he only other time that Dennis and Judy Buchholtz of Warren, Mich., were in New York was about a decade ago, and they "drove through as fast as we could go - we didn't tarry," as Mr. Buchholtz put it.Posted on 08/31/2004 1:05:38 AM PDT by conservative in nyc
GROUND ZERO
he only other time that Dennis and Judy Buchholtz of Warren, Mich., were in New York was about a decade ago, and they "drove through as fast as we could go - we didn't tarry," as Mr. Buchholtz put it.
But they feel differently now. As soon as the Republican National Convention let out yesterday, they took a taxi to ground zero, wearing their matching shirts with the state outline appliquéd in red, white and blue on the back, their Bush-Cheney buttons and elephant pins and, in Mrs. Buchholtz's case, matching earrings (she is an alternate delegate).
"We've wanted to see it for, well, three years," Mr. Buchholtz said of the World Trade Center site, which was also depicted on his shirt. Walking along Church Street, they carefully read the signs describing the evolution and destruction of the World Trade Center and pondered its political lessons.
"You've got to give Bush credit," Mr. Buchholtz said. "They attacked us when he was president, and he went after them."
And then the Buchholtzes went to lunch - though not before a bystander roundly cursed their Republican anatomy as they climbed into a cab.
And so, even more than usual, cultures clashed at ground zero. Ruled off limits to formal political protests or organized patriotic parades, the edges of the scarred 17 acres became a place for people to act out the stresses and strains that are natural when a tidal wave of Republicans washes up on a rocky Democratic shore.
Which sometimes meant arguing. Heated words ("Saddam! Sudan!") issued from a small knot of people, at the center of which stood Steven Catanzaro, 45, of Clifton Park, N.Y., near Saratoga Springs. He and his wife were guests in the morning at the convention, having had the help of a relative who they said was an official in the Republican Party.
And then, still wearing his convention pass around his neck, he headed down to show his wife the site. And promptly got into a debate with a group of young people from Watsonville, Calif., who had flown in for the demonstration on Sunday and stayed "to heckle the delegates," said Jenn Laskin, 31, a teacher leading the group.
Her real goal, she said, was to show her charges a place where people "are different colors and all different nationalities," she said, adding that in her part of California, "it's Mexican and white."
She had come to the right place. The swirl of languages and nationalities at ground zero went on as usual yesterday, New Yorkers and tourists speaking Spanish and English and French and Icelandic and Urdu and Polish and Japanese.
A guy with a flute tootled "Amazing Grace." A television reporter repeated, "Well, there you have it," take after take after take. A leaflet lady passed out papers accusing George W. Bush and the C.I.A. of unimaginably complicated conspiracies.
If anything, it was a quiet day, at the site, but the shoppers' Babel that is Century 21 bustled as usual, though a diamante BUSH pin twinkled on one handbag-buyer's breast.Other Republican visitors may have decided to come incognito, as Bill and Janice Nearon did. She wore an elephant pin, to be sure, but it was small and made of silver and amber. Both of their outfits were dark toned, subdued, almost New York-ish. "That's the idea," Mrs. Nearon said.
A delegate from Michigan and a candidate for city commissioner in St. Clair Shores, she is a longtime head of the Republican Party in Macomb County.
Why had they come down to ground zero? "I think if you're going to a convention in New York, my goodness, you have to see the devastation at the World Trade Center," Mrs. Nearon said.
Another delegate, Spencer Stokes, of Utah, said he worries that people have forgotten about 9/11 and believes that they need to see the site for themselves. "I expect every delegate to come down here," he said.
Delphina Olivieri lives no farther away than Houston Street, but she had never visited before. "I'm not over it," she explained.
After an old friend, Dr. Jon Bjornson, came from Philadelphia to join her at the protest march on Sunday, she reluctantly decided to take him downtown yesterday. "I wanted to see it," he said.
Not that there was much to see. There was almost no activity at the site itself, which now looks much like any enormous construction project, full of rusted iron, shiny aluminum, pipes and cables and concrete.
That, and the lack of protesters, seemed to disappoint Sarah Skidmore, a senior at the University of Akron who drove to New York with a group of like-minded Republican friends. Peering at the site, she recalled that she had been there about a month after the attack.
And now? Looking toward the sky, she said, "I guess it does kind of seem a little empty up there."
Janon Fisher contributed reporting for this article.
They're the ones who declare "Dissent is patriotic," then they follow around the delegates to harass them. What's more of a patriotic dissent than having this convention in the heart of liberal land?
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