Hallowed Ground in New York

World Trade Center

It seems that a building, abandoned for the last eight years on Park Place in New York City, has been purchased for the purpose of tearing it down and building an Islamic community center and people are up in arms. There is a tremendous uproar from people saying that would be disrespectful to the memories of the victims of 911 and signal a triumph of terrorism over good. And more than that, to tell you the truth, I don’t really care.

I could bring up the fact that not all of the people who were killed during the attacks were Americans or even Christian or that the largest amount of Muslims in the U.S. happen to be African Americans. I could also bring up the First Amendment Rights here, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” but I think that’s a no brainer. If the question was ever taken to court, no court in the land would ever think about denying people the right to worship whoever and wherever they want on the basis of it being unpopular. No, what really gets to me is the idea of calling not only the space where the Twin Towers but the surrounding territory, “hallowed ground.”

Years ago when I used to work for a brokerage house right opposite the World Trade center, I remember there used to be an Off Track Betting shop on Church St. I think. Not far from that, there was the Pussycat Lounge which I think was a stripper bar which I think still exists and is even closer to Ground Zero than the proposed community center. I don’t even want to bring up the only time that I stayed at the Marriott Hotel in the World Trade center was because it was only 2 blocks from where Afrodisiak was being held on Fulton St. Afrodisiak was a competitor of the Blatino parties where black and Latino men got together to do their thing. It was the first sex club that I had ever been to.

After the Ex and I found the location of the party, we had to walk up 12 fights of stairs because the elevator was out. Reaching the 12th floor I remember in between my heart trying to explode from my chest and being oxygen deprived, there was sign that said you had to be over 21 and no older than 35 to get in. I think that I had just had my 36th birthday and I thought if anyone said anything to me, anything, I would call the police and, “shut this illegal mutha fucka down.” Suffice it to say, they just took my money and handed me a garbage bag for the clothes and a small towel to cover the essentials.

There isn’t much else that I remember about that evening other than it being really dark. I turned at one point to the Ex while I was being sucked off and wondered out loud how, if I could talk to him face to face then whose chin was I banging my nuts against. I might have thought and said something differently if I had known that it would be considered sacred land in such a short while.

Anyway, in all deference to all those that were victimized during the 911 attacks and all those who have suffered since, that’s why I cannot go easily from sinner to saint and consider all of lower Manhattan as hallowed ground.

And that’s my piece.