|
 By
Edward T. O'Donnell '86, department of history
On Sept. 11, I was sitting in a place I'd long dreamed about.
Only two weeks earlier I'd moved into my office on the third
floor of O'Kane to begin my job as an associate professor
at Holy Cross-the very place where some 20 years earlier
I'd fallen in love with history and decided to make a profession
of it. I was still in a state of giddy disbelief that morning
when I learned of the attack on New York, the place I'd come
to call home.
My relationship with New York was definitely not one of
love at first sight. In fact, it took 10 years for me to
fall in love with it. Starting in 1982, I made frequent trips
to the city, usually accompanied by a posse of fellow Crusaders.
Admittedly, I loved the excitement, fast pace, and edginess
of Gotham, but coming from small town Massachusetts I couldn't
imagine ever living there. Even when I moved there in 1988
to get married (to Stephanie Yeager '86) and begin graduate
school, I brought the attitude of an Army Ranger. Get in,
get degree, and get out-as fast as possible.
But then a funny thing happened. Slowly but surely, I found
myself falling for the city. I became awestruck by its everyday
events and its astonishing history. Likewise I became enthralled
with the diversity of its people. The city I'd always thought
of as cold, harsh and dangerous now appeared as a place of
extraordinary dynamism, creativity, opportunity, and hope-the
very essence of the American Dream.
Before I knew it, I was giving guided tours of the city
and writing a doctoral dissertation on a New York history
topic. To my delight, at graduation I landed a job at Hunter
College, CUNY in Manhattan. Who knows, I thought to myself,
I just might live here forever.
One area of New York I really loved was lower Manhattan-the
place where it all began. As a tour guide and historian,
I came to know every inch of it-Wall Street, City Hall, Battery
Park, and the World Trade Center. In particular, I loved
the skyline, especially at night. Several years ago I was
asked by the magazine TimeOut New York to contribute to its
annual "Essential New York" feature. It took me
all of 30 seconds to write it:
"The lower Manhattan skyline At night, driving north
on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, just past the Atlantic
Avenue exit, the road veers right, and then the sight hits
you: the spectacular skyline of lower Manhattan. You've
seen it a thousand times before, but this particular view
never fails to grab you. Across the water, the vast wall
of skyscrapers shimmers against the dark sky like totems
of height, might and light. From this distance, you can't
discern the city's many ills. Instead, you are dazzled
by how it sparkles."
It still sparkles, but of course not quite as much since
Sept. 11.
Leaving New York after 13 years in the summer of 2001 was
one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. In fact, it's
safe to say that only an opportunity like a job at Holy Cross
could have made me do it.
Sept. 11 served to remind me just how much New York and
its people had become a permanent part of my life. People
across the nation and around the world were horrified by
the attack, but I think it hit harder and cut deeper the
people who've had the privilege to live there. Even before
my wife and I learned that we knew people who perished in
the Trade Towers (including fellow classmate Ted Brennan
'86), we were overcome with grief and sorrow. It was an attack
on a place that had become part of our identity, indeed of
our souls. In the first few days after Sept. 11 we both had
the same powerful urge to jump in a car and head for Manhattan.
We wanted to be there, in our city, with our people. We wanted
to be among our friends, wanted to light candles at make-shift
shrines and hug complete strangers. Simply put, for ex-New
Yorkers the attack on America had an added, deeply personal
dimension.
In the end, we both returned to New York for memorial services
and visits to Ground Zero. Painful as it was, we were glad
we'd gone. Once New York City becomes part of your life,
we realized, you never can quite shake it. Nor would you
want to. Reconnecting with the city and its people helped
our healing process.
At this moment, as I sit at my computer in my office on
O'Kane 3, I know I'm right where I should be. I'm grateful
beyond words for the opportunity to have lived in New York
City for 13 years, but I don't regret my decision to leave.
Still, I frequently find myself thinking about the city and
its terrible suffering, but also its eventual recovery. Inevitably
my mind comes around to the consoling words of Walt Whitman
and his ode to the city and its people, Crossing Brooklyn
Ferry.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes,
how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home,
are more curious to me than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me,
and more in my meditations, than you might suppose. ...
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or
ever so many generations hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river
and the bright flow, I was refresh'd,
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current,
I stood yet was hurried,
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm'd pipes
of steamboats, I look'd. ...
Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than mast-hemm'd Manhattan?
Back to The meaning of Sept. 11 >
|
