W hat began as a simple field trip became so much more. Eight members of NIU’s campus radio station, WKDI, were all set to take off Sept. 12 for five days in New York City. The reason? The annual musical smorgasbord known as the CMJ Music Marathon.

But the worst kind of fate intervened. The Sept. 11 attacks left New York numb and made any large event a safety concern.

A month later, the opportunity arose for Weekender Editor Hank Brockett to shadow the station’s employees, detailing both the conference and a college student’s attempt to make sense of the senseless.

This is his attempt.An officer stands guard in front of the New York Stock Exchange, just a few short blocks from Ground Zero. The financial district, peppered with police barricades, allows only for pedestrian traffic in many areas because of safety concerns — even a month after the World Trade Center attacks.Nicole Rodriguez, a second-year graduate law student and WKDI employee, reads through the letters pasted together to form a makeshift memorial just on the outskirts of the barricaded area.For the many tourists who have crowded the perimeter of Ground Zero, the abandoned storefronts offer plenty of room for words of encouragement. Letter-writers from Kansas to Washington have offered support for the continued work by firefighters and police officers. Although the distance remains large, a glimpse down the streets of New York offers images like this — views that only hint at the devastation blocks away. Still, at each corner, dozens of tourists and New Yorkers pack together to see the tower remains with their own eyes. Away from the more striking visuals down the street, city workers along the Hudson River remain hard at work loading scrap metal from Ground Zero into empty barges. Although methodical, the work has remained steady in the month following Sept. 11. As I walk through the eerily quiet monument to America known as lower Manhattan, something’s wrong.

In 21 years, New York created crystal-clear images for my Midwestern psyche. Comedian Woody Allen’s Manhattan coalesces with a nightly news jumble. The streets all seem so strangely familiar without a single personal visit. These images don’t fade, they’re only compounded.

My neck cranes and my eyes dart, just like they did 30 days before. But then I looked at a television and someone else chose how to visualize New York on Sept. 11.

And now, an unconscious will opens a door for every pore & and it is then that my images finally crack under the pressure of obsolescence.

My eyes act as television cameras with a manic intensity, burning new snapshots into the back of my mind. Wall Street’s barren, and no one drives in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Subway entrances seem normal, but at the next corner police have barricaded the entrance. In two blocks time I’ll know why.

Eyes widen, and 21 years worth of images become rubble.

The image completes without true understanding, and I hear a voice call out from behind.

“Why are you taking pictures?” he asks those of us pushed against the police barricade. “What’s the significance?”

There is no satisfactory answer. The pictures, both figurative and real, tell their own story.

Wednesday, Oct. 10 & 10:10 a.m.

A woman covers her head with a blanket just as the roar of jet engines makes normal conversation impossible.

The pilots ready a plane taking off from O’Hare, where security matters first & even more than knowing your gate number. Seeing the national guardsman observe long security lines prevents any thoughts of normalcy.

She sits just off the aisle. She can’t see anyone from under that blanket, not her friends, not her husband. No one.

She prays a prayer that only she and the recipient know.

The plane slowly gains speed, but her head remains covered. To the hundred strangers or a flight attendant, she’s well on her way to some sleep. But as the engines roar louder and the landing gear bids farewell to the runway, her feet give away her all-aware consciousness.

Underneath the seat in front of her and just below the engines’ din, her all-white sneakers pound against the floor like she’s on an unmoving treadmill. A month’s worth of anxiety and fear has taken off …

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Friday, Oct. 12 & 11 a.m.

The eight employees of WKDI, NIU’s student radio station, join in a collective sigh of relief at touchdown.

“You know, I’m usually not nervous on flights, but for some reason on this flight I was a little nervous,” said WKDI’s technical guru Ryan Dour, smiling at his massive understatement.

But soon enough, they become lost in the possibilities New York offers on this or any day. They’re here for a music convention, originally scheduled for Sept. 12-15. Some scamper to the CMJ Music Marathon to experience an audiophile’s heaven on earth. Others take their first bite of the Big Apple with wide eyes and open arms & the clubs, the neon lights and the round-the-clock establishments.

Two days in, though, music doesn’t wake them. Twenty-two floors below, the slow moan of sirens distracts from the golden hues creeping through the window on a balmy fall morning.

This is downtown New York, though. Ambulances tear through the streets constantly, never fast enough to help everyone in need.

The out-of-towner’s fearful instinct rings true. Just how true isn’t known until an hour later, when news reports indicate an NBC employee has tested positive for anthrax exposure. And the story’s significance fades like so many other updates have, until realization strikes.

Those sirens headed toward NBC studios: a landmark for the media savvy, and a landmark just eight blocks away from where we sleep.

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Friday, Oct. 12 & 3 p.m.

The busy streets don’t allow much insight into the New York psyche. Rushing from work to lunch and back again, there isn’t much time to contemplate such a word that dreadfully rolls off the tongue like “anthrax.” Even omnipresent and overheard cell phone conversations hide fears rather well. But there are signs that no one can hide, in the most unlikely of places.

Jim Binder shows me these places. Binder, a former DeKalb resident and a Northern Star photographer in the ’80s, now works as managing editor of Securities Week. I meet him at the farthest point a subway will take me, and a few steps offer immediate surprises.

We hop over streams of water, despite the fact it hasn’t rained in days. City workers are the source, as their high-powered hoses wash down the streets in hopes that the dust and tiny debris will flow down the drain. There’s no telling how many times these streets have been washed during the past month.

He shows me where to stand, what to smell and where to look, obviously sensing an overwhelmed reporter. He leads me from police barricade to police barricade & each angle making the World Trade Center towers look completely different but forever disheartening.

Each passed corner means more tourists, more street vendors hawking Americana paraphernalia, more memorials … just more and more.

Eventually, we make our way to the Hudson River, where we watch cranes load barges filled to the edges with mangled beams. The silence heightens the other senses, and my head’s kaleidoscopic scrapbook now has a smell & it’s the slightly wretched smell of something that never should have caught fire.

Binder grounds our trip in his tales, both of his time in DeKalb and on Sept. 11. He points out where he stood when the first plane exploded into the tower … and the office he rushed from when the second tower tumbled to the ground.

Now, Binder takes solace in the little things that hint at normal life. On this day, his regular hot dog vendor finally returned to his corner.

“Every week things get a little bit more back to normal,” he says.

He parts with a smile after leading a long walk, images gained but peace of mind elusive.

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Saturday, Oct. 13 — 7 p.m.

These lights, in another time and place, may have lit up a high school football game, or even Game 7 of the World Series. But tonight, the intense white light shines down upon Ground Zero, acting as a spotlight for terror’s repercussions.

Leaving the day before felt sudden, like there was more to see if only we knew where to look. With our time in New York drawing to a close, three WKDI employees and I took the long subway ride back to lower Manhattan under the cover of a brisk night.

The same angles and corners feel different and much colder without the companionship of others. After a few blocks, though, we find a new spot.

Here, a makeshift memorial arranges candles and kids’ letters in a tapestry of human sentiment. You could spend hours reading each piece of construction paper, eyes always moving on to the next.

But attention strays toward an old man crouched over nearby.

Clad in a Syosset basketball jacket and slacks, he radiates a grandfatherly glow. On this night, the old man cries month-old tears.

“They killed kids! They killed innocent kids!” he yells, burying his head in the chest of a younger companion. “And they want to know why we’re fighting a war? This is a war!”

And as the old man’s hand hides his brow, the younger man does all he can. He keeps a steady arm around the old man’s shoulder as they walk away. We follow their same route into the darkness.

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On the plane flight home, the reporter’s notebook doesn’t offer many hints about the trip. A few scribbles, a few names and a few sketches occupy only a few pages.

The plane offers more scares. Watching “Headline News” in an airport during these times can lead only to cold sweats. My eyes close and I walk through the trip & and continually find myself in an art gallery called “Here is New York.”

Patrons lined up outside the small Soho gallery, buzzing with quiet anticipation. Inside, hundreds of images were hung from the walls and strung from the ceilings, all photographs taken since 8 a.m. Sept. 11.

Towers explode next to the tired, sooty faces of firefighters. American flags fly near mad throngs of World Trade Center occupants.

These images once were thought to represent Sept. 11 and its most visible effects & more than Pennsylvania and more than the Pentagon. But these pictures pale when compared to a mind’s journey during a simple walk through the streets of New York.

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