Sunday
Warning!
I took some pictures on Friday and this entry is graphic heavy, so give your browser a moment to load. If you just can't wait, shuffle on off to some other, more polite site, created by a kinder individual who understands just how important your time is too you.There are some links at the end of this entry you should see, however, so wait a moment, eh? What else do you have going on?
On Friday, as now, the sense that I should do something was washing over me in waves, at times overwhelming. Aside from buying a couple of Sun Times for the inane paper flags which can now be viewed in both my cubicle and the front window of my apartment, leaving work and walking the few blocks to Daley Plaza for the rally (read: memorial service) seemed about all I could muster since the Red Cross was still turning people away. "PLEASE Come Back" the signs urged. "I WILL Come Back" I earnestly told them (not out loud but in my mind, of course).
I usually keep one of those throw away cameras in my bag just in case. (In case of what you ask? In case the water main breaks and floods my Quincy "L" stop, in case a strike turned riot occurs outside my building, in case a TV show blows up a car on my way to the train--all of which I witnessed sans recording device), so I brought my yellow cardboard camera along as I ambled on down Wabash to Washington, over to Clark.
The mood here has been pretty intense since Tuesday and it's become common to see spontaneous tears in all sorts of places you don't expect to see them. Since I've been guilty of the aforementioned tears twice on the Metra, not to mention that a large gathering on government property could be considered dangerous at such a time, I figured I'd capture something. At the very least, a vague idea of what it's like to live in the Second City and emerge virtually unscathed after the attacks on New York and Washington. There's the sense around here that we were next in line. That Sears Tower or the Hancock Building might not be standing today had things gone differently and that the burden of relief is a heavy heavy load to carry.
The last of the flags had been handed out and the Plaza was crowded when I arrived at 11:30, but it wasn't as mobbed as I had initially expected. There was actually room for kids to sit and folks to mill about. I would later wonder just how this woman on the left kept a handle on all ten of them.
Beyond the patriotic row cameras set up to record the event for the six o'clock news, the crowd became thicker and more intense.
I'm so short that there was nothing to see really. Just a giant flag hanging in front of the building, a lot of heads--some clad in red, white and blue bandanas, a smattering of patriotism taped to office windows--much like my own, and hundreds of flags (the kind I was too late to receive) waving in the air.
Classical music was playing from the speakers located just behind the giant flag but I was startled by a sound overhead. I stood transfixed and watched the vapor trail of a plane too high to see flying directly over my head. Like the dork I am, my eyes welled up with tears as it passed out of my vision, behind a flag at half mast on the eastern side of the plaza.
Allow me to maudlin for a moment, but it was as though I was witnessing the rebirth of Chicago. The opening of the airports and all these people gathered in one location, both easy targets, but fearless of another attack. It was coming back to life before my very eyes.
Apparently several hundred people agreed with me as shouts of "U. S. A.! U. S. A.!" started.
As the chanting began, so did the surge to the front of podium. Visions of "Who Concert" danced before me as I felt the air sucked from my lungs. This was not the ideal location for a claustrophobic and I decided that I'd seen enough from this particular vantage point. I'd try to take it all in from elsewhere. Say, a nice safe place like the curb.
As I pushed my way out of the crowd, I found this genteel lady holding a painting. If you know her, or know what the heck that's supposed to be, let me know.
Towards the edge of the plaza, a very nice policeman let me take his picture. He's holding one of the free flags and a program that was handed out containing the words of "God Bless America". He didn't look too nervous and I took his lead. After surviving the crush of people up front, it was much easier to breath back here.
Still, however, I felt I needed to witness the event from even further away. This was a huge mistake.
As I crossed Clark and headed around the corner to Washington, I was confronted with a wall of people headed right for me. They were not using the sidewalks, but in the street.
See those plants on the right? They're in a four foot high cement boxes. In the moments it took me to snap that picture, look in front of me and turn around again, the wall of people became solid.
I wasn't going anywhere.
I did the only thing I could think of doing and climbed up on top of that box. At least up there, I wasn't in danger of being crushed. Plus, I had a pretty good view of not the Plaza, but of the corner of Washington and Clark.
While the snapshot above was taken just after the moment of silence when the church bells began to peel, there was a good ten minutes of "what do we do now?" to fill.
After I hopped on the box, I was extremely lucky to have two wonderfully outspoken ladies join me in the plants. We talked to each other about why we were there and eventually into singing "America", "The Star Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America" at the top of our lungs. (The last of which, we were aided by the lyrics I held on the back of the program I was able to grab while on the Plaza.) The crowd sang along with us and whooped and cheered as each song finished. It was really something.
Between the singing and the church bells, it was one of the more powerful fifteen of my life. I was at Live Aid and I was there during the rally against violence in New Orleans. Nothing matched the intensity of those few moments when we remembered the lost lives of thousands and cheered on the hundreds of thousands who made the difference by helping in some way. Not us, of course, but those who unified against a common enemy. Who saved us. Saved me.
I asked you before to forgive me for becoming maudlin. I'm done now.
To give you an idea of just how enormous the crowds were, I've borrowed this map from Jason. The star is where Daley Plaza is located and the darker green area is the crowd.
It's not about singing and patriotism and camaraderie, however, and you know that. Since Tuesday, more than one of my Invisible Internet Friends (IIFs) expressed the following sentiment:
Just let people know that you know New Yorkers,
and we won't let this stop us.
