Wow, going through this week was like going through a hurricane!

I’m glad this week is over.

For as much bad stuff that went on this week there was a whole lot of good stuff that happened to for which I was very grateful...

Tanya called out of the blue and it was very nice to hear from her. I got a bunch more yardwork done. The weather was really beautiful throughout the week. I got to see Mike, Bruce, Guy and Brian all in rapid succession and got a chance to catch up with each of them. Out of the blue I got a call for a smidgen of work (thank you Lorenz) and as a result got a chance to see Dean.

So, overall even though the week was really, really hard, I made it through and looking back I was glad with the way I dealt with things.

On Friday, the day I worked, I found myself downtown again for the first time in a long time. The client I worked for is located off of Wall Street. I’d been downtown maybe twice since September 11th, 2001 - one time to pick up something at J and R and another to drop off Christmas presents to the same client. Neither time did I wind up walking along Broadway above Trinity Church.

After being a “warm body” for a dog and pony show for the aforementioned client (probably some of the easiest money I’ve made outside of focus group stuff I’ve snagged through the years), I found myself walking with Dean in the warm Friday afternoon air up along Broadway having an animated political conversation as Dean got in his afternoon dosage of nicotine in the brief stroll.

Just past Trinity Church is some building or other with a plaza situated to the south of it. The plaza has probably been there for years, I never took notice of it. It has to even date back to the days when I drove a cab.

In the clear afternoon sun you could see all the way over to the Winter Garden on West Street. I’m not the morbid sort and I’ve gone out of my way to avoid going around “Ground Zero.” I have very clear memories of what was there and when I was a much younger man I worked for a time, at night, directly across the street from the WTC complex on Church Street in the large Post Office which services the financial district.

I worked a midnight to eight shift and was living in Hoboken at the time. Many the night, I would go to work in the very crisp winter air marveling at the quiet beauty of the neighborhood.

There was an interesting dichotomy to the neighborhood. The modern imposing complex which centered around the twin towers contrasted less than a block away with the much, much smaller buildings who were the original inhabitants of the area. Somehow, even though the buildings of the Trade Center dwarfed their neighbors, they all seemed to manage to go together, the small open lot of Trinity Church with it’s very old cemetery (one of very few in Manhattan), the buildings with delis and the like across from it and the very modern complex to the south and west.

At night it would be a very deserted and peaceful area to walk around but, the lights and the breeze coming in off of the bay combined to make it such a beautiful part of the city (this of course predates Battery Park City and the World Financial Center which came much later).

Anyway, the point is I never really had that image of the area with the Battery Park City complex fixed in my mind but looking west from Broadway, I could see the new buildings (Battery Park City) but there was this large, open, empty space where I remembered the Towers being. Church Street widened out in front of the Towers if I remember correctly and there was a drive in front of the Towers as well.

Over the last week, there’s been so much coverage of the event. Plus, all the opinions about the site, about how to remember the day, even whether or not people liked what was done in observance of the date.

Walking past that large open space I returned once again to something which had resonated within me throughout the previous week - you can’t please everyone.

Close the wound, build something! Let’s get moving!