Every day they come, with cameras in hand and children on their shoulders, to mill around silently at vantage points on Broadway, or Church Street or Greenwich Street. Three months after the World Trade Centre was destroyed, the lower Manhattan site has become a place of pilgrimage and the number-one tourist attraction in New York.
Visiting dignitaries to the city - the most recent was Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon - come in stretch limousines. New arrivals in the Big Apple on business or pleasure make their way down-town by taxi or subway. New Yorkers from the boroughs find themselves drawn to watch the relief operation and read the messages of sympathy at makeshift shrines.
There is plenty to see: cranes dropping wrecking balls through the floors of shattered buildings around the site; fire hoses shooting water jets onto still-smouldering debris; excavators grazing on the 15-acres of rubble like a herd of mechanical dinosaurs; grieving relatives in hard hats being shepherded around, and occasional sad little ceremonies as workers find human remains and carry them ceremoniously to an ambulance.
Some residents resent the crowds, which sometimes stand seven or eight deep at barricades and block the pavements. "How can we get on with our lives when we get victimised over and over," complained a reader to the Battery Park City Broadsheet. But mostly their presence is understood, and indeed it is welcomed by the businesses that have suffered from the devastation.
Among the "tourists of the revolution" are religious groups not just distributing pamphlets but offering practical help and money. Some 1,000 southern Baptists have travelled to New York at their own expense to help clean still-contaminated apartment blocks closest to the former Twin Towers. Armed with mops and buckets, and sleeping at night in an old jail, they have cleansed 500 flats so far.
Members of an alliance of evangelical clergy are currently handing out almost $1 million (€1.12 million) to small-business owners and employees. One of their number, Lousiville preacher Mr Dave Stone from the socially conservative church, Southeast Christian, has been dropping unannounced into premises and simply writing cheques: $2,300 for Koh's Kids on Greenwich Street, for example, and $2,500 for the owner of Conca Cucina pizzeria and $500 for each employee. "We want to give a cold cup of water in the name of Jesus," he said. Other church funds are on the way, including $14 million from Catholic Charities USA and $1.5 million from the Buddhist relief organisation Tzu Chi Foundation.
Such donations have brought some instant relief to a few of the estimated 14,000 businesses affected by September 11th, many of which still are waiting for the distribution of disaster funds. Whether it will be enough to keep them all here is something else. There is a haemorrhage of residents and a "Disaster Sale" notice goes up on a store window.
There are at least 50 per cent fewer customers in lower Manhattan today, reckons Mr Steven Greenberg, an adviser for retailers on real estate. The future of the area is in the hands of a commission, the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation, set up last week under the chairmanship of Mr John Whithead, former chairman of Goldman Sachs, to establish a memorial and rebuild the world's best-known financial heart. Mr Whithead has urged residents and businesses to be patient. But the patience of those most affected is running thin, as is their regard for Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, whose Office of Emergency Management, they say, has failed to respond to the concerns of downtown representatives.
The lack of information given to elected officials, especially on air quality near Ground Zero, is "nothing short of disgusting" said Community Board 1 chairperson, Ms Madelyn Wils. "We can't play Russian roulette with lives of the people who live and work here," said local Congressman Jerrold Nadler. With no centralised clean-up plan or place for information about air quality, rumours abound of dangerous asbestos dust in the air, encouraging the migration of residents, especially those with children. The best news for the district came this week from American Express which said it would return in the spring to its damaged headquarters at the World Financial complex, bringing 5,000 employees back to the area.
Meanwhile, the tourists keep coming. "It's a hot spot," said Mr Keith Yazmir, spokesman for the New York Convention and Visitor's Bureau. And the site's first new construction is under way: a platform to give a better view, and free up the streets.
