From the terminal we marched up Broadway stopping at several intersections such as Liberty Street to take pictures of using the World Trade Center (ground zero) as a backdrop. At Worth Street and Broadway we made a right and proceed to march another block or so to Foley Square. It was about 11 am when we arrived at the stage area and the crowd grew from hundreds to at least 2,000 or so (really 10-20 people according to MSNBCBS).
I set up in front of the stage and if the picture in the post was a bit wider you would see me in the lower left hand corner behind the guy with the yellow bordered sign. In fact, if you look closely you can see a sliver of my red jacket and hand and I am holding up my NEVER FORGET sign. I saw a NY1 news clip that does include me and if I can find it on the web I’ll post it.
The rally started promptly at 12pm and ran nonstop until 2:30pm. There were myriad speakers such as victims family members including the sister of one of the pilots on a plane that hit the WTC, the father of Todd (Lets Roll) Beamer, at least one survivor from the world trade center (burned over 90% of her body), first responders, a Marine, parents of a fallen soldier and of course couple of celebrities (of which I learned that Brian Dennehy was a Marine).
The rally was peaceful but you can tell that the crowd was indeed angry and justifiably so. There was also a lot of raw emotion at this rally as we were just blocks away from ground zero and we were standing in front of the court house which is the proposed venue to try the terrorists. Speaker after speaker punctuated their speeches with pointing to the federal court house building indicating that we would have to put up with this travesty for years to come.
These are dark days and they are numbered as everything this current administration wants to do they want it done in a hurry but we can stop this. Mr. Beamer summed it up best when he said that we are facing 9/11, The Sequel. He fired up the crowd with his “stop this attack” speech referring to the government sponsored, Holder delivered and Obama approved trial of enemy combatants. I will continue to fight.