By Mark J. Konkol
Chicago Sun Times
Copyright 2006 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
NEW YORK — The sky was eerily dark when Chicago Fire Department Lt. Tom Maloney crossed the George Washington Bridge into the city days after terrorists struck in 2001.
But the smoldering World Trade Center ruins were in plain sight, illuminated by giant lights so rescuers could continue searching for survivors through the night.
Maloney vividly remembers the stench — the distinct scent of burning aluminum and smoldering ash hanging over 21 stories of rubble.
On Saturday, the brilliant skyline appears in the distance, shimmering in hazy afternoon light, as Maloney leads more than 3,000 bikers from across the nation into New York.
It’s the last leg of a journey he and dozens of other firefighters and police officers have made from Chicago as a tribute to those who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“Just seeing the skyline totally blows you away,” Maloney says. “The towers, of course, gone missing.”
Maybe his memory is playing tricks on him, but Maloney swears a tinge of that “burning house smell” lingers as they motor up West Street past Ground Zero.
“Back then, that smoke and ash was everywhere, covering everything. I don’t think New Yorkers can still feel it, but it still lingers there today, I believe,” he says.
Cranes offer tribute
The police-escorted parade through lower Manhattan follows the same route Chicago firefighters Joel Burns and Stan Salata took during their 13-day tour of duty on “The Pile.”
As they motor past, two giant cranes are crossed high above the site by ironworkers, those “keepers of the holy ground,” as a tribute to the bikers’ arrival, Salata says.
The bicyclists, joggers and women pushing baby buggies bustle along the harbor side path. Folks smile big smiles, take pictures and wave as they travel by.
Still, Salata says, he can tell by their faces and the emotion bubbling in his gut that “five years is still not really enough time to heal.”
Cops block off the entire New Jersey Turnpike, and New York motorcycle cops usher the 10-mile-long procession of bikers to Brooklyn, where the local Harley-Davidson dealer tosses a block party for the leather-clad patriots.
And later, the Chicago contingent makes a thunderous trip back to the site of the Twin Towers to wander around the giant hole in America’s heart.
For the guys who spent days at Ground Zero when it was a war zone, solemn memories well like movie flashbacks — the nightmare of it all.
‘Greatest hope’
They remember the section of rubble they worked, the busted windows they walked through, buildings that unexpectedly crumbled and the look on the faces of their New York Fire Department comrades who lost so much.
Nearly everything.
Salata talks of the moment he arrived at a still-smoldering Ground Zero and jumped into the debris to put out fires, his heart filled with the “greatest hope of finding someone, one of our brothers still breathing down there,” only to quickly realize everyone was gone.
And as Burns stalks the West Street sidewalk — pointing to giant voids in the skyline and the places where they saw horrible things — it was as if the rubble had reappeared.
Salata, a guy who doesn’t talk much about that day, finds himself back there in those moments.
“The eeriest things were the hook and ladders, the engines, the ambulances, all the stuff parked around here with nobody in them anymore. Smashed. You just knew [they were dead]. This happened on the shift change, so there weren’t five guys. There were 10 guys, just doing their jobs,” Salata says. “Somebody needed them, so they did their things.
“And there were thousands of people on the pile, working, digging. And when someone found the body of a cop or firefighter, everybody stopped and stood silent,” Salata says, offering a salute.
“We called the New York guys and let them carry their brother home. Every one of them came out draped in an American flag. It was about respect.”
And that’s why he came back.
‘That’s a sign of healing’
Five years later, Manhattan is vibrant again despite its giant scar.
Looking up at the now-repaired American Express Building, which had a giant chunk torn out of it in the attack, Salata smiles.
“It’s completely fixed, and that’s a sign of healing,” he says. “It’s my favorite building to look at because it shows things are getting back to normal.
“This place was a mess. It’s nice to see it normal.”
And as much as they came to remember and stand as an example so others won’t forget, there’s a certain joy in seeing New York and America rebound, Burns says.
“You have to remember what happened here, but life does go on. You rebuild,” he says. “That does make you feel good. You know that there’s still hope.”