We Are All Gettysburg Now

Oh, please — as if you don’t understand what’s inherently cool about lucite Twin Towers trinkets:

The other day on the E train, a woman asked me how to get to “umm, Ground Zero.”

I was a little bewildered, and not because I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to go there. What gave me pause was trying to decide how to proceed.

I always like to give detailed, friendly directions to out-of-towners, if only to counteract the stereotype that all New Yorkers are rude. But of all the things to see and places to go on your first trip on a subway — as she said this was for her — why go there?

I wanted to ask her if she’s been to the Met, the Empire State Building, Chinatown. The SoHo Apple store, perhaps?

Instead I gave her detailed, if not quite friendly, directions. I made her work for it.

“You don’t want to see that,” I said.

“Yes, I do,” she replied.

“It’s just a big hole in the ground, a construction site. Why go?”

“To pay my respects, I suppose.”

. . .

That woman, respectful in her slumped shoulders and doe eyes, was one of a projected six million people who will visit Ground Zero this year, according to the Downtown Alliance. That’s six million out of a total 40 million tourists annually. These are people who, for the most part, we can assume, knew none of the thousands of victims.