The 10th anniversary of the 9.11 terrorist attacks has arrived, seemingly in the blink of an eye. This awful anniversary commemorates an event that doesn't seem all that long ago. But then what does? Life is an avalanche that builds speed as it goes, and right now mine is rolling along at about 90 miles an hour. Trust me, I'm not very happy about it.10 years ago this Sunday my kids were both in diapers, and we found out what was going on that morning when the nanny showed up at the front door and told us, in her very broken English, that "everything in New York is going crazy." That was when we turned on the TV and saw that it was indeed true, everything back home in New York had gone crazy. In the darkest and most unimaginably horrifying way.
I was working for a New York company back then, just like I am now. I never really did leave the place, you know. I called my company's owner, the guy who had originally sent me here to California, and asked him what I should do that day, 3,000 miles away from all the horror. Stay home and pray is what he said. Like all of us he was devastated by what he'd seen.
Everybody has their own 9.11 story, it is an event that touched nearly everyone. Many of us knew people who'd lost their lives there, or were close to someone who had lost a family member or a friend. The degrees of separation in life are so slight that few people in the United States can actually claim to have not been personally touched in some way by this awful event. Terror made us a community for a while.
My story is that, having grown up in New Jersey, and then later working in New York for much of my young adult life, the World Trade Towers were a part of my world, always there on the horizon. I can remember watching from across the Hudson as these buildings were being built. Each day they grew just a little taller, sleek and shiny where they were completed, bristling with cranes and jagged raw orange colored steel at their unfinished heights. It was a dinner table topic at my house. My father and I would discuss the progress that had been made, and what we had to look forward to. They were going to make a big difference in New York.
It was a monumental undertaking, state of the art at that time. It was also a project that employed many construction and engineering people from the area. The World Trade Towers became the tallest in the world, true symbols of New York's economic might and preeminence. And we felt a lot of pride in that. We knew the people that built them. Some of my friends called these guys dad.
Later, when I was first making my way in this world, I drove a truck in Manhattan. I worked for a New Jersey office equipment company, and because I had volunteered to drive one of their trucks in New York City (which was considered to be an undesirable duty), I made an extra dollar an hour. I was in my 20s at the time, and that extra bit of cash made a difference.
The company I worked for, the General Binding Corporation (or GBC as it said on the side of my truck), did a lot of business at the World Trade Towers. A part of my job was to deliver collating machinery and other equipment to the offices there so that the company's sales reps could show the folks just what marvels GBC had to offer. Then once the demonstrations were over I'd return the next day to pick up whatever it was and take it back to New Jersey.
That was in the mid to late 1970s. 9.11 was 20 some odd years later. I doubt very many of the people working at the WTC when I would stop by with my paper punchers and mechanical sorters were still there when the Towers fell. But maybe some were. I hadn't thought about those people for years. After 2001 I found myself thinking about them a lot, and what might have happened.
I guess different people have different ways of reacting to an anniversary such as this one. There are those who participate in ceremonies, or help build monuments, or stop by a firehouse in remembrance of those who willingly gave up their lives to save others. And these are all good and important things to do. No one should ever forget what happened that day, or the remarkable courage of those who gave everything to save the lives of people they didn't even know.
That doesn't work for me, though. Try as I might, I don't take very much comfort in those things. To say that the destruction of the World Trade Towers hit me personally, while a little grandiose in the great scheme of things, is also true. As it is for most people. But this has to be seen as something so much more than that.
9.11 was a terrible defeat for this country. Not so much in the traditional military sense, because it was not. A few buildings fell, but others have now been built in their place. Life returned.
No, it was a defeat because of what we went on to do to ourselves. We went to war twice, with only one of them arguably necessary. We entered a period of great financial risk taking and foolishness, which culminated in our borrowing and spending ourselves into a world class debtor nation. Our business and political leaders somehow lost their ability to work with one another, and their concerns became more about personal political and economic power than the concerns of what had been up until then the unchallenged greatest nation on earth. In the process selling out the interests of those living here to lesser countries with people eager to do their work, and at a fraction of the cost.
9.11 was a turning point. And not a good one. This Sunday you should mourn for those who died that day, just as you might also mourn for those who gave their lives in the wars that followed. But you also need to mourn for this country. In many ways we have yet to find our way back.
http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com
I like it when the blog I trust admits an error has been made and issues a correction for all to see. Thanks, John. Somehow that bit of information adds some credibility to the City staff as well as the ALF project. Not that I'm for the ALF; I don't yet know enough of the details. But I can say that I continue to poke and prod, looking for the truth of the matter. I didn't like paying for a consultant on behalf of Fountain Square or whatever it's being called.
ReplyDeleteCan we hire a consultant and have him work at City Hall?
ReplyDeleteDid the developers pay in advance? If the project does not go through, as in 1 Carter, the City could be left holding the bag.
ReplyDeleteWhat are the chances the consultant will see things fairly, advocate for residents' concerns, and be prepared to bite the hand that feeds him?
ReplyDeleteI'd say nil, 8:01. Obviously by being paid by the developer he is beholden to the developer. This is a transaction involving City Hall and Fountain Square.
ReplyDeleteFountain Square Senior Living, member of Sunrise Senior Living, built ALFs back east - White Plains NY, Lombard IL. Here's a vid from the New York project:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-052j0rGIXg
Based on what the technical woman said, they would receive a neg declaration and the consultant was there to see the project through.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a done deal. She was writing down public input. So I guess that was going to be the bases for saying "We reached out to the public." No one said one positive thing about what was proposed. By the way, take a look at yesterday's Blog picture. It was taken by the fire department.
Good story today, Crawford.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if we should stop all the round the clock coverage of the 9/11 tragedy, after 10 years.
Seems to me, if I lost a loved one in those towers, it would be like re-living their funeral every 9/11.
I don't mean ignoring it.....just not the 24 hour non stop coverage, year after year.
I had nightmares for a long time after 9/11/01.
I kept seeing those poor souls jumping out of those windows......horrible.
Photo, enhanced with overlay of conceptual drawing of project was taken FROM the sidewalk in front of the Fire Department but how can it be said it was taken "by" the fire department. You would need to know that for sure as you implyi the "done deal."
ReplyDeleteIt is a phony photo shopped deal by the developer no doubt, trying to show that see, see you can still "see" the mountains that Caroline Brown so aptly pointed out at the meeting those ridges in the background were in Arcadia and Monrovia.
The public still gets to respond to a Negative Declaration if one is used. Didn't the environmental consultant (selected from a list provided by the city and then paid for by the developer as is the usual method used) say ths project probably has already been through the Neg Dec?
Based on their meeting it would appear that too many in the column "would have negative affect" was checked off and that is why a Environmental Review Process is underway with the beginnings of "gathering environmental concerns of the public" at last Wednesday's evening meeting.
So, what is the public to do? Hound this bunch, the city staff, etc., and see that this process is not blow off.
Think of how many times Pearl Harbor has been relived through the movies and on TV. That grainy old black and white footage has been ground into the subconscious minds of every living American a thousand times over. We will live with 9/11 for the rest of our lives. It will never go away.
ReplyDeletecorrection duly noted
ReplyDeletebut it is still patently absurd that our city has to hire a consultant, regardless of who pays, to help the developer navigate the city and actually work for the developer often opposed to the best interests of the people and specifically to help the developer undermine Meaure V
all of this reads,smells and sounds as fraudulent as when Joe Mosca borrowed a dog for his first campaign photo in Sierra Madre
are we sort of tired of being jerked around by this council majority and some of the city staff?
If the project really would conform to Measure V, I'd support it.
ReplyDeleteThis is a global company that makes a lot of money off the wealthy elderly. Surely they could stand to have one of their luxury Assisted Living Facilities make a modest profit, rather than a killing, and scale it down.
9:09 "by" was used as "next to" the fire station.
ReplyDeleteI never meant the photographer was a member of the Fire Dept.
Benjamin Pearce, author of Senior Living Communities: Operations Management and Marking for Assisted Living writes, The break even point for a 100 unit assisted living complex is about 80 occupancy. The proposed project in Sierra Madre is 96 units that will rent for an minimum of $4,800 per month. 80% of 96 is 74 units for their break even point. (all expenses are paid) When full capacity is reach they will have a Monthly Net Profit of $105,000. This is based on 22 units at $4800 each. The monthly profit will be higher and when rents are raised.
ReplyDeleteYeah the could make it smaller. But the won't.
The main thing about the picture is that we all know it's a strategically chosen perspective to make the project look much better than it would from directly across the street.
ReplyDeleteFrom Business Week:
ReplyDelete"As of June 30, 2011, the company operated 316 senior living communities, including 274 communities in the United States, 15 communities in Canada, and 27 communities in the United Kingdom, with a total unit capacity of approximately 31,000."
Maybe if they raised the mountains instead of lowering the building? That way nobody would notice if the building is over 30 feet.
ReplyDeleteNot to validate your error on Gregg Yamachika but to call attention to the way it was presented with a "moving time and action" schedule of presentations, approvals, public meetings with limited information available all to result in some kind of recommendation by the planning which may not be needed if it is a"conditional use project". Sounds like the Brown Act was trampled in the way this was set up. But they (City) want the approval process started by Oct 20 with final approval before the end of the year, public information available or not.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way at the public meeting there was no effective public address syatem available only an ineffective hand mike which could not be heard.
During the meeting this consultant did say he had been hired by the city. Is this the first time Sierra Madre has ever hired a consultant this way?
ReplyDeleteCan you write something about 9\11 John?
ReplyDeleteCheck this space tomorrow. Should have something up then.
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your story on 9-11-2001. We must all listen to each others stories, because they are history. Seeing them on tv over and over is not too much. It is American history. I teach grade 7/8 and my student's were only age 2 and do not know very much, because they were too young to watch this on tv. Time has flown fast and no one has taken the time to tell many children their stories. I will take the time on Monday to tell them my story.
I had just moved from NY in June of 2001 back to my home town of Sierra Madre and in shock and horror, like all of you I watched the nightmare of the Fall of 2001 unfold. The crash, the loss, the hope, the funerals, the tributes, and the tears that could not stop.
I am reminded daily how terrorism begins: with the language of hate, ignorance and blame. We are all to blame. It is about the bully, who grows more powerful and out of control. The bully who terrorizes many people who we say will go away if we ignore them. The bully we hate and work against, not try to understand, knowing full well the bully has been the victim. The language of hate is very powerful. Hatred is much easier and quicker than love and tolerance. I hear the power of labeling people and groups, the stereotypes and the fake facts told with no proof.I believe tv has made that a different reality. We can not accept the bully as normal behavior in any way. The bully gets larger than life and creates followers who believe lies without questioning. Bully's base their lives on fear, control and ignorance.
I do not hear the language of love on the playground, the internet, the church, the congress, TV (Jersey Shore, Bridezillas, hate tv and radio) nor the workplace.
I hear about revenge and getting rid of "them." This is not what happened on 9-11. I saw the country come together, compassion and deep caring.
Knowing other people's stories is an inspiration. Everyone knows exactly where they were on 9-11. It was a huge tragedy but we walked in each other's shoes and were true humanitarians to each other. If only we could capture that moment and hold it, and continue to reach out. Again, thank you for your story, John and Lori.
John, thank you for the POV about what we've done to ourselves (or rather, the Bush dynasty and its corporate oil minions along with a few other corrupt governments).
ReplyDeleteI am too angry about what has transpired with that whole incident and the resulting descent into madness that our country found itself in to spend time looking back. I've turned off the TV for the weekend and will try to find some shards of hope in the local reforms that you're engaged in.
That's the true spirit of democracy.
Our government in Washington is like a play that runs forever. We get to occasionally choose the actors. The guys running the show never change.
ReplyDelete