A TREE GROWS IN
MANHATTAN
The 9/11 attacks of infamy took place on a
September Tuesday eleven years ago.
We were – and are – in New Jersey, very nearby the World Trade Center site.
 |
| -- Spring 2012 -- The Survivor Tree in bloom with the under-construction "Freedom Tower" |
But is anything else “otherwise similar”?
Certainly I’m not the
one to say.
In fact I have argued that none of us can answer for any other, the
implications and ramifications of that day and all the interrelated actions on
all the days that followed being so personal.
On
the ten-year anniversary (see TGIM #321) I maintained that, while
we all share the experience and/or the aftermath of 9/11 in our collective
psyche, no one version of it aligns directly with any other.
That’s
the oddity of our human experience.
And
yet we keep trying to connect and, I suppose, that’s part of our “human” nature
as well.
Unfortunately,
locally, the attempt has become contentious at the Twin Towers site. And the
result to date is, in my experience, an odd mix of symbolic and impersonal on a
monumental scale.
As
many of you will know, the “footprints” of the towers have become cascades of
falling water, each surrounded by a bronze parapet recording the 2,983 names of
the men, women, and children killed in the attacks of September 11, 2001 and
February 26, 1993.
A
planned museum there is having difficulty getting opened. Newly constructed
buildings that surround the site are nearing completion; most notably One World
Trade Center (intended to be known as “Freedom Tower”) arguably the tallest
building in the Western Hemisphere by “pinnacle height,” with its spire
reaching a symbolic 1,776 feet in reference to the year of American
independence.
All
in all it’s being billed as “a tribute to
the past and a place of hope for the future.”
But -- I’ve been there. And,
right now, though the site does provide much to contemplate, for me it’s going
to have difficulty living up to its billing.
However … To me nothing manmade
at the Manhattan 9/11 Memorial is remotely as inspiring as what has become
known as –
The Survivor Tree
The tree was originally planted in the 1970s in the "old" WTC complex, in the vicinity of Buildings Four and Five.
The tree (a Callery pear, I learned by asking) is compelling for being the last living thing pulled from the smoking ruins -- long after recovery workers expected to find anything alive at the site -- and for having grown back from a charred and splintered stump to a full 30 feet.
Workers
freed it and it was nursed back to health when it arrived in November 2001 at
the Parks Department’s Arthur Ross Nursery in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. And
even there it had to survive a devastating hurricane before it was replanted in
2010 at its current location in Manhattan.
New
York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the tree is a testament to New York's "ability to endure" and "unshakeable belief in a brighter
future."
I agree. And that ability and
belief leads me to this observation –
The tree is there.
And it’s Growing.
TGIM TAKEAWAY: Isn’t growing
what we all must be doing; what we
all must do as part of our human experience and human nature?
If
we are to find a “place of hope for the
future” we can’t be mired in the past. We must continue to grow; actively
work at creating the envisioned “brighter future.”
But wait. There’s more.
I’d like to point
out:
The lesson and example of The Survivor Tree does not lie in the tree alone. Its
survival did not happen by coincidence … or luck … or “good fortune” … or
happenstance … or (pick your own “wishful thinking” mantra).
The
tree, and its continued existence and “growth” into iconic status, is more than
symbolic. It’s evidence of what can be accomplished by the involvement and
commitment of many.
TGIM ACTION IDEA: Continued growth is
seldom successfully accomplished by individual effort alone. It may begin with
some enduring inward fortitude. But that alone is seldom sufficient.
The
charred remnant that was salvaged from the rubble needed much nurturing. Without
the interest and activity of many, many others, there would be no “A
Tree Grows In Manhattan” story to tell or lesson to be gained.
TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Good can come from
bad, but it takes foresight, a vision, leadership, teamwork and cooperation.
Skills – some specialized, some simply heart-felt human caring -- need to be in
place.
Then
they need to be rallied. The project needs supporters and cheerleaders (and
these are not necessarily the same). There needs to be an understanding that
setbacks may happen, but they need not be fatal. And if and when success is
achieved, praise and recognition for the deserving is in order.
How about your
brighter future?
Starting today -- or maybe on September 11, 2012-- the singular thing we can each do to insure we get
the “good” from the bad is to “grow” the relationships that benefit us all.
That’s
would be the happiest ending to the “A Tree Grows In Manhattan” story.
Geoff
Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing
8
Depot Square
Englewood,
NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com
| Parks Department employees Robert Zappala (at left) and Richie Cabo nursed The Survivor Tree back to health. |
"It had one branch that had one tiny little shoot coming
out of it, with a leaf on it," Clough said. "It was
like the only glimmer of hope there was."
"I think of the way the city bounced back
and the way the tree keeps bouncing back," Cabo said.
"It's a New Yorker."
