Tonight In Manhattan

Breathtaking photo of the Tribute in Light one night before the 13th anniversary of 9/11 (captured by @GaryHershorn) pic.twitter.com/Ax4ecxscG5

— New York Post (@nypost) September 11, 2014

Second Circuit Court Of Appeals Rules That WTC Cross Isn't A Religious Symbol

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the public display of the so-called WTC Cross is a secular remembrance of the 9/11 attacks and not a religious symbol.

“Thank God,” said Father Brian Jordan, the Franciscan priest who had the cross pulled from Ground Zero weeks after an excavator showed it to him. “In a way, we’ve been vindicated. I’m satisfied and gratified that this will go down as a piece of history — as a reminder.” American Athiests had tried to get the cross booted from the museum, claiming a constitutional church-state violation. “Atheists died on 9/11, members of our organization suffered in lower Manhattan on that day, and our members helped with the rescue and recovery efforts, yet we are denied equal representation in the National Museum,” American Atheists President David Silverman said in a statement.

American Atheists say they may seek an en banc review of the decision or appeal directly to SCOTUS.

9/11 Museum: 10 Year Time-Lapse

Clip description:

A letter from the CEO & Founder of EarthCam: It's been a heroic undertaking to rebuild downtown New York City after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Within days of this national tragedy, I personally installed a camera to webcast the rescue and recovery for the families, and the world, to see the brave determination of first responders. As the recovery effort continued, we installed more cameras to document the rebuilding and construction of the site. This commemorative time-lapse honors the victims of 9/11 and is dedicated to their families and friends, with special gratitude to the first responders and the steadfast construction teams.

9/11 Museum Dedicated In NYC

President Obama is in Manhattan this morning for the dedication of the 9/11 Museum, which finally opens to the public next week after years of delay. Among those attending the ceremony: The First Lady, Mayor Bill De Blasio, former mayors Rudy Guiliani and Michael Bloomberg, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Gov. Chris Christie, and the Clintons.

Some object to the $24 admission price for the public, including 9/11 families who have said it makes the museum a “revenue-generating tourist attraction.” (Victims’ families and several other categories of visitors are allowed to see the exhibit for free.) Revenue generated by the museum, which has a projected $60 million annual operating budget, allows the Memorial fountains and plaza to remain free and open to the public, museum officials have said. Meanwhile, the museum, a private, not-for-profit institution, is still fighting for federal funding. Efforts to secure federal funding for the 9/11 museum have been blocked in Congress. The museum directors had hoped to open three years ago, for the 10th anniversary of the attacks, but the project has endured funding disputes, building delays and even a flood caused by Superstorm Sandy. When asked what the most contentious issue has been, museum director Greenwald answered, "Everything."

The 110,000 square foot museum descends seven stories into the bedrock that once supported the towers. It contains over 10,000 artifacts, 23,000 photos, and more than 500 hours of film.

RELATED: Longtime JMG readers might recall that in 2011 I was solicited by the museum to donate a piece of artwork that I rescued from the front of a Chelsea grammar school during a rainstorm one week after the attack. I'm very curious to see if the piece has made it into the exhibit and if the museum's curators were able to establish the name of the child who created it.

WTC Cross Appeal Opens On Thursday

Oral arguments begin Thursday in the American Atheists lawsuit to have the so-called WTC Cross removed from government property in downtown Manhattan. Via the Christian Post:

Two days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, construction workers found a cross beam among the wreckage of the Twin Towers. Measuring 17 feet tall and approximately 4,000 pounds, the piece of debris became known as the World Trade Center cross, and for many, became a symbol of hope amid despair. When the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation completed its national 9/11 Memorial and Museum in 2011, the WTC cross was included among the items displayed. In July 2011, American Atheists filed suit against the museum for having the WTC cross and for reportedly lacking other secular and religious images of a non-Christian nature. The suit was filed before the New York Supreme Court, County of New York, and named among its defendants the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the 9/11 Museum, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. "The installation of the cross at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum is facially violative of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America," reads the suit in part.

A lower court ruled against American Atheists last March, saying that the cross has "historical significance" that outweighs concerns about the separation of church and state.

9/11 Truther Crashes Press Conference For Super Bowl 2014 MVP Winner

9/11 Scandal Roils NYPD And FDNY

More than one hundred former New York City police officers and firefighters have been indicted for falsely claiming to have been disabled in the aftermath of 9/11.

Though the former New York City police officers and firefighters were supposed to be fully disabled -- some suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- images in court documents released Tuesday painted a starkly different picture. One man smiled behind shades and flipped the bird aboard a Sea-Doo personal watercraft. Another sat at the controls of a helicopter. A mixed martial arts instructor posed with arms crossed. They're seen riding motorcycles, hauling in massive sailfish, slugging softballs for the "NYPD Blues," taking jump shots, running half marathons and golfing, and even giving television news interviews while selling cannoli at Manhattan's famed San Genaro festival. They are among the more than 100 retired New York City police and firefighters indicted in a massive Social Security disability scam involving hundreds of millions of dollars, authorities said. More than half the recipients received funds for fraudulent claims for PTSD in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the World Trade Center.

The main defendants include a police union official and a disability specialist who stand accused of coaching hundreds of applicants on how to fill out disability forms and how to behave during during doctor visits.

Rosie O'Donnell: 9/11 Truther

Rosie O'Donnell spent yesterday's anniversary arguing 9/11 truther conspiracy theories on Twitter. 

NEW YORK: Atheist Group Loses Bid To Block Display Of 9/11 Cross

On Friday a federal court dismissed the lawsuit filed by an atheist group that objects to the display of a "9/11 cross" at the soon-to-open 9/11 Memorial Museum.

Judge Batts wrote that the cross and its accompanying panels of text helped “demonstrate how those at ground zero coped with the devastation they witnessed.” She called its purpose “historical and secular,” and noted that it would be in the “Finding Meaning at Ground Zero” section of the museum, with placards explaining its meaning and the reason for its inclusion. “No reasonable observer would view the artifact as endorsing Christianity,” the judge said. She added, “The cross does not create excessive entanglement between the state and religion.” She said the plaintiffs also failed to find any form of intentional discrimination or cite any adverse or unequal treatment on the basis of their religious beliefs.

Lawyers for the memorial argued that the display is the work of a private non-profit even though about one-third of the memorial's annual funding will come from the federal government. The cross was donated by New York City firefighters. American Atheists plans to appeal the ruling.

WTC Museum Construction To Resume

After more than a year of delays, an agreement has finally been reached to resume the construction of the museum at the site of the former World Trade Center. The museum had been scheduled to open today.

In negotiations over the weekend, aides to Bloomberg and Cuomo resolved long-standing disputes over which government agencies would pay for the costs of the museum and which officials would oversee it. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey then agreed to the arrangement. Christie and Cuomo share control over the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, while Bloomberg heads the Sept. 11 foundation, which oversees the national memorial and museum at the former World Trade Center site and the annual commemoration. “I’m very gratified that on the eve of this important anniversary we are able to announce an agreement that will ensure the completion of the 9/11 museum,” Bloomberg said in a statement Monday night. He added that the agreement ensured that construction “will be restarted very soon and will not stop until the museum is completed.” The tentative resolution involves additional cash payments from the Sept. 11 foundation for construction costs, closer coordination among the parties and the creation of an advisory committee to resolve disputes.

RELATED: Last year I was invited to the museum's temporary office to donate the above drawing which I rescued from the front wall of a Chelsea elementary school one week after the attack. I've been keen to visit the museum to see how the drawing is presented in what I was told will be a rotating collection of artwork related to 9/11.

New World Trade Center Time-Lapse

New York State Moves Primary Date

Yesterday Gov. Cuomo signed a bill to move New York's primary to Thursday, September 13th. Because from now on we can't do anything official on any September 11th.

“I believe that Sept. 11 is a day that people should reflect on what happened,” the assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, said last week, as the issue was being discussed. He added that “people should focus on that, rather than being bombarded with telephone calls” encouraging them to go to their polling place. The state’s primary is traditionally held on the second Tuesday after Labor Day, which this year falls on Sept. 11. The State Senate approved legislation last week to move the primary, and the Assembly followed suit on Monday.

On September 11th, 2001 I'd been a New Yorker for less than six months. I started the day by voting in my first ever New York primary. But my choice for NYC mayor, popular Democrat Mark Green, was narrowly defeated by Bloomberg after "Mayor Of The World" Rudy Giuliani handed over his post-attack endorsement. (But not before Giuliani lobbied for an "emergency extension" of his tenure.)

Mark Bingham's Mom Fires Back

TMZ interviews Alice Hoagland, the mother of openly gay 9/11 hero Mark Bingham.

"Yes, my gay son was known in our family for bringing me flowers on my birthday and Mother’s Day. He also was known for careening down the rugby pitch, and, on the morning of September 11, 2001, for charging unarmed down the aisle of a doomed Boeing 757 to face knife-wielding Islamist thugs in a hijacked cockpit."

She adds, "No one among his pick-up team of fellow passengers was asking 'Are you straight? Are you gay?' No one doubted that a guy who weighed 220 and stood 6’4” tall - who could run over a charging opponent on the field, and ran with the bulls in Pamplona earlier that summer - would be an asset to a desperate group trying to overcome a threat onboard an airliner."

"The world has its share of strong, heroic gay men. Gay men in sports uniforms and military uniforms have been winning America’s games and fighting America’s battles for a long time: quietly, humbly, and in the face of vicious bigotry." "I hope you and I may have an opportunity to talk sometime. I prefer to believe you didn’t mean to offend. Good luck to you."

BAM! Also: Suh-NAP!

Tweet Of The Day

Follow WTC Progress for some nut-shriveling photos of steelworkers walking the beams at a thousand feet up.

Gay Marriage Caused 9/11

"Satan has warred mightily against this region, and has effectively neutralized it through the influence of principalities of rationalism, humanism, intellectual pride and spiritual arrogance. Massachusetts, as well as all of New England, has become a cemetery of churches, a breeding ground for heretical doctrine, and intellectual furnace energizing attitudes of godlessness, rational arrogance and secularism. It is no coincidence, of course, that something as dramatically distant from the Christian worldview as gay marriage would be originated in this region.

"Is it exaggerated to see prophetic significance in the fact that on September 11, 2001 Boston served as the point of departure for the deadly forces that spread so much destruction and havoc in this nation and all over the world? What took place at the material level is now being carried out at the moral and spiritual level, as the virus of homosexuality and gay marriage begins to spread dramatically all over this nation and perhaps the world." - Pastor Roberto Miranda, whose endorsement of Mitt Romney was touted yesterday on Romney's official campaign site. (Via Right Wing Watch & Good As You)

What Does This Look Like?

A skyscraper project in Korea has some New Yorkers fuming.

An architecture firm said Friday it “regrets” a bizarre design for two high-rises in Korea reminds people of the twin towers exploding on 9/11. A mockup shows two soaring skyscrapers connected in the middle by a “pixelated cloud” that evoked the clouds of debris that erupted from the iconic World Trade Center towers after terrorists flew planes into them. “What the hell were these architects thinking?” asked the headline on a Gizmodo article about the plans for the Seoul apartment buildings. MVRDV, which is based in the Netherlands, insisted in a statement that it didn’t notice the uncanny similarity that struck many observers instantly.

To my mind, any two towers with the WTC's proportions would evoke 9/11. The Korean towers are scheduled to be completed in three years.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin: 9/11 Was Predicted In The Torah & Was Totally Planned By Hitler

"The Torah, in ancient Jewish wisdom the Bible, actually explains something which we have lived through which is one of the great mysteries: the plot of 9/11. Not only do we find references in Zachariah to four mysterious crafts that come through between two mountains made of metal, in biblical terminology mountains can be natural mountains or also anything tall that grows up like two buildings, also the idea that the plot was hatched not in Mecca or Medina or Riyadh or anywhere else in Saudi Arabia, that plot was hatched in Hamburg, Germany, and was based on a dream that Adolf Hitler had in 1943 which was to fly suicide Luftwaffe German air force bombers into the towers of Manhattan." - Whackadoodle Orthodox Rabbi Daniel Lapin, speaking to Pat Robertson on the 700 Club.

9/11 Was A Faith-Based Initiative

Quote Of The Day - Paul Krugman

"What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons. A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity? The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it." - Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, writing for the New York Times.

RELATED: Krugman's column has already caused furor in the rightwing blogosphere, with GOProud's Chris Barron tweeting that Krugman "may be the most despicable human being to ever wander the planet."

That Day

This story makes its seventh annual appearance on JMG today.

Manhattan, September 11th, 2001

That day, I got to my office on 42nd Street at about 8:55am. About ten minutes later, I got a call from Thomas in Orlando. "Honey, you should look out your window because a plane just hit the World Trade Center!"

I have a fabulous view of the Chrysler Building from my office, but to see the World Trade Center I had to go downstairs and walk over to Fifth Avenue. There was already a crowd on every corner, shielding their eyes against the morning sun. All we could see was a plume of smoke. Just as I got back into my office, the word spread that a second plane had struck.

A few minutes later someone reported that the subways had stopped running and it only took about another 15 minutes before office decorum began to dissolve. Davita, our normally stoic sales manager, began sobbing, worrying about getting home to her daughter in Brooklyn. Some of our staffers nervously took post at our windows overlooking Grand Central Terminal, watching the sky over the Chrysler Building one block away. We all tried calling our families but got nothing but busy signals.

Our CEO called us into the conference room at 10am and announced, "It appears that the United States is under attack. I'm suggesting that we all try to make our way to our homes at once. Please call the office tomorrow before you come in, to see what our situation is." His voice was overloud, his nerves overcoming his normally lilting Liverpool accent.

A moment later someone with a radio announced, "One of the towers just collapsed." That sent the office scrambling for the door. A few minutes later I was on the street. I headed towards my apartment on 22nd Street in Chelsea and had just turned south onto Sixth Avenue when the second tower collapsed. I watched the top half of the building slide from view. Everybody stopped walking and stood in silent horror. From our distance there was no noise.

As I continued walking I began to pass people in varying states of distress. Lines began to form in front of payphones as cellphones were now useless. Taking a cue from Hurricane Andrew, I decided to stop at an ATM and get all the cash I could, remembering that it was weeks before the machines were restocked in South Florida. Lots of people had the same idea, there were long lines at every ATM that I passed. I was almost home before I finally found a deli with an unnoticed ATM in the back.

I pulled $300 from the ATM and headed up front with my cash, where I heard a couple of guys telling the clerk that they were going to head downtown and offer their help to the firemen. That hadn't occurred to me and it seemed like a good idea just then. Then a woman rushed in looking for bottled water, saying that she'd heard that the water supply was being turned off because it had been poisoned. That seemed quite possible, in the context of the day, so I followed her to the back of the store and picked up four gallons of water. I added a disposable camera to my purchase and struggled out. Once home, I changed into my heaviest jeans and my work boots. Our cable was out, the radio stations were out, so without much information I headed downtown.

There were crowds of people on most corners, staring southward. Anybody with a transistor radio drew an immediate crowd. The only stations on the air were those with towers in New Jersey. I got as far as Canal Street when I first encountered a police road block. They seemed to be stopping vehicles only, but when I tried to walk past the cops, they turned me back, saying, "Residents only." I guess I didn't look like someone who might live in Chinatown.

Above: Every corner offered a fresh perspective on the horror.Above: I veered east on Canal and a few blocks away I found many thousands of people walking home to Brooklyn across the Manhattan Bridge.Above: People were in a trance. There was little talking, just an occasional glance back at the smoke plume.Above: I walked out onto the upper part of the bridge and took this picture.Above: When I headed back south, along the edges of the financial district, I found many people wearing facemasks. I still have no idea where these thousands of masks came from, but when I came across one lying on the ground, I put it on.Above: The first physical evidence of the attack that I found was this heavy dusting. Above: This abandoned fruit stand struck me as a sign of the terror that must have reigned just a couple of hours earlier because the owner even left his cash box behind. It was lying open with money visible.Above: This cop wouldn't let me go past his corner, but he did tell me that he heard that volunteers were being advised at the Ferry Building. He didn't seem very convincing, I think he just wanted me to go away.

A few feet away, a female cop started screaming at some people who'd arrived with cameras. She shouted, "You're horrible ghouls! This is a terrible disaster and you fucking want souvenirs!" I shoved my camera deeper into my pocket. One of the guys shouted back at her, "This is history, lady! Terrible, terrible history! People need to know what we are seeing!"Above: This is John Street, looking west. Those spots on the picture are tiny pieces of paper, raining down from some damaged skyscraper.Above: Just around the corner, I was about 100 feet up the block when a gust of wind brought thick smoke down on top of me just as I was taking this picture. The darkness of the smoke prevented the camera from showing that this shoe was just one of dozens lying in the street. People had run right out of their shoes in the panic. I was very glad to have my facemask right then. Above: Taking this photo of the Stock Exchange almost got me sent to Leavenworth. As I learned a moment later, taking pictures of financial institutions during national emergencies can be considered an act of treason because you might be providing proof to the enemy of what they did or did not accomplish. While the news reporter standing next to me vehemently argued his case, I slipped away.

From here, I walked south to the Ferry Building, where as I suspected, there was no gathering of volunteers, just some dazed looking ferry employees and some passengers hoping for service to Staten Island. This is when I decided to give up on volunteering that day, there was just nobody around to report to. Nobody seemed in charge of anything, except the lone cops in charge of guarding their portion of the disaster's perimeter. The route to the west side of Manhattan was blocked from the Ferry Building, so I doubled back and circled the entire financial district, counter-clockwise, until I got to Battery Park City, intending to walk home up the West Side Highway.

I joined a ragtag group of office workers, perhaps a dozen or so, who'd just braved coming out of their buildings, and we walked on the sidewalk along the Hudson. We'd just about gotten to Tribeca when a police SWAT team of sorts appeared before us. One of them barked at us through his megaphone, which was a bit funny because he was only about ten feet away.

"You may not proceed in this direction. You may not return the way you came. You must all now join a mandatory evacuation of this area."

OK, fine. But if we can't go forward and we can't go back, what do we do?

"This tugboat is waiting to deliver you safely to Jersey City."

TUGBOAT? And indeed, moored there was a tugboat, one of those pushing things that steer the cruise ships into the harbor. The cops made us get on the tugboat. We protested, of course.

"This is for your own safety. We cannot allow you people to be wandering around this area. Once safely on the Jersey City side, you can re-enter Manhattan via the PATH train to the 33rd Street Station."

The tugboat crew had to lift us down onto the boat as there was no real dock there. In my group of evacuees was a dog walker who had eight tiny dogs on leashes. Once on the tugboat, it was noticed that the deck of the boat, which was an open-grill of sorts, was too wide for the little dogs' feet. We were each handed one of the dogs to hold while we crossed the Hudson. I got the pug. Above: This is the view as we pushed back from the west side of Manhattan.
Above: When we were about halfway across, another building collapsed. I never figured out which one it was, but you can tell it was just north of the Twin Towers.Above: This young paramedic stood with his hands over his mouth, sobbing. No one spoke to him. Above: On the Jersey City side, we were met by eager emergency workers who seemed genuinely disappointed that we had no injuries. A young girl gave me a wet towel to wipe my face and I was surprised to see the towel turn black after just one pass across my forehead. I walked through a big crowd of EMT's all set up with no one to treat. They were just sitting in chairs, watching the smoke rise from downtown Manhattan.

I heard one of the tugboat people ask about the PATH train, and she was told, "Oh, no. There will be no trains to Manhattan for at least 72 hours, by order of the Port Authority. The bridges and tunnels are closed too. You folks are going to have to make do over here for a few days."

I was furious. The cops on the Manhattan side had lied to us to get us onto the tugboat. I argued with a couple of the cops, telling them with great indignation of how we'd been deceived. One of them looked at me and said, "Buddy, if you want me to feel sorry for you, you need to turn around and look back at what you just left."

That shut me up.

A moment later, I had another attack of anger, this time at myself. I'd forgotten to take the $300 cash out of my work pants. I was in Jersey City, by myself, and in my pockets I had a disposable camera, an expired California driver's license and $6. I have no idea where the $6 came from. It could have been there since before I moved to NYC.

Trying to quell panic, I walked away from the pier towards downtown Jersey City in the direction of the PATH train station. I passed a young man sitting on a bike, studying the scene across the Hudson. Even in my very upset state of mind, I noted that he was very handsome.

"Joe! Is that you?"

I turned around. The guy on the bike was from San Francisco! He and I had fucked around once shortly after I got to SF and from then on I'd seen him out at the clubs every so often. My spirits lifted, maybe he could put me up for three days?

"Hi Ricky! What are you doing in New York?"

"Actually, I live here in Jersey City. I'm going to school here now. Been here for about a year. What a day, huh? Oh, here comes my boyfriend."

And up walked a Port Authority cop. I couldn't believe my luck. I quickly explained my situation to them. The cop looked me up and down, then said, "Well, you can understand why they lied to you over there. You must have been in a dangerous area. And we've been told there will be no trains, tunnels or bridges open for at least 72 hours. But...."

But?

"There is going to be one more inbound train to Manhattan in about 20 minutes. The train's gonna be all fire-rescue and search units from Jersey. You could probably walk right onto that train and no one would stop you. You could pass for fire-rescue. Just don't talk to anybody. They're all from different units so they don't know each other anyway."

A few minutes later, Ricky's boyfriend, the Port Authority cop, walked me past the other cops and through the yellow tape blocking the PATH station entrance. We shook hands at the top of the escalator and I headed down. At the bottom of the escalator, I nearly gave myself away by instinctively heading for the fare machine, my $6 in my hand. Then I saw a fireman jump the turnstyle and I whirled around and did the same. The train left almost the moment I got on. I made it by 20 seconds, tops. Nobody spoke on the ride over. Not one word. I sat at the far end of the car and tried not to meet anybody's eyes, even though it was too late to throw me off.Above: When we reached the 33rd Street station in Manhattan, I walked upstairs to find the streets completely deserted of cars and buses. I have no idea where all those vehicles went, but this picture of Seventh Avenue, looking north, is the proof. That's the west entrance of Macy's on the right.

I walked home to Chelsea for the second time, that day.