Cortlandt Street Station

May 27th, 2008 at 09:37pm Mitch Mulhall 171

I’ve got to write about this before it becomes a distant target of REM sleep.

A week ago I traveled to Manhattan. I hadn’t been there since before Clinton was elected—I was staying at the Hilton New York. George H.W. Bush was slated to speak at a fund-raiser in a room adjacent to the SIA show, a kind of Detroit Auto Show for equities traders. Security was insane. I took what I thought was a shortcut into the exhibition hall only to find myself in a cavern of ice sculptures and expensive seafood. Several ill-tempered, dark-suited, mirrored-sunglasses-wearing drones taking direction from the wires in their ears escorted me from the premises…

That was a long time ago.

This last trip hardly amounts to a memory. I arrived in LaGuardia at 11:15 pm Eastern. Got to the Park Central Hotel in mid-town after midnight. Had a beer with my boss. When I got to my room, I turned on the wide-screen TV in my suite, rifled through the closets for an ironing board and iron, and pulled the trousers and dress shirt out of the pack I carry my laptop in so I could press them. They badly needed the iron.

I’d had a mental block trying to tie a neck-tie that morning, so ironing a shirt and trousers amounted to a considerable challenge, but I finally got it done, with a neat pleat down the back of my shirt no less. Finished, I turned off the TV and stared out the window, listening to the sounds of the city. The lights of Time Square back lit the buildings before me, but there was more depth than the aspect ratio of a widescreen TV. I could look down into the streets, and up to the stars. Since 9/11, I have hoped to one day visit ground zero, but when I finally lied down and doused the flickering city lights with my eyelids, it was nearly 2:00 pm. In less than 15 hours, I’d be on a Denver-bound 757. There would be no time for any kind of frivolity.

At 5:30 am, my cell phone alarm went off as it always does, only that day it self-adjusted to Eastern time. I went through my morning ablutions, donned my freshly-pressed trouser’s, shirt, and slipped on my blue blazer. Then, I stuffed yesterday’s clothes into my day pack, and headed for the lobby. I was early, so I found a quiet chair in the corner and sat down.

Momentarily, two older ladies sat down on a near-by bench. I began noticing flirty glances, and eventually one of them waved at me. I waved back and said, “Hello.” They giggled and spoke in what must have been an eastern European language. Eventually one of them got up, walked across the room, and sat on a bench opposite her companion. Meanwhile, her counterpart scooted over as close to me as she could get on the bench she was sitting on and began smiling. There was her friend, with a digital camera at the ready, clicking pictures of her next to me.

Why?

I’m pretty sure it was my hat. In Colorado it doesn’t get a second glance.

When my boss arrived, we set out for our downtown office on Broad Street. I can’t really tell you where we got on the New York subway, nor where we got off, but at one point on the trip, the train slowed, and the wheels on the carriage began to squeal, and the carriage rocked side to side. A platform came into view, but there were no people on it. I looked around, searching for a context to this incongruous site only to find buttressed concrete and what looked to me like the spoils of war. Then, in an instant, I saw a patch of detailed tile work proclaiming the name, “Cortlandt Street,” and in that instant I knew I was looking at ground zero. What was arguably once the busiest station in all of Manhattan is now a rough spot in a subway line...

I realize this may seem rather out-of-place, even inappropriate, but as I looked upon the wreckage of Corlandt Street Station, I felt as if I were looking at green grass growing on the floor of a fire-ravaged, old-growth forest.

Cheers,

Entry Filed under: Glenwood Springs, Colorado, Travel, United Post