Try to Remember

Well, it is a time of year to reflect, whether it’s because it’s almost autumn and a new school year; or it’s Rosh Hashanah; or because of 9/11 and the passage of time.

On the night of 9/11/07, after a mostly rainy day, I figured I’d stick around lower Manhattan to check out the Towers of Light. Walked to Battery Park, to pay a visit to the Sphere, and a heard a woman sing “Amazing Grace.” Looked up and saw the Towers of Lights – a pretty sight, once the low clouds cleared somewhat. Even headed to Brooklyn Promenade, but the low clouds didn’t quite clear. Once I got home, the night sky was clear and the lights were quite something to see from our backyard/driveway. A wet and somber Tuesday, a Tuesday different from the Tuesday we had 6 years ago. Speaking of the view of this year’s Towers of Light, Time Magazine’s art writer Richard Lacayo writes on the 9/10/07 entry for his Time blog, before segueing into a critique on the architecture of rebuilding:

So here it is, the sixth anniversary of that morning. Last night I was walking down the Hudson River boardwalk near my apartment in Jersey City, N. J., which is directly across the water from where the World Trade Center used to be. Every year, there’s a memorial at this time produced by scores of floodlights positioned some blocks south of where the towers used to be. They shoot two broad columns of light into the sky.

I’ve read complaints that the columns of light remind people of the vertical spears of floodlight that Albert Speer contrived for the outdoor Nazi party rally in Nuremberg, the one that Leni Riefenstahl made infamous in Triumph of the Will. Noted. But the Nazis do not own verticals of light against the sky forever. Last night, which was cloudy in New York, the columns of light were filled with changing formations of mist that reminded you, if you were there on the first 9/11, of the smoke that filled the air that day. From where I saw the lights last night, standing in roughly the same place I stood on parts of that day six years ago, they operated very powerfully, like a Light Art work by James Turrell or Robert Irwin, but one that intersected with a specific historical memory.

Since I’m in the reflecting mood, a look back at our past September 11 posts:

Try to remember the kind of September…

Thinking about the idea of the 5th anniversary; realizing it’s still thought-provoking.

9/11 on a Sunday.

2004 with a number of posts from us.

2003 also had an interesting item that was 9/11 related. However, we started after 9/11/03, so perhaps my searching missed something in 2003.

Although it was humid and rainy on this week’s Tuesday, the Wednesday and Thursday had such beautiful skies. All the more to hope for the best, isn’t it?