Essay Contest Loser

Essay Contest Loser

Here's an essay I entered in a local magazine's "Life Along the Hudson" contest. It didn't win, or even achieve runner-up status, and I realize now that it's way too negative for such a boosterish magazine. (It wouldn't have fit too well among the real-estate-oriented ads.) It probably has other problems, too. Nevertheless, I enjoyed writing it, so why not put it out there....

RIVER VIEW

For 17 years, from late 1989 to 2006, I lived a half block from one of the smallest and least known parks in Hudson County: Riverview-Fisk Park in Jersey City. It was the site of some of the most pleasurable, reflective and shocking moments of my life.

Located between Ogden and Palisade Avenues at the top of a cliff, Riverview-Fisk is a narrow "vest pocket" park with inspiring views of the Hudson and Manhattan. Packed into this small urban oasis is a gazebo, a playground, a basketball court, a community garden, a bronze bust of Henry Hudson, and pathways that wind around ancient trees and amoeba-shaped green spaces.

The most enjoyable times I spent there were with my young son. I remember teaching him not to be afraid of a playground slide, how to ride a bicycle, and how to catch and hit a baseball. When he was very young, the park was our fantasy land. He dressed up like a cowboy with a (squirt) gun, a knight in shining (plastic) armor, and a pirate who waved a (rubber) sword. The adults in the park were agreeable enough to pretend to be terrified during his play-acting; the other kids, depending on their age, were amazed or simply rolled their eyes.

I would often take long walks by myself in the park, especially when I had something to think over. When I was fired from my job in New York, and found myself with lots of spare time, I became one of those sad-faced people you sometimes see in public places, the slow walkers who seem to have no particular destination. After rambling for a while, I would often sit on a bench for a few minutes, gazing at the New York skyline and wondering where it had all gone wrong.

Some might say I should have been working on my resume or making phone calls, but I didn't think of that time as wasted. I needed to reinvent myself, professionally, and I had to figure out which direction to take. So as I trod those meandering paths and stared at the river, I gradually came to conclusions about what a really wanted, something I wouldn't have been able to do while "keeping busy." That's one of the things parks are for, I think: they give us space to think, away from the all our high-speed, hyperlinked madness.

The park wasn't always a refuge. My most memorable experience there took place on September 11, 2001. That morning, my wife, Beth, left for her job at 7 World Trade Center as usual, and I made sure my son got on his school bus. I puttered around for a while, then sat down at the computer with a cup of coffee. The phone had rung twice earlier, but I hadn’t bothered to answer it. I played back the first voice-mail message. It was my sister, who never calls me. "I saw on the news what happened at the World Trade Center," she said. "I just wanted to know if Beth is OK...."

The next thing I remember is being in the park. The Twin Towers looked like smokestacks billowing immense plumes. The park was filling up with spectators, and someone had a radio. I heard that the Pentagon had also been hit. "Am I awake or asleep?" I asked myself. I decided I was awake.

Then the first tower collapsed, accompanied by gasps and a chorus of "oh-my-gawds" from the crowd.

I began to have a peculiar feeling, one that I’ve only experienced a few times in my life: a contradictory sensation of time standing still while events rush forward at a terrible speed. Involuntarily, it seemed, I climbed up on the iron fence at the side of the park that faces New York. I watched a huge cloud of smoke rise, as if an atomic bomb had just exploded. "What about Beth?" I thought.

She was fine, it turned out. She had caught one of the last PATH trains out of the city, just before the entire transit system shut down.

I never felt quite the same about the park after that. When I visit it today – I still live close by – I don't think of it as a sanctuary or a place of innocent fun. Now, for me, that view of the river opens an album of memories: some beautiful, some melancholy, some terrifying.