HELFWORKS

Pitch

The pitch is long, loud, shrill, with a waver in the middle. A train is leaving the station and I can't tell if I hear wheels or a passenger's shriek. Screaming in New York frequently goes unmarked.

A tall woman with long hair dyed red——not the usual beggar figure——has staked herself in front of Key Foods. I meet her eyes as I pass and her aggrieved tone is accusatory: “There was a fire last night. My child needs me to put a meal on the table.” I don’t believe her, but she may be carrying pain.

Decades ago, I, absurdly, was inspired to move here by an observably disordered woman wailing to the sky as she walked along in the Village. You can do anything here and it doesn't matter. Now I think, how is that an attraction? I never imagined it could be me that might scream.

I am sitting in the food court when two black helicopters fly by, low over the Hudson River. Something big could be happening beyond this thick glass window, but I hear only the chatter of other diners. Twenty-four years ago debris smashed through glass, steel, and granite in this building when the World Trade Center towers fell. The morning featured
a beautiful blue sky, and then the area was in catastrophe for years afterward. That evening, two miles away where I live, a couple at a sidewalk table clinked their white wine glasses together.

Today's a day of Jane's Walks (after urbanist Jane Jacobs), when NYC citizens lead tours of their own making, their special takes on facets of this city. A self-described serial activist guides his group to Tompkins Square Park where he evokes the scenes of his "survivor-hero" experience.