Monday, September 09, 2002
NY vendors hawk 9-11 memories
Disaster spawns industry
By Robert Anglen ranglen@enquirer.com
The Cincinnati Enquirer
NEW YORK - Lower Manhattan has become ground zero for the nation's grief - and it is for sale on every street corner.
As the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks approaches, a cottage industry of disaster-related merchandise has exploded in New York City.
The 9-11 fervor has spread from vendors hawking the latest memorial photos to Fifth Avenue merchants selling New York Fire Department logo clothes.
It also has become a tourist draw, with museums, plays, galleries and concerts in all five boroughs attracting visitors who start their days at the site of the World Trade Center collapse and finish it by contemplating photographs of the fallen Twin Towers at the Museum of Modern Art.
“We know what people are coming for,” says George Alberto, a street vendor. “We find a hot item and we sell it.”
Mr. Alberto has set up his sidewalk table in front of St. Paul's Church near Ground Zero, which has become memorial site where items sent to New York from all over the world create a solemn display.
“I'm out here at four in the morning. We gotta put the table up or we ain't gonna get a spot,” Mr. Alberto says. “From July to October there were maybe 25 vendors out here, now there are 100 vendors. I'll sell whatever people want. It's hard to sell watches and ties with this kind of crowd.”
Some visitors are appalled by the ring of T-shirts, hats, patches, pins, pretzels, books, photos, magnets, snow globes, key chains, peanuts and hotdogs on streets surrounding the hole where the trade center once stood.
But others say that it is all part of the tourist experience 1/2ndash 3/4 especially in New York.
“I don't mind them at all,” says Mary Novelli of Mt. Vernon, N.Y. “People must have remembrances, even if they have to buy them.”
Barbara Brown of Parksville, N.Y., draws the line at pocket books and watches. But she can see why people want other 9-11 merchandise.
“This is significant,” she says. “People want to be able to take something home and share it.”
Camille Leganza of Oakland, Calif., says it is too much.
“The World Trade Center site is a tourist destination. But it's not a typical fun touristy place,” she says, gesturing toward a vendor table where a CD player is blaring “I'm proud to be an American” out of warbling speakers. “This kind of cheapens the meaning, especially since the anniversary is coming up.”
A tourist magnet
Despite the differences over merchandising 9-11, visitors agree that touring the disaster site is important - and nobody should feel uncomfortable about wanting to see it.
Across from St. Paul's Church, around the perimeter of the hole between West and Church streets, there are several places to view the former financial center.
Some stop for several minutes to watch construction that has been constant since Sept. 12.
Some look through a green screen that protects the site, others look for other viewing sites. Some kneel and pray, others sing and some simply cry.
About half a block south from Vesey Street on Church, a steel cross constructed from fallen girders of the Twin Towers can be seen rising above the work site. Further south, at Battery Park - where an eternal flame for Sept. 11 victims will be lit on Wednesday night - the spherical statue that once stood gleaming in the World Trade Center has been resurrected.
Bashed and cracked, tarnished and dented, with a gaping hole in the top, the statue seems to be much more than a piece of public art.
“My father was a steel worker who helped build the Trade Center,” says Patricia Fennell of Brooklyn as she snaps a photo of the statue. “It's just one of those things we take for granted. I think we need to remember.”
East of the park, the Staten Island ferry offers free service across New York Harbor. The ride takes about 30 minutes and once offered spectacular vistas of the World Trade Center looming above Wall Street. Today, the view is just as spectacular for the absence of the 110-story towers.
After the ferry docks, a short walk takes you to Federal Hall, where Congress held a special joint session Friday for the first time in more than 200 years to commemorate the anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
Paul Sandoval of Manhattan says he brought his children here Saturday because of 9-11.
“This is their first trip to the downtown area,” he says. “Congress was here yesterday, and I am basically making the connection between the traditions and freedoms we cherish and the attempt to destroy them.”
Federal Hall, which is cater-corner to the New York Stock Exchange, is where George Washington became the first president and where the House and Senate first met when New York was the nation's capitol.
On the outside of the building is a plaque commemorating the first Ohio settlement. In July 1787, a group of Revolutionary soldiers known as the Ohio Co. purchased land and a year later began the first settlement in Marietta.
“From these beginnings,” the plaque reads, “sprang the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.”
Steady stream of trinkets
As fresh as they are, the events of 9-11 are already being talked about in an historical context at museums throughout the city.
At the New York Historical Society, an exhibit opens with items taken from street memorials. It leads into a display of photos of the trade center collapse. This includes a black and white photo assembly of expressions of faces from the day of the disaster.
The exhibit ends with a technical display about the forensic science of disaster recovery efforts and a 360-degree artist panorama of the view from the top of the south tower of the World Trade Center.
In the Bronx, the Lehman College Art Gallery features missing posters distributed by families and friends who lost loved ones in the disaster. The lobby of the Brooklyn Museum of Art displays a series of photographs from ground zero.
At the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center in Manhattan, visitors are invited to add items relating to Sept. 11 into time capsule jars.
And at or around each of these locations, in gift stores or on the street, is a steady stream of merchandise.
Dan Kay, a New Jersey retailer who sells merchandise to the street vendors and to stores, says there is no difference in what is being sold - the difference is the delivery.
“The exact same merchandise is on sale at stores,” he says. “I know. I sell it to them.”
But even he admits there must be a line, and he says on Wednesday, when victims' families are here, the merchants should probably pack up.
“That is the right thing to do,” he says. “They don't need it in their face.”
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