09.12.06
Empty Sky
Like every New Yorker who came here before it happened, I learned to navigate this city by the Twin Towers. The moment I came out of the subway, the second I realized I might be driving in the wrong direction, I looked up to see where I was in relation to them. When I graduated from college in the spring of 2001, my first goal was to learn my way around the whole city, not just lower Manhattan where my center of gravity was at the time.
That summer, I answered an ad in the Village Voice and became a bread truck driver for Orwasher’s Bakery on the Upper East Side. I got to drive the big old bread truck in the afternoons and cruise through Central Park delivering steaming hot black Russian ryes to Tavern On The Green, The Russian Tea Room, and the doorsteps of friends who lived along my route. I always had an extra rye (or the occasional challah) in the passenger seat next to me to munch on as I drove. And I grew very attached to Orwasher’s ryes as well as that bread truck.
But on the morning shift, my route emcompassed much more of the city. Since commercial traffic is forbidden on the FDR Drive, I’d use the owner’s private SUV because it didn’t have commercial plates. Jimmy, one of the other drivers, taught me how to pack the back seat and trunk with bags of bread. And he taught me how to drive in New York. Apparently still drunk from the night before, he sat next to me on my first day to tell me everything he knew (some people still claim that I drive like I learned from a drunk). Jimmy imparted his knowledge on short-cuts, lane changing, and, most importantly, the general attitude to exude. He was a big proponent of the middle finger.
Indeed, the most helpful bit of advice I’ve ever received about anything came out of Jimmy’s mouth my first morning as a bread truck driver at about 545am as we headed back toward Manhattan. “The BQE SUCKS,” he told me. He was right then, and he’s still right. My route took me down the FDR to the neighborhood around the World Trade Center, across the Brooklyn Bridge into Brooklyn Heights and occasionally deeper, and then back across the Brooklyn Bridge into lower Manhattan again even though my next stop was in Queens. But the Brooklyn Queens Expressway SUCKS, so it was quicker to return to Manhattan, go back up the FDR Drive, and then cross the East River again on the 59th Street Bridge.
As a result, on those morning routes I constantly passed the Twin Towers as I zipped around the city. If that SUV was the yo-yo spinning all around the city, those towers were the middle finger to which I always bounced back before I went off in another direction. And no matter where I found myself, I could look up to see where I was in relation to them.
In fact, I recall doing a lot of looking up that summer. Even though I thought they were pretty damn ugly, I couldn’t help but crane my neck and try to see the top of them every time I drove beneath. The sun would illuminate the face of them both at a certain hour each morning, and when that happened they were actually quite beautiful. Otherwise, I found them merely impressive, and I never grew tired of trying to see the top floor as I drove by.
It took me about a week to realize it because I was on the Trans-Siberian Railroad when it happened and I had other things on my mind, but when those buildings collapsed, my job disappeared with them. The bulk of my route was at least out of business or at worst under a pile of rubble. The four months of unemployment I endured after I lost my job as a bread truck driver finally inspired me to get my hack license. The only “wanted” signs in the entire city were on the bumpers of yellow cabs.
Where I left off learning the city as I drove the bread truck, I picked up as a yellow cab driver. Now, I could learn my way around the entire city, every corner of it, not just the few dozen streets where I delivered Orwasher’s ryes. And without the Twin Towers as my marker, I’d have to work a lot harder to orient myself when I was unsure. But I had a summer of driving a bread truck and two weeks at Master Cabbie Taxi Academy under my belt, so I was confident.
Five years later, I’ve learned my way around pretty much all of New York (aside from Staten Island). Lower Manhattan is no longer my center of gravity. I try to avoid driving there in my cab because it really hasn’t come back as a busy neighborhood. I’ve lived in a bunch of other places. And I certainly don’t look up to see where I am in relation to it anymore.
I think of the Twin Towers often though. The first thing I said after I heard the news (once I was done muttering that the CIA is “good for shit”) is that we would build them back taller. I distinctly remember saying that this time there would be that giant middle finger on top of one of the towers. It’d be flicking off the rest of the world. It could double as an antenna, I argued.
But here we are five years later, four years and four months after the debris was cleared, and, as Mayor Nagin pointed out so aptly, it’s still just a hole in the ground. So all we’ve got are the Towers Of Light Memorial. Last night they went up again, and again I thought some dance club had opened or there was a sale at a car dealership before I remembered what I was looking at. I’ll admit that, like the Twin Towers themselves, in the right conditions the Towers Of Light can be beautiful. If it is an exceedingly clear night, the Towers of Light appear more distinct and the backdrop of stars gives the scene a dramatic look.
But last night was not particularly clear. And, even though they extended indefinitely into space, they seemed dinky to me. Those buildings had so much girth. They were so imposing. And those beams are just skinny by comparison.
That, and as I drove down Essex Street last night, I witnessed a passenger jet pass through the beam of light. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The jet flew straight through, and the underside of the fuselage as well as one wing were illuminated white in the light. It would have been funny if it weren’t so upsetting. The memorial was a nice thought when I first saw it 6 months after the event. Now it feels like a slap in the face reminding me of what hasn’t been rebuilt.
I haven’t been back to Orwasher’s since my job was buried by the rubble. I haven’t thanked Jimmy for teaching me how to drive in New York. And I haven’t tasted that black Russian rye again. What’s worse is that New York City’s middle finger is still missing. I think I might miss them equally: that rye bread and those towers.
Orwasher’s Bakery, 78th Street btwn 1st and 2nd Ave, Upper East Side, Manhattan
