DEP Press Advisory on Deer Hunting Cancellation, October 2, 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

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with epaulets and holding a cordless tack” — as well as Battery Park,. microphone, the guide explained that which he described as now looking after passing a few Midtown sights, A former gee-whiz “almost like a scene '‘from “we’ll be down at ground zero, where ‘M.A.S.H.’ ” And he did turn the tour­ we’ll see some of the devastation, tour is now a glide ists’ attention to the dull-green mill-, and then on to the Statue of Liberty.” tary-transport helicopters that cut' As the ship nudged south along the past a communal across the sky before disappearing. Hudson, in waters as gray as the behind the Lower Manhattan skyline. overcast sky, Mr. Mason generally burial ground. The Circle Line sliced past Ellis followed a time-honored patter; to Island and the Statue of Liberty, the right was Hoboken, “the birth­ which Mr. Mason said were closed- place of 01’ Blue Eyes. Frank Sina­ woman could not shake an image because of the attack. It then went up. tra”; to the left, Greenwich Village, from a 12-year-old photograph: a the East River to about 23rd Street “the so-called bohemian part of the much younger Jane Rogers, smiling before turning around and swinging* city.” Now and then, though, his ad with the World Trade Center towers once again past the tourist attraction libs reflected how much life had gleaming behind her. now called ground zero. The captain­ changed in three weeks; he told his cut his engines again, but this time “It was just very hard for me,” Mr. Mason’s words broke the si­ listeners, for example, that builders she said. of a riverfront park in Manhattan lence; _ had “shut down operations due to the After the moment of silence, which “That’s the American Express? attack.” was never requested but uniformly tower, which took a real big hit. ... Moments after Mr. Mason ex­ understood, Mr. Mason described Such a tough sight to see. ... It’s plained that TriBeCa meant “trian­ which wreckage used to be which amazing how many buildings were gle below Canal,” the captain of the building. “When we turn around lat­ not affected.... Just all the devasta­ Circle Line XVII cut his engines and er on,” he said, “we’ll get some dif­ tion and horror. ... According to the the ship fell silent. Every passenger ferent angles of Lower Manhattan mayor, the cleanup here might take looked to the east to see the smoke, and the devastation.” up to a year." the police helicopters, the blackened The Circle Line glided past the Camcorders whirred and cameras wreckage — the void. Tahoma, the 270-foot Coast Guard clicked. But Frank and Margaret One of the sightseers, Jane Rogers, cutter that has become a kind of New McGrath sat still as they stared out later began to cry while describing York landmark in its own right. Mr. the Circle Line window, like a pair of how she felt at that moment, looking Mason made no reference to it, nor to churchgoers searching for meaning eastward as the waters of the Hud­ the patrol boat that skipped past just in a stained-glass design. The cam­ son gently rocked her. She said she 30 yards away, a half-dozen soldiers era that the}' had brought from Dub­ and her husband and their three chil­ in camouflage standing in its hold, lin for their first visit to the United dren had driven three days from their weapons in plain view. States stayed packed away in a bag Parker, Colo., to stick with a months- But he did point out Governors at their feet. old plan to visit New York City in Island — “1,500 National Guard have Taking pictures, they had decided, early fall. But now, the 40-year-old been stationed there since the .pt- would be inappropriate.

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