9-11 : A universal television event

[Jolie Rouge]

NEW YORK (AP) — The first indication of the horrors to come was a single camera shot that suddenly appeared on television sets throughout the world: a skyscraper bathed in the morning sun, smoke pouring from a ragged hole in its side. The images grew even worse, as the entire world witnessed the death and destruction of Sept. 11, 2001.

Whether in a bar in Tahiti or office building in New York, television was the central gathering place for people to experience 9/11.

The Associated Press spoke to some viewers who watched it all unfold on TV, and to some people who were part of conveying the event and its aftermath to the world.

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Tom Brokaw was relieved to be in New York Sept. 11 and not out of town on assignment when the biggest story of his career broke. NBC News' chief anchor found out later just how huge a relief it was to be.

Ten years later, that day still seems surreal. "For those of us on the air, we were out there without a net of any kind," he said. "We had no idea what was going to happen next. No one else did either."

At one point as the twin towers burned, Brokaw remarked on camera that they would have to be demolished when the fires went out. He wondered whether he had gone too far. Minutes later the first tower collapsed on its own. "It took everything I knew as a journalist and as a father, a husband and a citizen to get through that day," Brokaw said. "And I was very grateful for the fact that I was 61 years old when it happened, to be given the responsibility that I had, because it took everything I had ever learned to get through that day. If I'd been 40, who knows?"

Most Americans learned what happened on Sept. 11 and the ensuing days through three men: Brokaw of NBC News, Peter Jennings of ABC News and Dan Rather of CBS News. All three anchors were veteran reporters with two decades of anchoring experience and uniquely suited for the roles they had to perform. Brokaw is now semiretired, making documentaries and occasionally offering onscreen wisdom during big news events. Rather left CBS unpleasantly following a bungled story about George W. Bush's military service and now has his own news show on HDNet. Jennings died of cancer in 2005.

On the rainy night of Sept. 10, 2001, Brokaw attended a reception for a blind mountain climber. Later, the event's organizer told him that it had been rescheduled because Brokaw was unable to make the original date.

That was to have been Tuesday morning, Sept. 11 — at the Windows on the World restaurant on top of the World Trade Center.

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Nicole Rittenmeyer remembers screaming at Brokaw on Sept. 11.

Not him personally. Seven months pregnant and with a toddler under foot, she was watching the coverage in Chicago and saw the first tower crumbling into a cloud of dust and a tangled mass of steel and concrete. Brokaw didn't see it as quickly, and perhaps Rittenmeyer figured yelling at the TV set might get his attention.

She's seen that collapse countless times since. Starting with the "Inside 9/11" documentary she made for National Geographic in 2005, the filmmaker estimates she has spent five years of on projects about the terrorist attacks. Her latest, a sequel to the memorable "102 Minutes That Changed America" film of 2008 that focuses on the days after Sept. 11, premieres on the History network on Sept. 10.

Hundreds of hours of attack footage exist. Rittenmeyer suggests it was the most filmed news event ever, and there's probably much more hidden away in sock drawers.

What does watching so much of 9/11 do to your mind? "There's a process that you go through that automatically puts up a kind of barrier, because you're working on it," said Rittenmeyer. "There are certain pieces of footage that make the hair on my arms stand up or bring tears every time and probably always will."

One was shot by two college students who started filming out their window without really knowing what was going on, and caught the second plane knifing into the World Trade Center. They freaked out, an experience so visceral "it's like you are them and they are you and you're reliving this experience," she said. "I feel like it's really a privilege to have had that experience of reliving something like that, as awful as it is, through hundreds of people's eyes," she said. "Nobody gets that opportunity. It's one of the reasons I do what I do. I'm clearly drawn to history and that kind of epic moment."

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Dan Rather had little time to think about it when David Letterman asked him to be part of the first "Late Show" since the attacks. The night turned out to be one of the memorable television moments of the weeks after the attacks. The idea of resuming life had become a delicate issue in itself, with events such as the resumption of Major League baseball and a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden important milestones in that journey.

The tone was particularly important for a New York-based comedy show and Letterman nailed it with the raw anger of his opening monologue. During 9/11 coverage, Rather worked hard to keep his emotions in check while on the air for CBS News. It was a grueling stretch that had the veteran anchor, then age 69, awake for 48 hours at one point.

But with Letterman, Rather briefly broke down in tears twice. "The combination of being off of my own turf and the emotional hammer to the heart that was 9/11 that hit most people while it was unfolding just suddenly descended on me," he recalled. "I was surprised, maybe even astounded, at how it went.

"I was just engulfed, consumed by grief," he said. "I've never apologized for that — didn't then and I don't now. Because, one doesn't apologize for grief."

Rather, who said he hasn't seen a tape of the appearance in years, did apologize in a way at the time. During the second breakdown, the old-school newsman asked Letterman to go to commercial break and upon their return he said, "I'm a pro and I get paid not to let it show."

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Growing up in New Jersey, Nathaniel Katz could see the World Trade Center from the windows of his best friend's house. But on Sept. 11, 2001, Katz was about as far away from New York as you can get: studying for a semester in the Australian capital of Canberra. It was shortly before 10 p.m. in Canberra, about 170 miles southwest of Sydney, and a friend brought him to a student lounge so he could watch "The West Wing" for the first time.

The series was interrupted to show what Katz thought was a private plane crashing into the trade center. He watched as other images filled the screen. About 30 other people quietly streamed into the lounge behind Katz, the only American.

To the others in the lounge, it seemed like a Hollywood movie. To Katz, it was home. He broke down and cried uncontrollably. "I pride myself on having a fair bit of self-control and I completely lost myself in this situation," said Katz, now a ministry fellow at Harvard University. "I could feel all these eyeballs in the back of my head. But I didn't care."

His friends told him he might hear some ugly things in the coming days and he did; some folks suggested the United States deserved what happened. Katz didn't return to the United States until December, missing the surge of patriotism that happened after the attacks.

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There was silence on the other end of the phone line during a recent interview. Ashleigh Banfield had become so practiced at pushing aside memories of Sept. 11 — "it was a bad day" was her stock answer, before changing the subject — that being asked to recall specifics brought some tears.

She was working at MSNBC that day, and disregarded a suggestion that she go to the network's New Jersey headquarters. Instead, she headed downtown in a cab as far as it would take her and then on foot.

Banfield was close enough to be enveloped in the black cloud created as the second tower collapsed. A companion kicked in a nearby building's door and she sought refuge with a police officer who was also looking for a safe place to breathe. She emerged when the cloud began to lift and flagged down a nearby NBC truck that could film her as she gave reports into a cell phone. "For whatever reason, I thought all of the buildings were coming down," she said. "If these two were coming down, what was next? I was so scared. So many people said you were so brave to do that reporting that day and I think just the opposite. I was just so childishly scared."

For the next couple of years, Banfield said she couldn't go on an airplane without weeping. She sought counseling to talk it through. She's proud she was a part of covering such a defining moment, but it also taught her about some limits to endurance.

Banfield, now at ABC News, got married and had two children in the past decade. She said she would react differently today. "I think of how much I've changed and how I wouldn't do (what I did) right now with two little kids," she said. "I took enormous risks, probably didn't know how big the risks I was taking were. I probably wouldn't run those 50 blocks against a sea of fleeing people. Stupid would have kicked out and pragmatic would have kicked in."

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[Jolie Rouge]

___

Work brought rock guitarist and singer John Hiatt to New York from his Nashville, Tenn., home on Sept. 11. He had a new album being released that day, and a round of interviews set up to support it.

A glance at the television that morning and he knew all bets were off.

"My wife called me in my hotel room," he recalled. "As I was watching it, she was watching it. She was terrified. We were trying to figure out how to get out of town."

His appointments all canceled, Hiatt spent much of the day walking the New York streets. Later, he walked from his midtown hotel to Penn Station and boarded a train south.

Within the next two weeks, he wrote a song about his feelings from that day, "When New York Had Her Heart Broke," and performed it when he appeared in the city later that fall.

Otherwise, he shelved it. Writing the song was largely a way to work through his feelings and he figured there was enough musical material coming out in response to the attacks, some of which felt a little tawdry to him.

Now, 10 years later, he recorded the song for an album that was released this month.

"Hopefully, there's enough distance," he said. "In the tradition of a tragic folk song, maybe it helps."

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Knowing the location of his wife Katherine's office and the trajectory of the first plane to hit the World Trade Center, Charles Wolf eventually became convinced she was killed instantly on Sept. 11. He never heard from her that morning.

For most people, television that day was a way to experience a terrible story that did not yet involve them. For Wolf, it was a lifeline. TV is where he got his information, learning areas that were set up for possible survivors or places to find out about victims.

"You're looking for shreds of evidence of whether she's alive or dead," he said.

He watched the coverage for hours, even though deep down he knew Katherine's fate when he saw the north tower collapse. "I stood up and said, 'I guess I have to start my life over,'" he recalled.

What grew excruciating was when networks played key footage over and over, particularly of the second plane hitting the south tower. He called ABC News to complain about the repetition; the network later said it would curtail use of the footage, in part because children couldn't understand they were not seeing something new.

He has no interest in watching 10th anniversary coverage, which he calls "made-for-ratings television." Instead, he will attend a public memorial at ground zero.

Television, he said, "is for everybody else. ... Television has given them the ability to participate in something when they can't really be there."

http://news.yahoo.com/terrorist-atta...144615812.html

comments

Does it take a horrific event like 9/11 to make the American people come together, become unified and stronger?? I hope not. We need to get that sense of unity and pride in our country again. We need to all "come together" and work for the good of the people (hello politicians), not for money, fame or re-election. Haven't we learned anything?? God bless our country and God help us all!!

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September 11 2011 is a Sunday. In rememberence this year I think all commercial retailers should shut down for the day. We should all take the day to reflect and be with family and friends.

[Jolie Rouge]

9/11: A tragedy explored through the decade by TV
By FRAZIER MOORE - AP Television Writer | AP – 2 hrs 38 mins ago

NEW YORK (AP) — There was bold talk right after 9/11 that TV would emerge from this trauma sadder but wiser. That TV would be steeled with a higher sense of purpose than had characterized it the previous half-century.

Baloney. Soon enough, the flow of TV programming, including scripted drama and comedy with all of their distractions and excesses, defiantly resumed with the rest of daily life. And yet, the events of 9/11 did play a part in TV storytelling in the decade that would follow. Some of it was cosmetic. Some, just grist for the mill. And there was some, occasionally, that was meaningful.

The most enduring and often penetrating look at life post-9/11 has surely been FX's "Rescue Me."

A drama with darkly funny overtones, it tells the story of troubled New York City firefighter Tommy Gavin in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, when he lost many fellow firefighters, including his cousin and best friend, at the twin towers. Tommy (played by series co-creator and co-producer Denis Leary) is haunted by survivor's guilt, which is enhanced by his cousin's occasional "visits" as an apparition that tries to talk sense into him.

The message of "Rescue Me," reinforced through the seven-season run that concludes Sept. 7, has always been: "Never forget." Tommy can't, and "Rescue Me" has been a faithful reminder for viewers.

But "Rescue Me" didn't arrive until 2004.

Before then, and almost immediately after 9/11, the impact of that day was being felt in other TV narratives.

"The West Wing" creator-producer Aaron Sorkin pulled off a remarkable feat within the first month. He wrote and filmed an episode of his NBC drama in time to air on Oct. 3, 2001, exploring the questions and fears thrust on Americans.

Even though the events that inspired that special episode were never specifically addressed, viewers found the Bartlet White House gripped in a familiar state of high alert after the latest of several security breaches. And, in an accident of timing, deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman was stuck in the White House cafeteria in lockdown mode with a group of touring high school students.

"Why is everybody trying to kill us?" one student asked him, articulating worry to which any viewer could relate.

By early November, specific references had crept into dramatic dialogue. "This whole department has been through hell with the World Trade Center attacks," a fellow detective scolded grumpy Andy Sipowicz on an "NYPD Blue" episode. "You don't have a corner on personal grief!"

Meanwhile, real life had caught up with TV's shoot-'em-up, blow-'em-up mentality. Three new series premiering that fall — ABC's "Alias," CBS' "The Agency" and Fox's "24" — all dealt with the CIA battling terrorism. On the premiere of "The Agency," a terrorist plot involved blowing up the London department store Harrods. And "24" began with a terrorism-bent passenger igniting a bomb aboard a jetliner, then parachuting to safety.

"Emma Brody" was a series doomed by the aftershock of 9/11. Scheduled by Fox in the carefree days of spring 2001, it was created as a jaunty comedy-drama set in the U.S. Embassy in London. Played by Arija Bareikis (later of TNT's cop drama "Southland"), the lovely young Emma arrived to take a job as a rookie vice consul, fleeing a bad relationship and a pushy mother back in America.

By the time it premiered in March 2002, the series had a new name — "The American Embassy" — and was dutifully retrofitted with a grave tone as an issues-oriented ensemble drama. It was axed after six airings.

Conversely, a CBS series that had premiered as an instant hit in fall 2000 seemed further validated in the aftermath of 9/11. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" declared that truth — absolute, inarguable truth — awaits those who pursue it with keen-eyed dedication. Hard evidence — blood spatter, hair fibers, body decay, fingerprints — will pave the way to enlightenment. And what fuels the trip? Reason.

In a jittery new world of relative values and crippling nuance, where answers (even including the enemy's identity) seemed in short supply, "CSI" struck a weekly blow for Rational Man. (And does so to this day, as the series heads into its 12th season.)

"24," though conceived and scheduled pre-9/11, resonated with viewers in an unforeseeably cathartic way after the attacks. Agent Jack Bauer was unstoppable in going after each new crop of bad guys threatening the nation, and gave them the punishment they deserved (even as the punishment he suffered in the process often seemed no less severe).

After the twin towers fell, they gained riveting new power as visual symbols of all that was lost. Glimpses of them were erased from some TV shows (such as in the opening titles of "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City"). Then their shock value was harnessed by the short-lived ABC drama "Life on Mars." Airing in the 2008-09 season, that drama was set in 1973, and showed a digitally inserted World Trade Center as a startling relic of a past era.

Further upping the ante, the Fox sci-fi series "Fringe" displayed, and even put key scenes within, an intact World Trade Center that continues to exist in the current day — but in an alternate universe.

In July 2005, the FX network premiered a new drama meant to chronicle a direct result of 9/11. "Over There" followed a unit of the United States Army's Third Infantry Division on its first tour of duty after the U.S. invasion in Iraq.

Back at home in 2005 and 2006, "Sleeper Cell" was a Showtime series depicting Islamic extremists planning fresh attacks on American soil.

It's not a big jump from foreign terrorists to extraterrestrial or supernatural threats. After 9/11, variations on otherness gave viewers the willies. ABC's 2009 revival of "V'' chronicled the arrival on Earth of an advanced alien species with a dastardly scheme. In the current TNT series "Falling Skies," mysterious, multilegged aliens and their killing-machine robots lay waste to America.

Zombies have destroyed much of civilization on AMC's "The Walking Dead." And on the CW's "Vampire Diaries" and HBO's "True Blood," humans must coexist uneasily with vampires.

[Jolie Rouge]

Another trend that has flourished of late: playing with time on TV dramas. Television scholar Ron Simon believes it responds to a yearning fed by 9/11.

ABC's "Lost" made notably groundbreaking (and often exasperating) use of flashbacks, flash-forwards and parallel narratives to suggest that any tale is variable, with no definitive version of the truth at hand.

It was a technique later applied, less successfully, in such shows as ABC's "FlashForward" and NBC's "Heroes."

"This addresses the hope that you can relive and change the events of the past," said Simon, TV curator at the Paley Center for Media. "It doesn't specifically deal with 9/11, but maybe subconsciously deals with anxiety about the past — that there's a possibility to journey back and create a do-over."

But there is no do-over for Tommy Gavin on "Rescue Me," and that's what continues to plague him in both his work life and personal affairs.

Never forget?

"He WISHES he could forget," said Horace Newcomb, director of the George Foster Peabody Awards program at the University of Georgia.

Throughout the run of "Rescue Me," the show's treatment of 9/11 "honors the event," says Newcomb, "where other shows use it as a plot device. The series is a powerful reminder of how trauma can wreck every aspect of social order — whether it's the individual, the family, or the firehouse."

Early this season, Gavin encountered a window display of 9/11-anniversary merchandise in a New York book store, with a sign that seemed to mock him: "Where were YOU that day?"

Fuming at the sight, Tommy plowed his pickup through the storefront window, then set the building on fire. At least he would have liked to: His outrageous response was a fantasy sequence.

Leary and his "Rescue Me" co-creator, Peter Tolan, agree that Tommy would take no less umbrage with the likes of their show and its 9/11 theme, especially as it concludes, all to handily, just days before the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11.

"He's going to think, no matter what, that there is some exploitation," Tolan said.

"Yeah," Leary said, "he hates all that stuff."

Tommy will think what he wants. But Tolan and Leary see their show as a lasting reminder of the long-term, so-far-unresolved effects of 9/11.

"We're saying that this event isn't over," declared Tolan. "It didn't end when George Bush said, 'Mission accomplished.' Not that. There's no mission accomplished here."

Not on "Rescue Me." And not elsewhere on the TV landscape.

This summer, the season-long story arc of DirecTV's legal thriller "Damages" has focused on the abuses of a private security firm hired by the U.S. government to carry out special wartime missions in Afghanistan.

Then, come October, Showtime's "Homeland" examines with its own brand of dread this 9/11 age.

On "Homeland," Damian Lewis stars as a recently released American POW who comes home from Afghanistan a hero after eight years' imprisonment. But a CIA officer played by Claire Danes has the unsettling suspicion that this celebrated patriot and family man has been "turned" by his al-Qaeda captors and is primed to carry out an attack against his own country.

"Ten years later, things have become deeper and more complex," said Alex Gansa, "Homeland" executive producer. "And the heart of this show is really psychological — how America is dealing with that 10-year period."

While 9/11 didn't drastically transform television, TV dramas 10 years later seem less ready than ever to leave it behind. Quite the opposite: The ripple effects radiate into the future for TV storytelling. Forgetting seems out of the question.

http://news.yahoo.com/9-11-tragedy-e...094611017.html

comments

What I saw on TV was a deliberate act by TV to avoid the truth that led up to 9-11. Mindless flag-waving and emotional pablum filled the airwaves. Anyone who tried to discuss the truth was chastized and unpatriotic. Journalist integrity became a joke. Blithering idiots spewed their idiocy all over the media. It it any wonder independent internet news sites became more popular? Is it any wonder people became far more skeptical of major news outlets?

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The article should have been titled: " 9/11 Exploited for a decade" ( Not just by TV).

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One of the stupidest premises I've encountered in some time. Who exactly was claiming that television would change and become more serious and contemplative? Possibly some idiot journalist covering the media in one of those fantastic echo chamber pieces where the MSM covers itself. No thinking person ever thought a tragic event would make television into a higher art form.

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Aside from the few shows mentioned in the article that addressed 9/11 in some manner, it seems there is more escapist-type drivel and a glut of the ridiculous like Hillbilly Handfishing and Wipeout, to name two. What should have motivated people to stand up and start being counted and fight for change, has actually caused mass apathy and a cavalier attitude based on fear and head-in-the-sand kind of mentality. We seem to want to dwell in distraction than to shine a light on the problems we are facing post-9/11.

[Jolie Rouge]

9/11 RememberedRemains found in 9/11 rubble linked to NYC man, 40
By KAREN ZRAICK - Associated Press | AP – 18 hrs ago

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City forensic technicians are still identifying human remains found in the rubble of the World Trade Center nearly a decade after the 9/11 attacks.

The office of New York City's medical examiner announced Tuesday that it had successfully matched a set of remains to 40-year-old Ernest James of New York, who had been assumed dead in the collapse.

A spokeswoman says James was identified within the last few days through DNA testing.

He worked for the professional services company Marsh & McLennan, which lost more than 350 employees and consultants. James' fiancée says he worked on an upper floor of the North Tower, the first building struck by hijackers.

http://news.yahoo.com/remains-found-...001149585.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Singing tenors help healing process, one 7th-inning stretch at a time
By Steve Henson, Yahoo! Sports | Yahoo! 9/11 10th Anniversary – 17 hrs ago

The singing of "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch of New York Yankees home games provides a communal reminder of the lives lost Sept. 11, 2001 -- of the heroism of first responders and the resolve of a nation to never forget. Stirring performances of the song thrust two tenors in particular to prominence and made them seemingly inseparable from homage to 9/11 and Yankee pinstripes.

Daniel Rodriguez, the "Singing Policeman," wore his NYPD uniform and created a flesh, blood and vocal cord connection to the men and women who worked tirelessly in the tragedy's aftermath. He sang "God Bless America" and "The Star Spangled Banner" at Yankee Stadium on many occasions, beginning with the nationally televised interfaith ceremony Sept. 23, 2001, called "A Prayer for America."

Ronan Tynan, a double leg amputee, physician and founder of the Irish Tenors, included a previously obscure first verse to his robust rendition of "God Bless America" and had sellout crowds joining in and shedding tears. He sang at the interfaith ceremony, at the Yankees' first home game after the tragedy two days later and at countless more games season after season.

Ten years later, however, Rodriguez and Tynan are no longer asked to sing at Yankee Stadium. Neither man will be part of the 10-year commemoration Wednesday. Both of their names are omitted from a page in the team's media guide devoted to the Sept. 23 and Sept. 25, 2001, memorials. Both men are bewildered.

The team cut ties with Rodriguez in 2007, and he believes it's because he committed the faux pas of singing "God Bless America" one time at Fenway Park, home of the Yankees' despised rivals, the Boston Red Sox. That the Yankees happened to be the visiting team that day didn't help. That the occasion was to honor first responders in Boston didn't matter. "I've been blackballed because of one game in Boston," Rodriguez said in an interview with Yahoo! "One thing I felt most connected to was the Yankees. I've volunteered to sing again but I don't get a response."

Tynan's gaffe was more egregious and it alienated him from more than just the Yankees. Two years ago he was accused of making an anti-Semitic comment by a Jewish woman who was considering moving into his apartment complex. The incident was reported in the tabloids, the Yankees immediately distanced themselves from Tynan and he was, he says, subjected to so much abuse on the streets of Manhattan that he moved to Boston. "I felt desperately isolated," Tynan said in an interview with Yahoo! "I got death threats. I got powder sent through the mail. I was abandoned. It was very frightening."

The Yankees declined to comment about either singer, although a team source downplayed Rodriguez's contention that he's been "blackballed" because he sang at Fenway Park. On September 11 the Yankees will be in Anaheim playing the Los Angeles Angels, so they will commemorate the anniversary Wednesday during the last game of their current homestand. Medal of Honor winner Sgt. First Class Leroy Arthur Petry will be honored along with other members of the armed forces.

Major League Baseball will join in observing September 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance, fitting because the national pastime played a significant role in our collective healing 10 years ago. Commissioner Bud Selig canceled all games for five days after the attacks. He agonized over whether to cancel the remainder of the season or resume play. He consulted with President George W. Bush and reflected on a January 1942 letter in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt urged commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis to "keep baseball going" through World War II. "I think it's important to play," Selig said at the time, "for the same reason the president said it was important to try to get things back to normal."

The impact was profound. Games resumed but time was taken to remember those who died at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in the plane crash in Pennsylvania. Emotional moments were plentiful, including the pregame ceremony at Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium when President Bush threw a strike with the ceremonial first pitch. Selig's decision to have every team replace "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" with "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch for the remainder of the 2001 season was widely praised. The Yankees are the only team that has continued the practice for 10 years. The song has been performed at every Los Angeles Dodgers home game the past three seasons. Every other team reserves it for Sundays, holidays and special occasions.

The Yankees' Sept. 11, 2002, tribute before their game against the Orioles was among the most moving anywhere. As police, fire and military officers unfurled an American flag recovered from the wreckage of the World Trade Center, legendary public address announcer Bob Sheppard said, "This flag represents the strength of the American resolve." Tynan sang "God Bless America," and fans began chanting "U-S-A, U-S-A." "You could feel the emotion in the crowd," Tynan recalled. "So many times I wanted to stop and let the crowd sing. But I felt I owed them and wanted to leave it out there with every bone in my body. If I didn't make that song special, I felt I would have betrayed them. I was with them 100 percent."

His camaraderie with the people of New York vanished in October 2009 on a day Dr. Gabrielle Gold-von Simson, a New York University Medical Center physician, was shown the apartment next to Tynan's. A few weeks earlier, according to Tynan, two Jewish ladies had been shown the apartment and Tynan spoke to them, telling them he was a tenor and liked to sing in his apartment. "Their response was hilarious," he said. "They said, 'Huh!' and just left. They weren't enamored by my profession."

So when Gold-von Simson looked at the apartment, Tynan again stuck his head in the door and asked the realtor about the prospective tenant. The realtor told him not to worry, that she wasn't a Red Sox fan, and Tynan said he replied, "As long as it's not those Jewish ladies. That would be scary."

Gold-von Simson overheard the exchange and was so insulted she contacted the Yankees, who severed ties with Tynan the next day. He contacted Gold-von Simson, apologized and made a donation to the charity of her choice. But it was too late. The tabloids ran with the story and Tynan was branded an anti-Semite. He continued to try to blunt the damage, singing at a national meeting of the Anti-Defamation League a few weeks later. The organization's director, Abraham Foxman, said, "It is our belief that when an individual who has a record of good works, as does Dr. Tynan -- who performed at many charitable events, particularly after 9/11, and for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan -- slips up on one occasion, a sincere apology should help everyone move on."

The Yankees haven't done so, and Tynan -- the last to sing "God Bless America" at the old stadium and the first to sing it at the new stadium -- remains persona non grata. So does Rodriguez, whose offense seems inconsequential, especially in light of Tynan's ordeal.

An NYPD officer who'd walked a beat in Brooklyn and worked undercover, Rodriguez was two blocks from Ground Zero when the Twin Towers came down. "A few times that day I made my peace with God," he said. "Then I just flipped to cop mode and got to work, helping any way I could."

Rodriguez spent 9/11 and the days and weeks afterward working to find survivors. One day Tynan was at Ground Zero as well, serving food to emergency responders. A man asked if he'd sing "God Bless America." "You realize it's so important for these wonderful men and women giving unconditionally," Tynan said. "While they were all working, I sang. Then two cops came up and asked me to sing 'Danny Boy.'"

Tynan and Rodriguez became friends, bonded by their mellifluous voices, their role in comforting New Yorkers and, especially, their shared communion singing to the sellout crowds at Yankee Stadium. Neither man was ever paid for doing so.

No doubt, the exposure boosted the careers of both tenors. Rodriguez has released two successful CDs. Tynan gets as much work as his voice can take. They will sing at multiple functions associated with the 10th anniversary remembrance of 9/11.

But others will do the singing at Yankee Stadium, night after night. "I sing for the [New York] Rangers, the Islanders, the Mets, but not the Yankees," Rodriguez said. "It's the same for Ronan. As we all do, he spoke one time without thinking. I sang one time at a Red Sox game. We represent something positive that came out of a tragedy. It's sad, really, when you think about it."

http://news.yahoo.com/9-11-mlb-ronan...s-america.html

[Jolie Rouge]

‘Ground Zero’ is a term that no longer applies, according to NYC mayor
By Jess Wisloski | The Upshot – 4 hrs ago

Ten years after the terrorist attacks, and less than a week from the ribbon-cutting at the new World Trade Center, the New York City mayor says it's time to retire Ground Zero.

In a speech delivered this morning on Wall Street, Michael Bloomberg said the new construction and memorial on the site has made the name no longer fitting, news site DNAinfo.com reports. "We will never forget the devastation of the area that came to be known as 'Ground Zero' -- never," Bloomberg told the Association for a Better New York at a breakfast appearance, adding that the "the time has come for us to call those 16 acres what they are: The World Trade Center and the National September 11th Memorial and Museum."

His call for the name change isn't the first: For years Downtown residents have asked officials to stop calling the two rising skyscrapers and eight-acre memorial "Ground Zero," according to the article, saying that moniker recognizes only the past destruction rather than the promise of recovery.

The largest tower at the new World Trade Center will reach 1,776 feet, becoming the tallest building in the country when completed, while towers two, three, and four will each be successively shorter.

Despite the years of construction delays and cost overruns, Bloomberg says the half-finished office complex on the site of the former twin towers is the center of a growing and vibrant neighborhood, which boasts its highest population since the 1920s.

Bloomberg pointed out that Lower Manhattan gained 4,000 new school seats, 19 new hotels, $260 million in new parks, and more new residents in the past decade than Atlanta, Dallas, and Philadelphia combined, DNAinfo.com reports. "New York has come roaring back faster than anyone thought possible," Bloomberg told his audience of community leaders.

In addition to the skyscrapers, the site's eight-acre memorial consists of two sunken foundations at the exact spots where the towers used to stand. Inside the foundations are reflecting pools, and bronze protective walls atop the pools are etched with victims' names. The memorial and the museum are set to open Sunday, on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. "I believe the rebirth and revitalization of Lower Manhattan will be remembered as one of the greatest comeback stories in American history," Bloomberg told the group. "And I believe it will stand as our greatest monument to those we lost on 9/11."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upshot/g...160024481.html

comments

You know, I can't really realize what this guy is about? First, no First Responders, then no Christians, and now he wants to change the name of the location - what does he want to call it? Bloomberg's Pearly Gates?

~~~

well I guess if we change it the name to "glitter and ponies" it's going to make all the memories go away ?

[Jolie Rouge]

5 ways "Rescue Me" succeeded in handling 9/11 on TV
The Week – 12 hrs ago

The New York firefighter drama ends Wednesday night, after seven seasons of capturing the complicated aftermath of our national tragedy

In 2004, Rescue Me became the first scripted television show to directly address the effects of 9/11 on America. Over its seven seasons, the show, which stars Denis Leary as a veteran New York City firefighter grappling with alcoholism and the death of his cousin in the 9/11 attacks, has alternately been called both brave and insensitive. With the series finale set to air Wednesday night — just four days before the tenth anniversary of the attacks — critics are reflecting on Rescue Me's groundbreaking portrayal of 9/11. Here, five talking points:

1. Rescue Me accomplished the "impossible"

As the nation reeled from tragedy, says Randee Dawn at MSNBC, it was "impossible to imagine" that a TV show could possibly make sense of 9/11. Yet that's precisely what Rescue Me did. Many assumed that viewers wouldn't "watch a show about such a painful time," says FX executive Tim Brooks. But Rescue Me offered a way to "refract our national outrage and sadness," says David Wiegand at The San Francisco Chronicle. The show "helped us personalize not only what survivors and family members are still going through a decade later, but maybe what [the rest of us] are feeling as well."

2. It gave us a protagonist whose imperfect reaction mirrored our own

Many people internalized the tragedy in ways that were alternately virtuous and destructive. Leary's troubled firefighter, Tommy Gavin, was a cathartic stand-in for that kind of reaction, says Tim Molloy at The Wrap. "Tommy wasn't an Everyman. He was better and worse." His inner turmoil reflected our own, says Matthew Gilbert at The Boston Globe, and we saw ourselves in "his raving hostility and cynicism, his challenged ideals, his unremitting sorrow." Yet underneath it all was his — and our — burning desire to do good.

3. It taught us to laugh off the tragedy

Rescue Me found the "humor in sad situations and the sadness of lighter moments," says Rick Bently at the Kansas City Star. Whenever things got too heavy on the show, says Molloy, "there was some banter about a penis that resembled a baby carrot, or a flatulent girlfriend, or an endless array of cheap stereotypes." It's the same humor that those who struggled to overcome the grief of the tragedy used, says show creator Peter Tolan. "This is how people move forward."

4. It honored and appealed to firefighters

The life of a firefighter portrayed on Rescue Me was certainly "dizzying," says Gilbert, swinging from "firehouse buffoonery to alcoholic grimness," from "a whisper to full-on alarm in a matter of moments." But firefighters quickly became some of the most passionate supporters of the show. "It showed we weren't angels and were just doing a job," says firefighter Lt. John Kilbane. We're a "functionally dysfunctional family."

5. It mercifully was not heavy handed

When looking back at the heroism of 9/11, films and TV shows too often film through a rose-colored lens, turning acts of bravery into pandering schmaltz. But Rescue Me avoided that tendency, says Molloy. "It handled its heavy questions without heavy-handedness or judgment." It showed the human capacity to "do great things, utterly waster our time, or hurt people around us — all at once."


http://news.yahoo.com/5-ways-rescue-...161500457.html