3 pm to 5 pm, The Beautiful Hudson River
 

(6:00 PM as I begining to write the diary today: The wind shifted late this afternoon. My neighborhood
is filled with the smell of burnt metal. It is thick and sickening and permeating my apartment. It stinks.
The whole lot of it just stinks dammit!)

By three o’clock this afternoon I was so overwrought with sad emotion from the hundreds of emails from kind souls
about the world that I had to get out of my loft and just see people. Real live people and talk to anyone.  It is a perfectly beautiful afternoon in the city. A day so magnificent  that  it just makes you fall in love with New York in Septembers
of past years!  A deep kind of love for an environment loaded with very special emotions today.

I walked downtown on Tenth Avenue, past the closed multi-million dollar Fine Art Galleries, fancy
restaurants,  and bars, but the streets were full of people. At 23rd Street there were police everywhere
directing the people flows towards the Hudson River. Confused, I decided to follow the crowd- wondering
what was going on. In the flow of humanity I tried to catch people’s eyes. An impossible task I quickly
discovered, everyone was filling their space and staring at the ground intent on forward motion-
heading for the Hudson River one block away.

When I got to the West Side Highway I stopped in my tracks.  As far as I could see in both directions were
empty dump trucks, flashing unmarked cars, military vehicles, front loader heavy machinery, all heading
downtown. I looked south, still thinking I would see the World Trade Center at a corner I know so well, and
all I could see was a massive gray cloud of smoke. Just smoke.

Cops on foot were directing people and traffic flows on the packed West Side Highway. Having been a bit
dazed before, I  suddenly noticed most people were carrying huge bundles, shopping bags, carts, and push
carts loaded with food, water, juice, ice. I entered the crowd and crossed the street towards the Chelsea
Piers to find that I was in the midst of a major collection point in the city for provisions for our
injured fireman, police, and civilians. Confusion was rampant but the people were orderly. I was trying to
get  to the river. I wanted to go to a public art pier where I spent the afternoon last Sunday. Only last
Sunday!  Seems like a lifetime ago now where I sat on the end of the pier facing downtown with a clear view
of the World Trade Center, Lady Liberty, and Jersey City, and watched the speed boat races, drank a beer,
read the New York Times, bathed in the sun,  and collected my thoughts to try and make more Bush-Toons
for my newsletter in the week ahead.

But now I could not get to the pier. The police and provisions workers directed me north uptown. I looked
up into the sky that was vacant. Never in a quarter century have I not seen anything in the air over the
river.  It was very eerie.  I worked my way north between the online skaters, cyclists, and people jogging.
I thought it odd that people would be jogging on such a momentous sad day, but then it didn’t seem odd
at all on the ground. I looked to my right  at the skyscrapers in midtown, then realized first hand again,
no one was working. No one else knew what to do with themselves either. Running along the river began
to make great sense to me in our upside down world.

What does one do with the emotional tension? Each of us if facing it is different ways.

I found a way to get to the pier by passing several drab US Army vehicles. I walked by men in camouflage
clothing and full riot gear in my city!  I cautiously walked out on the pier, staring downtown and gasped
when the view  hit this artist on the visual level once again that the Trade Towers were gone.  I pulled
up a chair in the same spot on the pier I was at on Sunday and just stared at the waterfront. Two long
days ago this was one of the most festive scenes on the river.  Helicopters, and planes, and yachts, and
ocean liners, and speed boats. Now nothing. Nothing.

Nothing in the air, or on the water. Only the sun sparkling on the river and a huge cloud of gray smoke
covering downtown. The river, like my neighborhood, was now silent.

No one on the pier was talking. Just staring at the water.  Finally I went over by this guy  who looked friendly.
We started talking.  Turns out he lives on the 29th floor in a residential tower in Battery Park City across the
West Side Highway from the World Trade Center.  He told me his story about eating breakfast when the first
plane hit the first tower. He heard a loud boom. But what got his attention was the hundreds of cars whose
burglar alarms blared loudly into the otherwise quiet morning. He said he watched out his window as the
second plane blew out the second tower. He watched as the first tower fell, the second tower fell. He noticed
his electricity went off. His water went off. His phone went off. He said he saw a fireball cross the street and
set a whole parking lot of cars on fire which quickly began exploding before he ran down the stairs and left
the region. Joe was very nervous. Joe’s story was riveting. Joe eyes popped as he spoke.

Apparently this massive neighborhood of Battery Park City across from the World Trade Tower site is in
total black out and off limits. It was evacuated yesterday. I have not heard this on the media. Joe
told me a harrowing story about how he snuck around the blockades late last night to get back into his
apartment. He had to feed his cat. He somehow bypassed all the many guards and barricades, snuck into his
building, and walked up 29 flights to a blacked out apartment. He had no where else to go to sleep. He fed
his cat and gave it some bottled water. He dumped his refrigerators, walked the trash down 29 floors and
left for the day. He was just sitting on the river at 25th Street all day on the pier, waiting for
nightfall, waiting to sneak back through the guards to get to his home downtown.  Joe is real. Joe was a Viet
Nam vet. Joe said, the secured neighborhood is not  secure, and he would get home again tonight.  Joe is a
tough native New Yorker born and bred. Joe took all of this in stride. But he had definite opinions about
America, and our mixed political signals to the rest of the world since Viet Nam. He thought current
retaliation- if rushed, if miss guided,  would haunt us as a people’s for many years ahead.  I left Joe at
the end of the pier near the street as he started his stealty trip home.

I left the pier to try and get back through he blockades to get home. At the West Side Highway I saw
an old friend wandering around as aimlessly as me. Eve Sonneman is a very famous American photographer in
the art world. But like many evolving relationships in this city we have been out of touch in the last few
years. We hugged. We walked back towards the river. She wanted to take some pictures of all the confusion.
 I said sure, but I didn’t want to go near the Chelsea Piers Sports Complex.  But that is where Eve wanted to
go. I told her I believed there was a triage center and temporary morgue in the Ice Rink.  She wanted
pictures. She documents the world for her entire life. Of course we couldn’t get too close. We walked out on
the first public pier and we both got sickened. We smelled the overwhelming smell of formaldehyde.  I
told her to forget the pictures we had to go north.  This many people coming and going didn’t seem safe to
me, and I have never been fond of crowds.

Eve lost all interest in taking pictures. We headed north dodging the joggers and skaters on the path by
the river. By 27th Street we almost crossed the highway, but we saw a commotion just up ahead.  At
29th Street there is a major heliport on the Hudson. Tv crews were forming and a small crowd of pedestrians
began stopping. We walked on. I told Eve might be Hillary Clinton, because this morning she said from
Washington she would be in New York by sundown. Eve said, “ No Ray. You may be right about crowds.”

My instincts said go see who it was.  We walked into a group of casual pedestrians in front of the heliport
and got pushed near the front of the small crowd near the carmera crews.  To our total surprise we found
ourselves a mere six feet from Senator Hillary Clinton, Governor George Pataki, and Mayor Giuliani
and others on the right side of the cameras.  I WAS STUNNED!
I looked around me at this impromptu press conference. It seemed to be very little security or planning.
No one asked us anything. But we could tell there were a few Secret Service men all around us
wearing denim shirts and jeans with the tell tale clear earphones in their ear.  I looked up. I looked
over the river and the spectacular setting sun. I looked downtown at the smoke. I looked back at
Hillary. I looked at Eve. I whispered in her ear. “Eve we are standing six feet from our city leaders.
The most important people in this entire crisis as they talk to the world. This is awesome. “

Eve was as stunned as I was. I told her to take some pictures. She had forgotten.  On our left were so many
tv crews waiting for them to speak.  The brave seriousness in our leaders eyes made me calm in a surprising way.
There was less than one hundred people there by the time they started speaking, each in turn.
I was so close to Hillary if I had leaned forth we could have shaken hands. It was a wonderful moment.
Eve felt it too. She leaned over and whispered quietly in my ear. “Hillary looks beautiful. She is so much
younger and prettier in person!”  I just smiled. The irony of that statement in the crazy conditions I had
found myself for the last two days just seemed to be more of the same. An upside down insane world. And
experience was the order of the moment. A rational order and flow of life made little sense anymore anyway.

I must say first hand and up close. These seasoned strong political leaders deserve their damn difficult
jobs in the highest order. I have awesome admiration for all of them upon close observation. Our Republican
Mayor and Governor also are doing a super human job. They each spoke so wonderfully with the right amount
of indignation and self confidence about the crisis and our greater way of life as resilient Americans.
Tears came back to my eyes that I had been fighting back for hours. Near dusk a short prayer was said as
the sun was turning the sky orange.  I could see the pain in the politician’s eyes that was reflecting our
own.  Within seconds the press conference and prayer was over.  The politicians were led to the left to
enter a small black van with black windows.  We all started clapping from a natural nervous reaction.  A
guy behind me screamed at the top of his lungs,  “GO RUDY!”  The tension was broken for all and laughter
was heard as Rudy Guiliani tipped his NY FD baseball cap to the crowd. Hillary smiled strongly with
confidence in her eyes and waved to all before entering the van.

The secret service guys and gals jumped in black small black Lincolns.  Within seconds they were zipped away
without sirens or much fanfare. I stood there as I watched the small caravan of about five cars and one van head
downtown towards the smoke. I breathed deep. I knew I had seen an important moment of American History
up close and personal yet again in my short unusual life.  Apparently Senator Hillary had just arrived in town.
The politicians en mass were on their way to inspect ground zero at the World Trade Center site.
What a sinking feeling we all had in that crowd before and after they left.

Eve and I crossed 29th Street and headed towards Tenth Avenue. I just kept saying, “Eve, that was frigging
amazing! These  people we just saw so closely are the focal points of the entire world at this moment other
than the President. And in many ways, these people are having far more impact on our emotions in this crisis
than the President anyway here in New York!”

Eve Sonneman kept saying how much the prayer affected her.  And how simple and normal the politicians were,
so calm, so brave. We both realized that we were both calmer after the experience.  As artists, we weren’t
overwhelmed by their celebrity. Eve and I have met and known so many famous people we may have admired even
more over the years in this rare city. Celebrity is not such a big deal. We were overwhelmed by the moment
we just experienced and it’s personal historical significance in this midst of this huge crisis in this
great city. After all, we just stumbled into it, because we were just walking home.

More tomorrow.