Tue, Sep 18, 2001 page4

• New Yorkers cheer workers clearing Trade Center debris

  • DPA
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  Hundreds of New Yorkers gather each day at a gritty intersection facing the Hudson River where they wave placards, hand out food or gifts and just outright scream thanks to the soot-covered fireman, police and crewmembers emerging from the rubble four blocks away where the landmark World Trade Center stood.

  The scene at Canal Street and West Side Highway is equal parts Fourth of July parade and marshalling area for men and huge pieces of equipment headed into the smoldering wreckage that still casts a hazy cloud of smoke and dust over the urban landscape.

  The cheerleaders are part of a city-wide volunteer effort that has overwhelmed recovery organizers as tens of thousands of people came forward to help. Vast piles of food, water, batteries, socks, boot insoles, work gloves, masks, power tools and underwear are found at depots in various parts of the city, including a petrol station at Canal and West Side.

  Canal Street, about 0.5km from Manhattan island's southern tip, is now where the city ends for all except emergency personnel, demolition crews, police and hardened forensics teams. It is the dividing line between the Soho neighborhood of galleries, bistros and boutiques and the war zone known to New Yorkers simply as Ground Zero.

  On one side of the divide, a street artist works up spray-painted renditions of a futuristic New York skyline with the Trade Center's rebuilt twin towers gleaming in the light. On the other side military Humvees patrol a gauntlet of police blocking every entrance to the neighborhood around the smoking ruins.

  Hundreds of yellow ribbons with sayings from the Bible attached to them adorn an iron fence which frames one of the best views of the heap of concrete and twisted metal where the two 110-storey office buildings stood until last Tuesday's airborne terrorist attack.

  Danny Lawless, 47, of upstate Fayetteville, New York, has stationed himself in front of the fence with a placard reading, "Now It's Our Turn." He says most of the hundreds of curiosity-seekers passing by have responded positively to the stark message, but some have tried to debate him.

  "I think the pulse of this country is to strike back, and I feel the same way," he says. "What happened here behind us is inhuman."

  There's no debate up the block where the Ground Zero workers are emerging from their jobs of searching for survivors, clearing rubble and inspecting the conditions in neighboring buildings. Here everyone just wants to cheer for the men, a gesture that seems to take on broader meaning in the grieving city.

  People stand on concrete barriers to shout thanks to the men walking or being driven in slow convoys north up the street. Young women dart among them offering tissues, Twinkies and bottles of water.

  One woman holds a sign reading, "Words are not Enough" as she showers the men with rose petals as they pass by.

  Twenty-year-old Mohamed Arafat is among the crowd holding a "Thank You" sign and energetically waving an American flag. He says he has been there all day after travelling from Jersey City, New Jersey.

  "It has nothing to do with religion. Some people maybe start blaming Muslim people, blaming the whole religion, but there are only a couple people doing these bad things," he says.

  Jeff Thomas and Dave Jennings are two young construction workers who have volunteered at ground zero the past three days. They said its like going to Hell and back when they emerge from the 10-storey pile of rubble.

  "It's horrific in there, it's not something you ever want to see. You see people's personal affects all over the place. Once in a while you come across a piece of somebody's body," says Thomas.

  "We come out here and all these people are cheering, it makes you feel whole again."
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