A Moment of Silence
I grew up kinda of as an only child, so I’m sure it’s not the first time I appreciated silence, but one of the most noteworthy times I recall noticing silence took place in 1999.
The Dargon Writers’ Summit is always a hectic time, and holding it in the middle of New York City made it doubly so. Insane cabbies, brusque shopkeepers, and swarming crowds all added to the chaos of spending the weekend with seven other somewhat manic writers.
The trip up to the observation deck of the World Trade Center towers was no better: huge lines, then crowds of people shouldering each other to get close to the windows on the top floor observation deck.
One thing that still amazes me is that even in New York in 1999, they let tourists out onto the completely open roof of the tower. As I stepped out there, 1370 feet above the street, the one thing that struck me more than anything else was the absolute silence.
All I could see was an immense mass of urban congestion from one horizon to the other, but none of it reached me. There I was, smack in the middle of one of the biggest cities on the entire planet, but I was surrounded by near total silence. The contrast with the street level I’d just come from was intense. No buses, no trains, no cabs. No street vendors, no panhandlers, no public cell phone conversations. No horns, no shouting, no construction noises.
Here’s the pertinent section of my travelogue from that visit: From there we drove downtown and took some time finding a parking garage that could hold the mega-van. […] We were actually kind of directionless, but Max really wanted to go to the top of the World Trade Center, so we wound up moseying in that general direction. We walked right by Wall Street and Trinity Church and up Broadway for a while, then found the WTC. […]
Inside, we made our way through the underground mall and up some escalators to the place where the tours began; the area had a good view of a nearby building bearing a sign "Amish". We paid and most of us successfully slipped by the photo op guys, passed through the metal detectors, got accosted by some Chinese good-luck hand-stamper, and stood by a railing overlooking the lower floor, waiting for the others, who didn't have the bluster to walk past the photo-op guys.
At this point, Rena, who had pushed her sunglasses up above her forehead, as seems to be eerily popular these days, leaned back against the railing. The glasses slipped slowly from her hair, and she turned just in time to see them fall the forty feet to the floor below. While she went down to retrieve them, the rest of the group clustered by the railing, estimating how high it was, and how Rena would get by the security gates and into the secure area where her glasses had fallen. Many times other tourists queued up behind Stuart, who was at the end of our group, thinking we were in line for some special treat. We all took pictures as Rena slipped under the gate and picked up her glasses. Finally, she caught back up with us and we were herded into the express freight elevator headed to the top!
On the 107th floor is a glassed-in observation deck, with odd ski-lift-like seating compartments which allow you to look nearly straight down. We started with a northeast view, and I identified the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, Queensboro, and 59th Street Bridges. I also noted Roosevelt Island and LaGuardia airport (near where Linda used to live, sandwiched between LaGuardia and Rikers Island). Looking north: Fifth Avenue, Washington Square Park, the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings, and the GW Bridge. Directly west was New Jersey and a great view of the office towers where Sapient's old and current Jersey City offices have been housed. And south was Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, Governors Island, and Staten Island. The view was fantastic, but I couldn't see the west side pier where the USS Intrepid was docked, because the other WTC tower blocked the view in the northwest direction. While we gawked, several of us stopped at the gift shop, and Max bought a set of clear NYPD shot glasses to go with the blue ones he's obtained at the airport!
But the real treat was still further up. There's an escalator that leads up to the 110th floor, the open roof of the building! The view from up there was breathtaking, and I never had any sense of fearful heights. People are kept a good 12-15 feet from the edge of the building by a railing, a 12-foot drop onto another platform, a big cyclone fence topped with razorwire, and a couple electrified rails, which also makes it impossible to see straight down, as you could on observation deck. Max was telling us about all those precautions against "jumpers", and also pointed out the two-foot markers on the edge to document where people jump, and the automated cameras maintained by local television stations to capture any jumpers on tape, when a woman came up and expressed her disbelief at all those precautions. Max sent her on her way before reassuring us that the marks were probably as much for window-washers as jumpers, and that the video cameras would also be useful in capturing a bird's eye view of the whole city, not just jumpers!
For myself, I was surprised by the lack of wind on the roof. I had been expecting as much wind as you get in the canyons at street level, but there really was very little wind at all up there. In addition, there was much less smog, and virtually no noise of traffic or anything else! In the summer sun, it was a wonderful treat, and we hung around up there for more than half an hour, talking, resting, taking pictures of one another (including the infamous recursive group shot), enjoying the view, and just lounging in the sun.
After passing the photo op booth on the way back out, people stopped at a bathroom on 107. Meanwhile, I found and pointed out an empty four-foot square closet with a glass door bearing the logo of an interior design firm -- very odd. Returning to ground level, the group got drinks while Alan went to fetch the van. In the pizza joint I'd gotten lunch from, as I ordered my Coke I noticed one of the cooks by the pizza oven yelling through a two-foot hole cut in the tile floor; apparently that was their cellar access, and he was asking someone down there for more Snapple! Outside, Stu and Jon went in search of a drug store to procure film […]
I guess it’s a bit silly trying to communicate the value of silence through words, but it really was something quite special. I think everyone recognized that, because we stayed up there quite some time, just enjoying the quiet and the open breeze.
I’ve always had a very strong appreciation of silence, and I think it’s kind of interesting that one of the most compelling experiences I’ve had was experiencing it in the middle of the biggest city on the planet, atop a pair of buildings that no longer exist.