There were oceans of bottled water sitting on every corner and thousands of boxes of Oreos, Hot Pockets, Ritz crackers, and energy bars. It makes you think that the food industry—with its slow spoilage rates, its highly developed sense of packaging, its unprepared genius, its Gatorade and its granola bars—was created for times like this.
They had called the fire department saying they needed saline solution and toothbrushes, so there were plenty of those too. I saw maybe a hundred Italian toothbrushes selling for ten dollars each, plus Tinactin and Right Guard and Dial deodorant soap from entire drugstores and even travel bottles of Scope, so the firefighters could have fresh breath on the mound. Along the way to the door, there were a pile of new underwear, huge piles of boxers and t-shirts.
Just off the main street there were Indian food stalls, pasta bars and pretty young women in Prada sweatpants handing out Dove bars. A police officer washed his shoes with a bottle of sparkling mineral water. A guy named Jerry was reaching into his trash bag full of rap CDs. «Hey, fireman,» he said, «you like old school, I like old school.» A spa offered showers, saunas, steam baths and facials. All of this made clear the particular resources that New York has in abundance. If we end up bombing Afghanistan, you can bet the relief work command center in Kabul won’t be staffed by four chiropractors yelling, «Officer! Officer! Do you want an adjustment?»
At least half of the effort was carried out by self-proclaimed volunteer workers with helmets stolen from huge boxes near GZ. Many of these men and women carried laminated IDs that were given to them the first night, but since they were no longer issued, people carried whatever ID they could find. Lawrence, from the Bronx, had his driver’s license and Blockbuster membership card hanging around his neck.
Because there were so many volunteers, it was difficult to find work for them. Women carried garbage bags as mobile garbage collection. People walked among the legions of resting workers and asked if anyone needed a ride home. Two of the bolder ladies set up chairs and offered to clean the firefighters’ faces with baby wipes. Two female police officers walked by and one said, «Why don’t you put up a sign that says ‘Free Blowjobs’?» To which a passing firefighter responded, «I’ll pay mine. I still have a shred of dignity.»
Among all the volunteers, the question was always the same: “How close were you?” “I got right on the mound,” George said of TriBeCa. «I would have been able to give water to the searchers if I didn’t have to walk my dog,» said Brad of the Upper West Side. «I got to Warren Street. I got to Tower One. I got knocked down when Tower Two collapsed.»
Near dusk, I saw a Franciscan monk wandering down Chambers Street. He wore a simple cloth tunic, a rope belt, leather sandals and the small wild beard reserved for religious extremists or figures in 16th century paintings. Having taken a vow of abstinence, poverty and obedience, he had given away all his worldly possessions in California, including his Harley, and was now living off donations from generous Christians. He used the word man a lot, presumably to speak through his 16th century clothing and relate.
«You know, man,» he said, «New York is a weird place. Almost 50,000 abortions are performed here every year. And nobody even mourns those murders, man.» We both knew that 50,000 was the number of workers inside the WTC when it was operating at maximum capacity. «Not that that has anything to do with it. But interestingly, being here and talking to people about Christ makes me feel like I’m even more in God’s plan than ever before.» Then he crossed himself and tossed a free quarter pounder with cheese.
***
TOAt three in the morning, dump trucks are lined up along twenty blocks of the West Side Highway. The men stand outside their vehicles and discuss their payloads. Joe says he thinks about the body parts that might be hiding in the rubble. Phil thinks it’s strange how you leave this incredible scene and cross over to Staten Island, where you pass quiet houses with sleeping children and flickering televisions that seem «so fucking normal.» Jackie jokes that it won’t be the first time dead bodies end up in Fresh Kills.
Meanwhile, aid workers and volunteers are still here, and for some reason they don’t want to go home. They wander the streets with trays of Cup-a-Soup, baskets of cheeseburgers, and cases of bottled water. All day they have been desperate for someone, anyone, to take something. And since everyone has been banned from GZ, where the men actually work, there is no one to accept the comforts they offer. Then they end up helping other volunteers: “You look tired tending the underwear table, do you want water?” Or, «You look hungry carrying that water, can I offer you a hot quarter pound with cheese?»
Suddenly, around 4 in the morning, the scene changes. Firefighters are making one of their frequent marches from the mound, out of GZ, toward West Street. Everyone rushes to offer them relief. But the men are intent on getting to the buses that will take them back to their fire stations, and almost none of them stop. We all see them pass by: calm, stone-faced, long-eyed men who show the profound masculinity that truck commercials spend millions trying to evoke. Faced with these men, faced with their loss, their manifest effort, their bewilderment and exhaustion, we realize that in reality none of us can offer anything.
