I was supposed to work ‘til 1 a.m. tonight, but it was a slow news day and I was out by midnight. It was beautiful outside, just cool enough to feel the season starting to turn but still plenty comfortable in a short-sleeve shirt. The moon was big and white and just-past-full, and the sky was so black it was blue. I thought about walking home, since I was pretty wide awake, but then it occurred to me that I could also go down and pay a visit and respects to ground zero. I knew for sure I wasn’t going down there in the morning or afternoon, in the sun and the crowd, but I was kind of curious to see what it might be like tonight. I caught a 2 train to Chambers Street and walked a few blocks up Church, and suddenly there it was, all lit up with huge glaring construction lights. A giant American flag on one of the buildings just to the west of the site was all lit up too. Less visible unless you were standing in the right place were two beams of blue light shooting up from the northwest corner, a small replica of the pillars-of-light memorial the city used to mark the 6-month anniversary.

There were plenty of people around, probably several hundred scattered over the blocks along the east and south where you can get close enough to the fence to see the big open space. But it still felt sparse and quiet compared to what it’s like during the day. There were maybe 15 or 20 large floral displays along the east sidewalk, with flowers in patterns of American flags, the towers, a heart, and so forth. A few of them seemed to be from Colombia. One had “New York, Center of the World” written in Spanish. The visitors seemed like a mixture of natives and tourists. There was a Hispanic man in a suit leaning on the railing, his head in his hands. I wondered if maybe he lost someone here. And a white woman in her 50s, wrapped in an American flag, sitting in a folding chair, rocking back and forth and repeating something I couldn’t quite hear in a low voice, over and over. There were two young black guys, one in dreads and a baseball cap and blue jeans, holding candles and looking out at the big nothing. There were a lot of candles. Not a forest of them or anything, but scattered around in front of the floral arrangements and the photos on the fence and pretty much anywhere on the sidewalk, and people here and there holding small candles. I saw one guy carefully place a candle in front of one of the wreaths, and then turn and look over his shoulder, his right hand still on the candle. I realized he was posing – his wife was taking a picture.

I wondered about that. Was it disrespectful? Was any of this disrespectful? Was all of it? How about the guy on the corner selling the little fake-crystal Twin Towers paperweights? Was there actually anything wrong with someone wanting a little Twin Towers on their desk to look at and remember? And how about me? I was there as much out of curiosity as anything else, just another tourist. I noticed a sticker on one of the metal fence poles. It had a picture of a man, an average-looking white man with thick brown hair, wearing a white shirt and smiling. He was probably in his 30s. Above his face was the word “Murdered.” Below it, “At work. Sept. 11, 2001.” I saw 2 more of the same sticker on the fence as I walked around it. Was that respectful, to be stuck to a fence post? Did it matter, if it made someone feel better to put it there?