Saturday afternoon at Ground Zero

I spent exactly 60 hours last weekend in New York, from Friday night to early Monday morning, where I interviewed Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson, along with lady director Kathryn Bigelow and two new actors, during the international press junket for the upcoming Paramount Pictures thriller K-19: The Widowmaker, and I came back Tuesday night with a heavy feeling.

No, I don’t think it was because the two dozen crew members of the ill-fated Russian submarine K-19 were not declared heroes in that 1961 true-life drama at the height of the cold war between America and Russia, not even if, led by the two opposing commanders (Ford and Neeson, delivering lines with Russian accent), they not only saved the K-19 but also prevented what could have degenerated into the Third World War.

I guess it was because of that brief (only about two hours) visit I did to Ground Zero with New York-based friends Raoul Tidalgo (entertainment editor and columnist of The Filipino Reporter), Boy Echavez, and Betty (nee Veloso) and Baby Garcia Saturday afternoon while I was still groggy with jet lag after the 18-hour-plus Northwest flight from Manila.

If I have to break down those 60 hours, it would be like this: Four hours for the K-19 preview at the Paramount Theater on Broadway, walking time from the hotel and back included; three hours Sunday morning for the TV interview, waiting time included; three more hours Sunday afternoon for the print interview, waiting time included; and a few hours of only interrupted catnaps because the 12-hour time difference between New York and Manila could leave you wide awake at dawn and desperately drowsy mid-morning and mid-afternoon when you’re supposed to be wide awake for the interview.

But I always try to sneak out with dear friends in-between the tight schedule, as I did Saturday afternoon when Raoul and company picked me up at the Essex House, right across Central Park, for a quick lunch at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant, after which, you guessed it, we dropped by Ground Zero (which is how the site where the Twin Towers used to stand with mesmerizing majesty is now known) for a sentimental look-see at what is now merely a gigantic gaping hole into which perhaps the whole Araneta Center could fit in with more than enough space left for shopping stalls around it.

Nine months after that 9/11 attack, the mountain-high debris has been cleared three months ahead of schedule, every bit of it, and the place is now fenced off, highlighted by a lonely cross which is actually a remnant of steel reinforcement of the building at the ground floor.

"Very precise," I told my friends. "Imagine, that steel reinforcement cracked equally on both sides and on top to form that cross. There must be some message in it."

Around the wire fence are hung placards and streamers on which were written prayers and "love notes" from relatives to the thousands upon thousands of the 9/11 victims, many of whom unaccounted for and now merely statistics. There are also old clothes, cards, pictures of victims, flowers, everything, with a big banner on which these words are written in blood-red: We Remember 9/11. The tears have dried, for sure, washed down and away by the snows of winter, and the anguished cries of victims’ relatives and friends have been muted into a gnawing grief. But the memory of 9/11 will forever remain in this generation and the next, and the next.

"Did you know," said Boy, pointing to a skyscraper across Ground Zero, "that dozens of bones and skeletons were found in that building which suffered cracks and, for a while, was in danger of toppling down? That was how great the impact of the attack was."

After buying a few key chains showing the Twin Towers, we walked away with that solitary steel cross vivid in my mind. Even when Raoul and I (Boy, Baby and Betty, who had to rush to the New York hospital where she worked as nurse, had said their goodbyes) were inside a Broadway theater, trying to enjoy the stage version of The Graduate (thanks to Jose Mari Chan for the tickets; Joe Mari is there for his June 29 concert at Foxwoods Resort in Connecticut), what occupied my mind was the overpowering sadness of Ground Zero.

Raoul and I capped the night with a late-late dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown with Alice and Red Martinez (of Re-Al Entertainment) who picked us up at Broadway corner 45th Street. Over bowls of noodles, Alice and Red happily told us that the new concert they’re producing, tickets to Singing in the Reigne: Regine Velasquez in New York, were selling like crazy, with Filipinos (mostly) from Canada and even the West Coast buying the $100 tickets by rows, never mind if Regine already just did the same concert in San Francisco and L.A. (produced by Mely and Michael Gurfinkel).

"Regine is the real Filipino Concert Queen in America," said Raoul.

The concert, scheduled for July 5, will be held at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan, with a 3,000 capacity, the same venue where the likes of Aretha Franklin, Cher, Shania Twain and Whitney Houston have performed (separately) to SRO crowds. Regine will have Ogie Alcasid as special guest.

"Liza Minnelli performed at Beacon only several weeks ago," added Raoul.

From New York, Regine will fly to Chicago for one more show with her 20-person entourage which includes her parents, her siblings and her back-up musicians, their tickets and accommodations in each city paid for by the respective producers.

"With all the expenses," Raoul wondered, "how do you think the producer will make a profit?" Yeah, how? But with somebody like Regine, they do. I don’t know how.