On 9/11, I collapsed to the vinyl tile flooring of my West Point room, as the towers collapsed on television. I couldn’t get up as I stared at my roommate Joe Pep’s poorly shined shoes. My brother was in the north tower, and 19 years later I still imagine him falling. He was on the 104th floor. Eventually I mustered the strength to get off the floor, and out the door, to make my way down to New York City the next day.
Manhattan was never so empty, never so silent. New York City was brought to its knees. Finally making my way down to Ground Zero, I looked up at the rubble, I looked up to one of the tallest remaining buildings, the American Express Tower, picturing the twin towers being twice the size and picturing the ‘Jumpers’ — those that jumped from the towers rather than collapse with it. One jumper was a woman, in a business suit, who held her skirt down before jumping. I wish my brother jumped.
To this day, I have a new fear of heights and an aversion to falling, to collapsing. Over the last 19 years, our fair city has had its fare share of collapsing. After two tours in Iraq, I came home to a collapsed economy in 2008, with over 400,000 unemployed. The effects were felt across the city, across every industry, and perhaps most symbolically with the closing of the legendary Tavern on the Green after 75 years. Even the New York Mets collapsed in 2008, blowing it on the final game of the season, and the final game at Shea Stadium, with Tom Seaver throwing the final pitch to a bittersweet crowd.
In 2012, New York City fell again, under water this time, to a Hurricane named Sandy. In Breezy Point, Queens, water flooded the walks, and fires jumped from porch to porch, burning 140 homes to the ground, to include my parent’s house, leaving nothing behind but a charred statue of the Mother Mary. Thousands of lives, homes and businesses were washed away throughout the five boroughs.
Today, 19 years after 9/11, we are falling again, collapsing under the weight of a pervasive pandemic, righteous racial tension and indefatigable political division — with singled-minded politics being the most corrosive of the three. The truth is that most New Yorkers would proudly fly three flags if they could — that in support of black lives, that in support of the NYPD and that of our country. But the extremes won’t let us or perhaps we’re just not brave enough. I know I’m not. No matter what either side might say, it’s possible to hold multiple beliefs simultaneously — the desire for the protection and prosperity of black lives, gratitude for the selfless service of our diverse police force and pride in a land that, however imperfect, strives to evolve, perhaps frustratingly slow, towards a more perfect union, where we all have freedom from want and fear.
So what should we do? A spiritless response I’ve given in the past has been a call for unity. As New Yorkers, I’m not sure what we could conceivably unite around except for everyone’s mutual acrimony towards Mayor de Blasio. Perhaps, instead, what we can do is what we’ve always done when we fall.
Rise.
The World Trade Center fell to rubble, but has risen even higher, 1,776 feet to the top of the Freedom Tower.
Nearly 3,000 souls fell 19 years ago today, but have risen to the heavens, symbolically by two towering blue lights beaming to the hereafter.
The 2008 financial crisis wrecked our economy, but we came back bigger and better than ever. This time around will be no different with the advantage of knowing there’s an end. There will be a vaccine. New Yorkers will be back in their offices, restaurants and bars. We will be back inside McSorley’s, Jimmy’s Corner and Tavern on the Green. We’ll be back inside our old haunts and back in each other’s arms again.
Four years later, in 2012, Hurricane Sandy tried to sink us, but New Yorkers rose above it and in some cases literally, by transporting the elderly on surfboards to safety. Volunteers rose to the occasion, with thousands of diverse first responders and military veterans from Team Rubicon lending a hand to lift us out from the point of no return, from Long Island to Staten Island to the edges of Queens. Eight years later, the statue of Mother Mary has been restored, our infrastructure reinforced and homes have been re-built, rising even higher. As for the New York Mets, the big apple in centerfield will continue to rise repeatedly with the crack of Pete Alonso’s bat — and new ownership.
19 years ago, our country wasn’t attacked; humanity was attacked. Every race, religion and creed was killed that day to include citizens from more than 90 countries. Our humanity is being attacked again, but this time from within. We must rise above. I don’t have all the answers or the words, but I do have the examples — my father and my old roommate Joe Pep. My father served our city honorably as an NYPD detective for over 25 years, and loves Joe Pep not like a son, but as a son. I don’t know much, but do know this; great police officers like my father are not part of the problem, but part of the solution.
As for Joe Pep, over the last 19 years, and through six combat deployments between us, he’s been there for me every time I’ve fallen, particularly at the very beginning on that cold vinyl tile of our shared room after the north tower fell with my brother inside of it. What I misremembered is that I didn’t get up on my own, my friend Joe Pep lifted me up. Now it’s time for me to lift him up. For all of us to lift up each other. To rise.
