25 Years……….

I almost never talk about this, but it’s 25 years…it’s time.

For 9 months I was a Volunteer Rescue and Relief Worker at Ground Zero, first for the Red Cross and then after the Red Cross got pushed out, for the Salvation Army.

I worked at the Site and I took care of people. It is so difficult to describe what it was like down there, but I will try. There was Downtown and then there was everything else.

It stunk. There was a smell so pervasive and I am sure that many remember that smell, but for those who did not smell it…

It burnt my eyes.

It pierced my lungs.

It clung to my hair and formed grit between my teeth. It hurt when you inhaled.  Singed electric with a whiff of almost metal and skin and the air was thick with the dust, like you were breathing inside of a vacuum bag.  It was sticky, like paste.  And once ingested, the dust glued itself to your lungs.  You could feel it when you coughed.  It was everywhere and got into your eyes, your teeth, your ears, hair, under your nails, the soles of your shoes, your clothes.  It never really washed off.  

There was so much devastation Downtown and I remember that I had no sense of direction.  This was not the Downtown that I knew.  All of the recognizable landmarks were now gigantic piles of smoking rubble. Buildings were on fire.  Nothing was marked; the streets were made an impassable maze by twisted pieces of steel and debris.  There were military guards and checkpoints. This wasn’t New York.  This was a war zone. 

I was running with my dog on that fateful Tuesday. It was a beautiful morning, the September air was clear and it had pushed out the mugginess that blankets the City in August. Ezie and I were close to the Towers when the first plane struck… and it really looked the the pilot had had a heart attack or something; the impulse was to run towards the buildings to help. About 20 minutes later, a second plane stuck the other Tower, much lower and at that point, you knew this was no accident. People, myself and dog included, started running in the opposite direction.

I had joined the Red Cross as a relief worker a few days after the Towers fell and felt very lucky to have a focus. My first job was staffing shelters from the uptown offices on 66^th Street. Many, many people had been displaced and we were doing our best to find them some sort of shelter.  Schools, churches, any vacant building with running water and electricity was being crammed full of cots and mobile meals to create makeshift homes for victims.  I spent my days on the phone looking for round the clock volunteers to oversee these improvised dwellings. My days were long and frustrating.  

The cab driver home was Sikh. His face had been bruised and his hair shone short.  I asked what had happened to him and he told me that he had been beaten up a few days before.  He was driving his cab when a gang saw his turban.  They thought he was Taliban and proceeded to drag him out of his car and brutally beat him.  When he got home that night, his children begged him to take off his turban.  He told me that even though he had made a sacred promise to God and had never cut his hair in his entire life, he would listen to his kids.  He was afraid.  He seemed like such a gentle man.  When I got out of his cab, I cried.     

I staffed the temporary shelters at the Headquarters for about a week.  My next job was answering the Red Cross “Hotline”.  Questions poured in from all over the world and I had no answers.  I didn’t know if they had found Jimmy, or if Karen was dead or how long it would be before Sue and her kids could go home.  No one had told me where Bobby was being stationed or if Saint Vincent’s hospital was holding a blood drive.   I couldn’t help find the kitten that was lost or save the house that was on fire and I had no idea what to tell the woman whose pipes had burst and apartment had flooded.  I hated it.  The truth was, there was so much need at that point that almost no one was getting any help.  It was hard to tell people that.  My worst call was from a homeless shelter on Chambers Street.  Chambers Street is Downtown, way downtown.  A man named Mike was desperate. The homeless people they cared for already had their share of problems and were more out of sorts than usual.  Many of them had seen the jumpers and the collapse of the buildings.  To make matters worse, their chief had dropped dead of a heart attack from this new stress and Mike was desperate for a trained therapist, psychologist, counselor, psychiatrist to come down and help them with their grief.   There was no one for me to send.  I felt useless.  The only answer was for me to get away from that phone. 

The Red Cross was opening a Respite Center in the cafeteria of St. John University, about 2 blocks from the Pile and I immediately signed up for shifts. I lived within walking distance, which was a good thing, because there were no subways going to that part of the City. 

It is difficult to describe the amount of devastation and everything was on fire. It was absolute chaos down there. "The Pile” was an immense mountain of devastation.  Flames shot from the top.  Thousands of people were in there, somewhere.  

Hats and jackets with logos fly by FBI, OSHA, EPA, OEM, NYPD, NYFD, CIA.  There is something like 200 organizations represented here and clearly no one is in charge.

Everything was wet to keep the dust down.   

Ground Zero was it’s own world and to understand it, you had to be a part of it.   I could tell that immediately. Everyone had started smoking and most of the City was on anti- depressants or anti-anxiety meds. The Reserves had been called up to help maintain order and there was a young kid in uniform screaming at everyone as they checked in. He was trying to make sense of the senseless. I saw him two days later manning the desk in his pajamas. I did not see him again after that.

It was bone-crushing, tear jerking, heart wrenching but amongst 16 acres of absolute devastation and destruction existed the greatest life force I had ever witnessed. Everything was full circle and the difference between living and dying was a very delicate balance. The best part of humanity rose above not only the worst, but above everything else… ashes, rubble, smoke…

I kinda signed on to be one of the ones who would try and catch people as they fell. It was emotional triage in a modern day M*A*S*H. I was good at it, having grown up in a “crazy house”, I felt at home in this chaos. I was useful. I had a purpose.

There was a guy downtown whose name was Eric. He was sweet and kind and he worked in the Morgue. I was talking to him about his life and he looked at me with his huge eyes and said, “Liza, I am getting mushy…” Anytime I heard anything like that, it was a cue. So I looked at him and said, “Come on…” and took him upstairs. We sat across from each other in a windowless room and he whispered horrendous things into my ear… then he crawled into my lap and cried. When he was finished, he thanked me profusely and told me he loved me.

There was Anthony, who in this lifetime was an ironworker but I am pretty sure he was a poet in his last go ‘round because he spoke of the horrors that he uncovered when he was working on top of the Pile with such grace. The first night I met him, he had come in alone, by himself, which was another big cue.

You could tell just by looking in someone’s eyes when they had just witnessed something awful. They are…..just.... gone. I was standing next to Anthony, he hadn’t slept in days and I was trying to catch pieces of him as I watched him come unglued. I knew to keep on eye on him, see him, acknowledge him.

Silbert worked for the phone company. He was late for work the day the Towers fell but the rest of his office was on time. He lost of all his friends and the guilt he was suffering from was paralyzing.

I remember the Friday when ESU, Emergency Services, had 3 funerals. Their office was across the street and by the time they had gotten to us at 8pm for dinner they were all a mess.

Downtown was/is sacred.

It’s precious.

I worked on consecrated ground and anyone who had choked on that acrid air realized it. It was a privilege, an honor.

I am not a hero.

And I think few people who had worked or pitched in Downtown would ever be comfortable with that title. I was just someone who showed up and kept coming back and was fortunate enough to have been in a period in my own life where I was steady enough to reach out and help stabilize a few others. Again, just trying to make sense of the senseless - not only for myself but for anyone else that crossed my path who was in pain or wracked with fear.

After St. John’s closed around December, I joined the Salvation Army and worked at what we called, the “Taj Mahal”, a giant white tent - the “Bubble”. We were nicknamed, "The Bubble Girls". It was hard, the days and nights were long. Thousands and thousands of people from all over the world showed up to help. It really was amazing, people coming together for a purpose greater than themselves. I was there for the whole nine months and on the very last day, when Ground Zero officially went from being a Rescue and Relief Site to a Construction Zone. I worked with some of the bravest and best people on the planet.

When it was all over, one of my guys, a construction worker, told me, “Liza, thank you. You never have to do another thing in your life. You took care of all of us. It’s enough and thank you.” I was about 30 at the time and I remember thinking I don’t have to do anything else? What is the rest of my life going to look like?

A year later I was at a dinner party, sitting next to a spunky choir teacher and she was talking about her kids and how she wanted to help them. After one too many glasses of wine, I had agreed to go and meet them at her school and it was love at first sight. I fell hard for their teenage angst and potential, their drama, smiles and passion…… that was the beginning of Statement Arts, the non-profit I founded 24 years ago. My time at Ground Zero was my training ground and all of those people I worked with were my teachers.

Many of the people I worked with are now long gone and many have succumbed to illnesses they got while working there. I am writing about this time in honor of them, because they are not here to speak about it for themselves. I can’t believe it’s been 25 years.

We need to find a way back to each other; a way to listen and actually hear. I will be seeing friends from the site throughout the day and will say a prayer for those who I can only see in my mind……