Ground Zero: Out Of the Ruins

In Manhattan, vacuums are opportunities. And even one as sad and sacred as the place where the World Trade Center stood can't remain inviolate for long. For weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, ground zero played host to all varieties of uncredentialed and unsupervised volunteers from all over the U.S.--the lobstermen from Maine, the barbecue guys from Dallas, the Gumbo Krewe from New Orleans. But in America, even tragedy becomes professionalized, and ground zero is now as distinct--and as commercial--a New York region as the theater district or the garment district. It's a throbbing 16-acre region populated by construction workers, itinerant volunteers, movie stars, religious proselytizers, uniformed officers, National Guard members, souvenir hawkers and more tourists than anywhere else in the city. Heroism has been replaced by capitalism New York-style.

At first, the mayor's office tried to prevent the Ground Zero District from growing into a spectacle. The chain link fence surrounding the site was covered with a thick green tarp that blocked the view, and police threatened to snatch cameras. "For the first several weeks, I didn't want anyone down there. It was a very personal feeling," says Richard Sheirer, director of the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management, which oversees the site. But after realizing the overwhelming demand to get a glimpse of the hole, the office reversed its policy. The tarp came down, the fences were moved a few blocks closer, and police and the National Guard were told to guide tourists to the best vantage points. The OEM is building three 40-ft.-wide raised wooden viewing stations around the site that can accommodate 400 tourists at a time. "This is the 21st century Gettysburg," Sheirer says. "There is a need for people to see it."

Ground zero has become both a tourist-thronged landmark and an exclusive downtown club. The site itself is nearly level, with most of the recovery work now taking place underground. In some areas, the engineering crews from three different companies have cleared through two of the seven stories buried beneath the street; the cleanup task could finish by next spring. At any given time, 1,000 people work inside the "red zone"--the area of devastation still off limits to the public. Workers there have put up a Christmas tree and an iron cross found in the wreckage; the New York Board of Rabbis erected a Star of David. A wooden platform used as a viewing station for families of the victims is covered with messages they have written with felt pens.

The population in the pit is dwarfed by the number of people who make pilgrimages each day to the area around it. It's now a regular stop on New York City tours, just like Chinatown or Times Square. Along the perimeter of the site, people call friends on their cell phones to record their visits. Every 10 ft. on Park Street, on the edge of the red zone, another immigrant vendor peddles N.Y.P.D. and F.D.N.Y. hats, T shirts and scarves. Credentials to the red zone have supplanted tickets to The Producers as the hottest status symbol in New York. Assistants have scrambled to procure the official, laminated OEM passes for the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Prince Andrew, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey. Ray Charles asked Quincy Jones to get him in.