This is Mr. Rilch talking. “You know, even the people who escaped with their lives still probably lost stuff that was valuable, stuff that was irreplaceable, that they kept in their offices. Autographed baseballs…address books with everyone they know in them…family photos…And what about the art that might have been displayed in the lobbies and hallways? And all the cars in the parking garages? Insurance doesn’t cover your kid’s crayon drawing that you tacked up in your cubicle.”
Me again. I heard about Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” being privately owned and displayed in an office. I think that office might have been in the WTC.
Everything else seems to minor as compared to the whole. Losing a priceless piece of artwork that can never be created again is big, but means nothing of the course of this week’s events.
According to this site, all of the Sunflower paintings but one are in galleries. “Three Sunflowers in a Vase” is listed as “United States, private collection.”
A quick google search revealed no connection between van Gogh and the WTC.
In the whole grand scheme of things, imthjckaz, no it doesn’t. But this is one of the many things we have to think about. The people who are dead/dying are only one (allbeit a large) part of things. There are many other things we have to consider.
D_Nice, I don’t think there is such a thing as “nothing” in this. Every loss sustained is part of the sum. The secondary losses will be totalled up as we go along, and their effects will chain-react until all of us have been effected personally, even if only by “six degrees”. The extent of the deaths and property damage hasn’t been totalled yet, but even what we know now is staggering. When you add in injuries to the survivors, emotional damage, personal property loss, damage to the economy, and the cost of making Manhattan livable again, the sum will be…
…I thought Giuliani was being pessimistic when he said, “The loss will be more than we can bear.”
I fixed on Sunflowers as a symbol. If it had been lost Tuesday morning, it would have been the darkest day in art history. Art history doesn’t have many dark days.
“And, students, I’m sure you all know that “Sunflowers” was lost in the World Trade Center tragedy.”
“Professor? Didn’t he also commit suicide?”
“Yes. And if he’d forseen 9/11/01, he might have done it sooner.”
I know this is nowhere near what happened in NYC, but it’s similar.
When I was 11, our house burned down. Fortunately, my mom and I got out of the house, but the garage burned down and took part of my room with it.
I lost not only many of my material possessions, I lost my sense of safety and security in my own space. Even though the house was fixed and my room was re-done exactly how I wanted it, it took a long time for me to really feel safe.
I think it’ll take a very long time before we can begin to regain that security.
There’s a report on FOX News right now about how various companies have lost a lot of data, both in the form of electronic information and paper copies. The reporter stated that many businesses in the WTC maintained off-site backups of their electronic data, but original hard copies of things like memos and legal documents are probably gone forever. The report noted that many companies who lose their data in disasters go out of business in 5 years or less.
What’s expressed in the OP may, on first glance, sound trivial, but think about it a minute.
<hypothetical thing on>
Yes, my husband died in the fire. But the only existing pictures of my deceased grandparents are gone. So is the only stuffed animal my son owns that allows him to sleep. So is my mother’s wedding ring.
<hypothetical thing off>
It’s not that mundane, pointless things are gone. It’s that those really, REALLY important things, as well as those M&P things are gone.
I also heard a blurb on some news station (I’ve been watching all of them) that they were looking for volunteers to go care for the pets that may have been left behind. I hadn’t thought about the details like that. Just more personal information that makes this so hard to handle.
From the point of view of an IT person, I have to admit I wondered how many of those companies had really good disaster-recovery plans in place. (Hey, I know it’s not lives, but still it will be important for the recovery of many, many a business. The people who lived will still want to have jobs, I’m sure.)
I thought about this too, and my initial reaction was “does it really matter?”
Then I thought again, and realized that yes, it does. Maybe not right now–the families of the missing and dead are focused on finding the people. But later on, it will hit them. In the middle of the day. They’ll see something that will remind them of something else, which will remind them of that priceless piece of art that their son/daughter made in kindergarten, the one that mom/dad loved so much that they just had to take it to work and keep it there, because it made them happy to look at it. In the middle of a bad day, the crayon drawing of something that might be a cow, might be a tree, might be a boat (they were never quite sure) brought a smile to a parent’s face. And now it’s gone.
I realized this when I was at work yesterday, as I was looking at a clay project that my 13-year-old daughter made for me. It was her first ever clay project. She made it when she was 7, and she gave it to me and my husband as a wedding gift when we got married. Halfway through making it, she forgot whether it was supposed to be a cat or a dog. I think it looks like a cow, myself. But it’s got blue eyes, and they’re uneven, giving it a rather Picasso-esque look. It’s been on my desk at work ever since she gave it to me. It is one of my most treasured possessions, and I would be devastated if I lost it.
Thousands of others lost things like my Picasso Cow. And when the realization sets in, the scars left by this will be torn open again. And my heart will start bleeding again, too.
My husband’s company may go under because of this – they rely on payments coming through from everywhere in the US, and they’re already seeing payments not coming through. I am sure some of it is because some of the people who make those payments are gone, some of the mail just is not getting through beause of the airlines’ problems now, some of it is just people who have other things on their minds besides their car payments. It’s understandable, of course, but troubling. Maybe selfish, but I’m scared.
Thousands of children will forever remember the day their childhood ended and their innocence evaporated into the newly scarred skyline.
“Childhood’s over the moment you realize you’re going to die.” the crow
How many children looked at horrible pictures of a far off war on television and asked mommy and daddy if that could ever happen here? How many parents said no?
