Youtes in Coney Island show why they are animals

New York Post October 18, 2014

A Brooklyn 9/11 memorial dedicated to the memory of those who sacrificed themselves to save others was vandalized Friday night, according to police.

Authorities discovered the disgraceful act at the Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance in Coney Island’s MCU Park — home of the Cyclones baseball team.

Three laser-engraved portraits of the city’s finest took the brunt of the paint attack, but fallen police officer Moira Smith – the only female member of the NYPD killed that day – appeared to be singled out.

“This is extremely personal,” City Councilman Mark Treyger told the Post. “There is some evidence left behind that we hope will bring whoever’s responsible to justice.”

White paint was found crudely smeared around the 38-year-old hero’s picture, which was created to honor the 13th precinct cop.

Treyger is confident that whoever is responsible for the vandalism will be found.

“There are some security cameras here,” he said.

The granite wall features the names and images of 346 FDNY firefighters, 37 Port Authority officers, 23 NYPD officers, a K-9 rescue dog named Sirius and others.

It was New York’s first 9/11 memorial erected to honor the city’s fallen.

Memories......

I spent a lot of time in the World Trade Center. Actually passing through it but I still spent a bunch of time there.

I am a voracious reader and ofter went to the Borders Books that was in the underground mezzanine. This was a hub where all the subways and PATH trains jump off.

I would take the E train to the last stoup p which was World Trade Center. Get off the train. Take the escalator up to the Trinity Place exit and walk past the Fire House to Brannigans and the Pig and Whistle and Volks. I would meet up with Vito and Tim and the guys from Wall Street and we would proceed to have an epic pub crawl through lower Manhattan and Brooklyn every Friday night.

I often went to the New York State and New York City Tax offices when I was working as an accountant. I once had an epic seven hour sales tax audit on the hundred and twelfth floor.

We would go up to events at Windows at least every other month. There was always some investor dude selling shares in gold mines or some other bullshit that they would invite your client to that you could tag along for and get a free meal and a few drinks.

One day Lisa and I took a boat ride out of the South Street Seaport that went in the harbor to the Statue of Liberty and all around. It was a beautiful August day and we wanted to a photo on the boat with the New York Skyline and the Towers in the background. But there was this very unattractive lesbian couple making a spectacle of themselves on the side of the boat and we couldn't get a chance to snap the photo.

Two weeks later the planes hit the Towers.

Life is short. You never know what is going to happen. You have to hold your life and your family close. They are precious. It could all be gone tomorrow.

Peace.

Never forget.

I went to Mass today to pray for the people who died on 911 as I do every year. I was lucky. I only had a few passing acquaintances that were victims there. The woman who owned a  restaurant on Court St. and fought with her brother so she took a job at the restaurant. A busboy who worked there that used to work in an Irish Pub I used to go to. A lady from the Tax Department. A couple of fireman that I met through Lisa because they used to hand out at fireman picnics when Lisa's Dad was a fireman. So I guess you can say I had it easy.

But every 911 when I walk out of my house I look to the skyline where I used to see the towers looming in the background over  the low brownstones of Carroll Gardens. They were readily visible from most of my neighborhood. Now they are gone forever.

I don't know if the liberals are right when they claimed that our involvement in the Middle East led to this act of terrorism. Now when there is a President I despise trying the same thing I sort of get where they are coming from. Maybe the best thing would be for us to mind our own business in this nasty old world. Exploit our own oil supplies be they oil or natural gas or fracking or whatever. Let the people in the Middle East rot. Israel has shown they can take care of themselves. Give them the wherewithal to defend themselves and let it go. We don't always have to stick our nose in other peoples business.

I think we should put America and it's people first. Maybe if we had minded our own business 911 would never have happened. I don't know. But more and more I think I am becoming a Robert Taft Republican.

If you get a chance say a little prayer for the families who were left behind. The children who don't have a father or a mother. The young girls who won't have Dad to walk them down the aisle. The grandchildren who will never have gramps take them to the game or be able to go over to Grandma's house for Sunday Dinner. They were also victims of 911. And they are all around us.

September 11, 2012

Today is always a tough day. At least for those of us who remember what happened. A lot of people have blocked it out of their mind. They don't care and just minimize it because it is old news. Like Pearl Harbor. Or the Alamo. Or the battleship Maine.

But it is a lot harder for those of us who live in New York. The World Trade Center is not just a tourist attraction to us. It was part of our everyday lives. You were in it all the time as it was a transportation hub. I mean I used to take the train to the World Trade Center three or four times a week to meet my buddies who walked on Wall St for drinks at the Seaport. I would get out and walk across the lobby especially in cold weather and come out on Trinity Place. We would hit Branigans or the Pig and Whistle or Volks and start drinking before heading over to the seaport.

I would go the New York State tax office to get forms all the time. We didn't have the internet back then where you could download forms so you had to go get them to fill them out by hand. I had a couple of audits there as well.

They had a great bookstore in one of the lobby's on the North End. For some reason they had a great poetry department and I got a lot of Yeats and Seamus Heaney volumes there. I would always stop even on the way to get loaded. One of the clerks who was always so helpful was lost in the towers.

There is a joint on Court St that makes me think of 911 every time I pass it. It was owned by a brother and a sister who got in a big fight. He was the chef and she was the business end. They fought so much that she quit and got a great new job. Banquet manager at Windows on the World. She was working there for two weeks before the first plane hit. Her brother never recovered. This other restaurant guy took advantage of his grief and weaseled his way into the joint and ran it into the ground. Now it is a crappy sort of joint called
"Karloff's" which serves brunch and crap. Every time I pass that place I think of them and what happened.

So I try not to dwell to much on it. I mean you have to go live your life. You can't be obsessed with it. Just remember it. Don't forget especially on this day. Say a prayer for those who passed. Remember people like Father Judge who gave their lives helping others.

Downtown will never be the same for some of us. No matter how many years ago it was.

I remember.

I didn't know if I wanted to say anything about 911 today. I thought I might keep my remembrances to myself and just keep it light and funny the way we like it here at Trooper York. I mean after all I am not a serious person.

But in between working on tax returns today I have been reading various blogs and in many of them today is just another day with the left and the right going at each other with talking points blasting. Vile people are saying detestable things safely under the blanket of anonymity that the internet provides. It is truly beneath contempt.

I had this discussion with my wife last night. As we walked to the wine and cheese place for dinner around midnight after working like dogs in the store all day, we passed a local restaurant which had a giant sign outside. They were having their "Grand Reopening" today on 911. My wife thought that was horrible and insensitive. Now I have a long and complicated relationship with the owner of the restaurant where we have had a lot of ups and downs. We were great friends for a while but now not so much. I know that he really wants me to come to his opening but I can't do it. I can't party and laugh today. Don't get me wrong, I am not going to weep into my hair shirt all day but I don't think it is appropriate to celebrate on the anniversary.

I don't want to go into the details of the people I knew who died that day. The busboy and the restaurant manager and the bond guys I had gone to the Yankee game with. Some of them I didn't even know had died until months later as I did not pore over the lists in a morbid fascination as so many people did. This is not about me, but about the people who were murdered that day. The wife knew a lot more of them because she was a daughter of a fireman and several of those men who died that day she knew from cook outs and retirement partys and such as they were the sons of the guys who worked with her dad. So she feels it a lot more. I can understand her outrage and I am glad that she doesn't read blogs or she might hunt down some of these losers and do some serious damage to them.

So last night I told her to think about the TV show "Saving Grace." I don't know if you ever saw it on TNT, but it is a cop show about this skanky whore of a detective played by Holly Hunter. One of the subtexts of the show is that Grace (the focus of the show) is all messed up because her sister died in the Oklahoma City bombing. Now they have a lot of scenes where she reacts and her family reacts and relives the bombing. Intellectually I can understand it but it doesn't have the visceral impact that 911 has for me. It doesn't resonate the same way for some reason. Is it because I didn't know anyone there and because it is so far away from me in the middle of the country? I don't know, maybe. But I think that might be how a lot of people out in America feel about the Twin Towers. I mean they were horrified and all but to them it was long ago and far away so it doesn't resonate with them and they can talk out of the ass about it. Make up conspiracy theories. All kinds of bullshit like that. They didn't go in those towers hundreds of times like we did. So it is just history to them like Jonestown and the Great Chicago fire.

Anyway I remember those people who died that day and will say a prayer for them tonight. We will have a quiet dinner at home and remember. I think that is the right thing to do.