As many of you know, from reading my blog over the past year or so, I rarely, if ever talk about anything political. For the most part, I've been boring you all with my lame workout schedules & 5k itineraries. That being said, I have to take a minute out of my silly workout blog to talk about something I saw last night.
I live in a pretty nice suburb of NYC. An outer suburb, but for the most part, many people I know work, eat, dine, shop or have some affiliation with the Big Apple. It's a great place, what's the saying - the town so nice, they named it twice? New York, New York for some of my oversea readers. So without being super long winded or sounding like a wing nut, I'd like to spout off on my dislike of all things #OWS (Occupy Wall Street).
We went to NYC last night to visit the World Trade Center Memorial. If you are ever in NYC, or are planning to go to NYC, please put this destination on your to do list. I'm glad that we made a night appointment. The lights & the waterfalls of the memorial are so peaceful. It was definitely a moving experience. But don't be surprised at the ongoing construction. Even at 8 pm last night the iron workers & construction guys are all hard at work rebuilding lower Manhattan. It's a 24/7 job.
My friend that I went to the memorial with, used to work in the North Tower of the WTC. It was her first visit back to the site in 10 years. I was glad we went together, as it was definitely something you should experience with someone else. When we got to the memorial (an hour late - thanks NYC traffic) you are scanned & asked to show your pass about 4 times. The security it tight & honestly, had it not been raining last night, I'm sure they would not have let us in. If you make an appointment, be on time. This is not a tourist attraction, it's a place of mourning & reflection & remembrance.
After entering the memorial, it's hard to picture the plaza as it once was. The 16 acre site doesn't seem so large. Not that I'm an expert on how big an acre should be, but I expected the footprints of the buildings to be much larger, perhaps because they towered so high over the NY skyline. The site was amazing. The lights & waterfalls of each tower were definitely something I will never forget. Each name is illuminated from below & is placed based on (work location, tower location, flight number, etc.). All of the first responders are listed in the South tower footprint. My friend, Gerard Dewan, is listed in the South tower, along with the rest of the members from Ladder 3. Below is his illuminated name.
After the memorial, we went out for a really nice dinner & then made the walk back to the car. This is where the night took a different turn. I'm not very familiar with all things Lower Manhattan, so I didn't realize until yesterday that Zuccotti Park, home of the Occupy Wall Street Movement was directly across from the visitor's center at the Memorial. & let me say that it's not a park in the sense that Central Park is a park, with open green areas & places to sit & reflect. It's a concrete island between two building with a few statues & maybe a tree or two. It was hard to discern given the 2,000 media vans & the large NYPD contingency.
As of yesterday, the protesters had been moved out of the park. Or I should say, their tents, bedding, camping equipment & other personal items had, many were still milling about. I guess after 2 months of occupying Zuccotti Park, everyone in NYC has had enough. I saw some people, mostly wandering around looking lost & confused. Well, it was raining & nasty out, there's really not much in this world I feel so strongly about that would make me sit on a slab of concrete for two months in all types of weather, but hey, everyone has their thing.
I shot the following video on the way back to the car. All I have to say is hats off to the NYPD because if I had to stand out in the cold rain & be subject to this nonsense all day, well lets just say my weapon would definitely be several bullets short of a full magazine. I hope you can hear the volume.
I hope everyone who has read this far actually knows that I'm not some right wing nutcase that doesn't believe in free speech & the right to go out in the world & let it all hang out. I totally am. Live & let live. But to sit in a park & disrupt people's lives for nothing more than some hairbrained idea, well, I don't think I will ever understand that. After I shot that video & the drunk "protester" aka, dirty 20 year old figured out fighting with the NYPD isn't the smartest thing to do, we started to walk back to our car. At this point we were stopped by a British reporter, asking us if we'd like to be interviewed. Honestly, the last thing I'd ever want to do is have my 2 second soundbite edited within an inch of its life, so I declined. My friend, however, did not.
After speaking with the reporter, it dawned on me that unless you go there & see what this is all about, you may never understand why people do & think some of the things they do. The reporter expressed shock that we did not agree with the OWS crowd. Really? I'm kinda shocked. I'd say about 90% of the people I know think that this movement is just a bunch of lazy kids with student loan debt that don't want to work. OK, that might be a bit narrow minded on my part, but it's how I feel.
One girl walked by & called us ignorant & screeched about how stupid we were & knew nothing about America. OK, I'm visiting the place where 3,000 Americans were killed, paying my respect with a friend that narrowly escaped the North Tower & celebrating her life with a lovely dinner afterward & you're sleeping in a park in the cold rain. OK, who's the ignorant one there? Maybe you don't agree with my politics, but that doesn't make me ignorant. I'm spurring on the economy of NYC by dining, shopping, parking & tipping local workers, you're draining it by camping out & forcing the city to pay 1,000s of hours of meaningless overtime. Yeah sister, I'm the stupid one.
Lets just say that after speaking to this reporter, whose first question to us after our interview was: Are you Jewish? I had had enough. Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Atheist? Don't we all just want to live our lives? It's not about religion people. It's not about who has more or less than I do, it's about letting people go about their lives, to & from work, peacefully, without having an armed presence in lower Manhattan for the past two months. Peacefully assemble, don't disrupt & cost the city millions in overtime.
I for one hope that I haven't offended too many. I'm glad I saw what I did last night. I like being informed & in the know. I just wish that people had turned their cameras around from Zuccotti Park & focused on the Memorial, as that's where I believe the real suffering has occurred in NYC. So go to NYC, enjoy everything it has to offer, visit tourist attractions & the memorial site. Feel free to stand on a soap box & spout off about what you feel is important, but don't disrupt & cause mayhem. No one wants that.
Thanks for listening to my rant. Don't worry, next week I will be back to boring you with my lackluster workout schedule.
