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Boston After 9/11, Selections
6 Digital inkjet
prints There is a memory stamped on the city of Boston after the events of September 11 that few other cities share. Many of our neighbors were lost. At least one, John Jenkins, who was killed on American Airlines flight 11, will not just be a name on a list. He lived right around the corner from me. I never met him. I probably never even saw him. But he was my neighbor and in one moment his apartment went from being just another apartment to a place that holds powerful memories for me. While I did not know him in life, I remember watching his death. The terrorists launched two of their attacks Boston and a number of them lived here. Nabil Al-Marabh plotted the attacks from Dorchester. Raed Hijazi drove a cab from Boston Cab Co. I cannot look at a Boston cab or drive down Boston Street in Dorchester without thinking of the men who attacked their own neighbors. Memorials are places of reflection and Boston is now filled with them. Mohammed bin Laden, Osama's brother, owns apartments in Charlestown. Fozia Karzai, sister of the interim prime minister of Afghanistan, owns a restaurant just down my street. These places never had special meaning to me, but now when I cannot pass them without feeling a personal link to the tragedy of September 11. When I think of the sudden proliferation of community based memorials I've seen, their numbers are dwarfed in comparison to the number of personal memorials that go unadorned with photos or candles. Every time I see a plane in the sky over Boston, the sky itself becomes a memorial as I remember that along the same departure pattern, the two planes that hit the World Trade Center left Boston. |