Brian Kypling, a worker on the WTC, NYC 1973

In case of loss please return to Brian Kipling 3540 Willet Avenue

I found the pic someone took of me the other day

March 22, 5.20 pm dammit.

I open my eyes. twenty past five, like every other morning. Claire wakes up too and slowly slides outside the bed. “I’m gonna make some coffee”, says, while going down the stairs.

I barely sit on the bed. It’ seems like I just got home and another day has already started.It’s raining outside, and it’s still dark. I’m looking for the overall in the dim-light of the room, still dirty from yesterday, and the day before. I wear it and I catch up with Claire in the kitchen; a sip of coffee, a tender kiss, and I’m off to work. Now it rains even more. I open the umbrella and leave my apartment near Gun Hill Road Station, throwing myself through the street of the Bronx, the same where I roamed as a kid. My father before me was a workman and wasn’t able to afford anything better than this.

The city slowly wakes up. Crossing Williams Bridge, to the sound of the rain adds up the noise of the first cars that travel on the road underneath. A police patrol slowly pass me by and turn in Webster Avenue.

I start to walk faster, it takes more than one hour to go to the construction site of the World Trade Center, where I work, and I still have about one mile and a half by foot to cover to get the metro at the Bedford Park Station.

On the left I take Reservoir PI and I walk along the Williams Bridge Oval Park. I don’t meet too many people: at this time the park, without any enclosure, it’s only populated by drunk and tramps.

I move avoiding the big puddles in the street holes and the smelling piles of wet trash spread around the Bronx. I take the Bainbridge Avenue. In the street lights the buildings look even more crumbling.

I continue crossing Mosholu Park. The rain doesn’t seem to stop and the traffic underneath starts to intensify. I’m near. At the crossing with 201st street I turn right. The sound of the train tells me I’m near, again. After a couple of yards, I arrive at the Bedford Park Boulevard Station, but by the number of people anxiously waiting I get that something’s off. A notice confirms what I feared, “Due to the flooding of the rail track, the metro line D is momentarily suspended”.

I get out of the station and decide to take the bus.

There’s no chance of getting under the loading platform, crowded of people that, like me, need to get to Manhattan. And I wait, under the pouring rain, that has already soaked my uniform up to the knees. After a few minutes, the bus arrives and I’m able to find a seat next to man who’s wearing a work overall too. We leave, off to Manhattan.

It’s already sunrise. I look outside the window the worn-out faces of people around the West Bronx: some are coming home from a night of drinking, some are going to work; I cannot tell them apart.

The bus goes through the 207th street bridge on the Harlem river. The rain is stopping and in the distance I see the clouds letting the sunshine in. I gaze to the Manhattan skyline starting to be lit by the sun. The twin towers stand out against the whole skyline, shining high. “They seem to belong to another world” says out of nowhere the man sitting next to me, he’s staring at the towers too. Without turning to him I say “they do”. Even if I spent there nearly every day of my life since 4 years ago, they’ll never be really part of it.

The bus suddenly stops and distract me from my thoughts. It’s my stop. I wave at the man I just met and I rush to get down the bus. The Harlem river draws the line between the Bronx and Manhattan and now I find myself in the far away Inwood neighborhood on the Jersey Coast. I go to the St. Nicholas Ave Station, crossing of the lines D and A, that goes from upper to downtown Manhattan. Here the metro finally works. I go down the stairs that take to the rail tracks. The walls of the tunnel are full of graffiti that invaded not only the metro stations but also every New York alley.

I rush out the station, the sky is completely clear.

In front of me, the park, clean, with surveillance and no one was is there, except for the streetsweepers that are closing their shift. The park stretches as far as the eye can see, from left to right. Behind it, the imposing Upper West Side’s buildings, so different from the demoted blocks of flats of the Bronx.

It’s nearly seven o’clock, I have to hurry, I don’t want to be late. I walk along the park on Central Park West to go to Columbus Circle.

There, I turn left, to the crossing with 7th Avenue.

I have to traverse this long street to go to the 14th street station. I walk fast. Here, in the heart of Manhattan, the yellow cabs are covered by the long shadows of the enormous skyscrapers, while they queue up. People are walking like the smallest of ants, in between the feet of these giants.

Going ahead on the street, I see the Empire State Building starting to come out from the blocks.

There has been a time when it was the tallest building ever made. I look for the twin towers of the World Trade Center in between the tops of the other skyscrapers, new winners of the title. As seen from Manhattan, they stand out as majestic as ever, ruling the whole city.

Eventually, the street opens up on Times Square. This corner of Manhattan is already at the top of their work frenzy. The skyscraper of the New York Times tops the square.

I continue walking, crossing the Garment District, between the 39th and the 34th street, the fashion district catches my eye. It has been some time since this part of the 7th avenue has been given the name of Fashion Avenue, as some signs say. Some random women calmly walk down the street stopping by, from time to time, some shining shop windows that exhibit expansive high fashion dresses. Nothing has ever been so distant from my dirty work overall.

After one block I can see the Madison Square Garden on the right. The NBA season it’s ending, how bad I would love to be in that stadium next month, when the Knick’s will play for the title as with the Los Lakers in the Finals.

Walking along, I arrive at the crossing of the 14th street and the station. From here the towers are so big that they seem so close, but in reality I still have some road to cover. I’m late, because of the incoveniences with the transportation, I hope I can get lunch in time. The C metro line works. I’m able to hop on the train that was already waiting at the stop. Luckily. After one second the doors close behind me. After a few minutes I get down at the Chambers street stop.

I exit the station; on the edge of the tunnel already starts the work site of the World Trade Center and the twin towers welcome me in their whole majesty. At the entrance the other workers are in line to get lunch. I take mine, and I enter. After receiving today’s to do list from the boss, I go to the WTC2. I take the elevetor. While I go up, Manhattan shrinks; now to see the tops of those buildings I have to look down instead of up.

The view on the skyline and Central Park it’s breathtaking. I look beyond. From here even Bronx seems part of this beauty. The more I go up, the more the differences seem to disappear: everything becomes equally small in this view that embrace the whole New York City.

This REALLY is another world.

April 7, Saturday