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Senses numbed
by tragedy are revived at Union Square
COLUMN: Bill Nemitz
NEW YORK -- At first, Jennifer Stewart worried that people might get the
wrong idea. In normal times, her living impersonation of the Statue of
Liberty evokes smiles, laughter, bemusement that this woman covered head
to toe in tarnish green could look so much like the real thing out in
New York Harbor.
But these are anything but normal times. And now, as Stewart holds her
torch high into the evening sky and mugs for the cameras at the entrance
to Union Square, her heavy makeup cannot mask her relief.
Performance artist Jennifer Stewart
strikes a pose in Union Square as the Statue of Liberty on Wednesday
evening. Stewart uses her performances to raise money for the Red Cross.
"People understand," she says as dollar bill after dollar bill
flutters into her collection box, earmarked for the Red Cross. "I
think for people to see the Statue of Liberty reminds them that we are
still strong."
Two miles away at Ground Zero, the smoke-and-dust cloud still hovers
over the army of rescue workers who spend night and day still searching,
at least officially, for survivors from last week's attack on the twin
towers of the World Trade Center. As the grim work goes on, passersby on
Broadway peer in at the mountainous wreckage from the side streets. More
than a week after terrorist hijackers brought the towers down and
slaughtered more than 6,300 people, most walk by slowly, unable to
believe what they see.
But if Ground Zero numbs the senses, Union Square awakens them.
It began, in the hours after the attack, as an open-air clearinghouse
for relatives, friends and co-workers frantically looking for victims.
Photocopied posters -- a father surrounded by his four young children,
two sisters standing back-to-back and smiling, a firefighter in full
turn-out gear -- sprouted first on the lampposts and trees, then on
hastily erected panels and finally, when there was no place left to tape
them, among the flowers blanketing the ground.
The candles soon followed, hundreds and then thousands burning
simultaneously until their melted wax congeals, perfume sweet and
several inches thick, on the asphalt sidewalks. At night, if the wind
blows the flames out, students from nearby New York University silently
tiptoe here and there, relighting them.
More than anything else on this night, however, Union Square is awash in
people.
They stand in a large circle around the Nazarene Gospel Singers from
Queens, tapping their feet and clapping to "When the Saints Go
Marching In" while a blue-and-white police bus, siren blaring,
drives by on East 14th Street with a fresh load of rescue workers.
They sit silently on the park benches, some quietly crying, others
hugging, still others staring straight ahead at something only they can
see.
They crowd the sidewalks, stopping to study one poster, then another,
then another . . .
"Samuel Fields, father of four beautiful children," reads one.
"Worked for Summit Security Services, last seen in Building #5
escorting people out of the building."
"Look at this," one young man says to his buddy, his
forefinger on Samuel Fields' smiling face. "This guy died a
hero."
With each passing day, Union Square exerts an ever-more-powerful tug on
those who no longer draw comfort from the talking heads on television.
In this city where you normally might walk a dozen crowded blocks
without making eye contact, it has become the place to tell your story
and hear someone else's. A mere park 10 days ago, it has blossomed into
Manhattan's most attractive neighborhood.
"This is what every small town in America should be doing,"
says Thomas Kehoe, who's lived in Manhattan most of his 68 years and has
never, until now, called it a "small town." He's herding
people to the north end of the square, where "this Chinese
guy" has unrolled a long strip of newsprint and is getting people
to write down their thoughts in one endless stream of consciousness.
"Go ahead! Go talk to that guy," Kehoe insists. "It's
unbelievable . . . you'll see what I mean."
His name is Xue Wei. He's a member of the Chinese Democracy Movement,
editor of the magazine "Beijing Spring," and a believer, from
Tiananmen Square to the World Trade Center, in the importance of
collective memory.
"Every day, we will roll this paper out 100 meters," Xue
explains while dozens of New Yorkers, felt-tips in hand, kneel over the
newsprint. "After 10 days, when we reach 1,000 meters -- which is
the approximate (combined) height of the towers -- we will record
everything people wrote on a disc and present it to Mayor Giuliani for
the city to keep."
The messages range from the philosophical -- "An eye for an eye
makes us all blind" -- to the brutally painful -- "My friend
John lies in the rubble." As Xue walks slowly up and down the line,
a young woman looks up from her elaborate drawing of a floral wreath,
wipes her eyes, and smiles.
"Beautiful," Xue says, nodding approvingly. "Very
beautiful."
When will this end? Nobody knows and for now, nobody cares. Bodies,
thousands of them, are still entombed only a couple of miles away. And
while few if any now doubt that the word "missing" atop the
thousands of fliers now means "deceased," many have come here
also to honor the rescue workers as they burrow into the twisted steel
and concrete in search of the last sliver of hope.
Sheila Puopolo is a woman on just such a mission. She's come here from
the Grassroots Rescue Effort, a group of local residents collecting
whatever they can -- chocolate bars, canned soda, cigarettes -- for the
thousands of rescue workers billeted in schools and shelters around the
city.
"I was here last night and got hold of a microphone, but those guys
are using it," she said, motioning toward a group of Christian
singers. "I'm looking for someone who can help me get people's
attention."
Lady Liberty, aka Jennifer Stewart, comes to Puopolo's rescue.
"I want all of you to walk over to Duane Reade's (a nearby
convenience store) before they close and bring back chocolate bars,
sodas and cigarettes. Right now!" Stewart commands her circular
audience.
What can they do? That's the Statue of Liberty talking, for crying out
loud. Within an hour, 10 cases of soda and two dozen shopping bags, all
full, surround the living statue's feet.
Lady Liberty thanks the donors individually, even lets them hold her
torch and pose for pictures. Beside her, Puopolo looks at the growing
bounty in awe.
"People are amazing, aren't they?" Stewart says.
She should know. It's been three years since Stewart last took her act
out onto the street -- there's more money in performing for corporate
groups. (Only two weeks ago, she got a breakfast meeting gig atop Two
World Trade Center.) But when she looked out the window of her Brooklyn
Heights apartment last week and saw one tower, then the other, go down,
she like everyone else thought, "What can I do?"
"There was a prayer meeting in my neighborhood the next evening, so
I got into costume and walked outside," she says. "Quite
frankly, I really wasn't sure how people would take it."
They loved it -- and urged her to head downtown. So now here she is, for
the fourth night, slipping in and out of character to thank people as
they drop money into her box.
"So far, I've collected $4,370," Stewart says. "My goal
is to raise $10,000."
And in the process, she also raises hope.
On the edge of the crowd, Stewart spots a young man holding a
6-month-old baby. His name is Bud Struck and he moved out of Manhattan
with his wife, Claudine, the day after Estelle was born last March. Now
they've come back from their new home in Garrison to see for themselves
what has happened to this city.
Estelle, safe in her father's arms, is transfixed by Lady Liberty. Her
father introduces her.
"Oh, Estelle, aren't you pretty!" Stewart says, coming down
off her perch. "Can I hold her?"
"Of course," Struck says, holding the baby forward.
Stewart cradles the child in her arms, then raises her slowly above her
crowned head.
"Estelle," she says again, "You are so, so
beautiful."
By now the circle has gone quiet. Some people raise their cameras to
capture the moment. Others drop their lenses and just watch. Everyone in
the circle is smiling.
And at the same time, many weep.
Copyright 2001 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Staff Writer Bill Nemitz can be contacted at 791-6323 or at: bnemitz@pressherald.com
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