Twenty-two years ago today, the attack on the World Trade Center united the country. It also united NATO, resulting in the invocation of Article V for the first time since the alliance was formed.

Something happened in the ensuing years. National unity shattered as the country even today continues dividing itself into two warring camps, with innumerable subgroups adding kindling to the inferno. The nation’s political actors cheer for deeper division, hoping to gain strategic advantage for self-serving visions and personal gain.

As is often the case with historical events, 9/11 has become a Rorschach test. Individuals see what they want in the World Trade Center ruins and in what has since risen from the pit.

Today, dignitaries and survivors joined together at the rebuilt site to remember and honor the dead and the first responders who answered the call. The remnants of over 1,000 victims have yet to be identified, so the site serves as a cemetery, as well as a memorial for those interred elsewhere. But the fissures in American society are also evident in this metaphysical graveyard of memories.

Members of the general public were denied access until 3:00 PM, by which time the ceremonies had concluded, and the survivors had been given sufficient time to grieve and reflect on their loved ones. Until then, the public was held in abeyance, forced to stand behind the bicycle-rack barricades lining Church Street, waiting for their opportunity.

When I arrived around 10:00 AM, I encountered a group of conspiracy theorists at the intersection of Church and Vesey Streets. They claim that we still don’t know the truth about that awful day, with over 3,600 architects and engineers petitioning for a new investigation of evidence seeming to contradict the conclusions reached by the official commission. Several demonstrators aggressively pushed pamphlets into the hands of passersby highlighting what the demonstrators believe to be glaring discrepancies between what the public was told and what transpired. For example, one handout states: “FDNY and others found several tons of molten steel …flowing like lava in the ruins. 1,400° F office fires cannot produce 2,800+° F molten steel/iron. Thermite incendiaries can.”

To their credit, these demonstrators at least offer support for their positions wrapped in scientific language; something many crazies who spin countless conspiracy theories happily don’t do. I certainly am not qualified to dispute the claims of structural engineers, but on September 11, 2001 at 7:46 AM, I was eating breakfast while reading the newspaper, The Today Show filling the kitchen with soothing white noise.

I saw the almost instantaneous replay of the first plane slamming into the North Tower. Now that the hijackers had my attention, I saw the second plane hit the South Tower at 8:03 AM. By 9:30 AM, both towers had imploded, covering lower Manhattan with an asbestos-laden blanket of dust that over the next two decades would claim more lives.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, the three television networks—remember when there were just three major networks and PBS?—carried the event live, but they did not have cameras on the Moon: not even a pool camera. Instead, the networks (and later, print media) simply relayed the video feed (and photographs) supplied by NASA, so there is at least a semi-plausible argument (which I don’t believe for a second) that NASA faked the moon-landing, filming it on a soundstage. By September 11, 2001, video cameras were far more portable and prevalent, meaning that news organizations did not rely on a government feed this time.

Yet, the folks demonstrating at the intersection of Church and Vesey Streets claim that the towers were brought down with controlled demolitions. The group’s website quotes one mechanical engineer stating: “There is little doubt the collapses were caused by controlled demolitions and the aircraft impacts were causal ruses.” Similar statements fill that website and the literature distributed by the demonstrators. Paraphrasing the street pitch: “I know you have that other pamphlet but take this pamphlet; you need to read it.”

While the use of the word “ruse” implies the sort of deception designed to conceal a conspiracy, the person I spoke with at the demonstration, as well as the group’s website, offered no specific conjectures as to who was behind this conspiracy, nor did he or the website answer the question, “Why?”

I was told that there were explosives planted on the 6th floor of one of the towers. Did the hijackers plant those explosives the day before? How did they gain access to the structural elements hidden behind the drywall on the 6th floor? Who triggered the detonation? Was Vice President Dick Cheney behind this, using the tragedy as a pretext for invading Afghanistan and Iraq?

Notably, one of the pamphlets that I was handed carries the headline “9/11 Truth Good for America!” It then demands the end to wars of aggression, restoration of the economy and civil rights, the abolition of torture, and termination of the NSA’s “unconstitutional” global spying. Clearly these demonstrators are pushing a larger agenda; I suspect that if I had pushed hard enough, I would have eventually discover their true concern—maybe a cabal comprised of oligarchs seeking world domination.

I won’t go into additional detail, but this is perfect example of the sort of conspiracy theories that have become so pervasive and divisive; ones creating mistrust in and undermining our institutions.

As I returned to the 9/11 site a few hours later, I encountered another group expressing themselves, this time in front of St. Paul’s Chapel, one block from the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Their approach was far more dignified and in keeping with an occasion marking the deaths of over 2,977 worldly souls; more funereally. Thirty or so Mennonites were singing religious hymns in remembrance of the 9/11 victims. They had departed Russell, Massachusetts at 3:00 AM on a bus, and expected to return by 9:00 PM tonight—a very long day.

Their spokesperson was probably in his early-twenties (if that), so he might not actually experienced September 11, 2001 in real time. He said that the group journeys to the site every year on the anniversary, although he didn’t know what year this tradition began.

After I left the Mennonites, I stumbled onto several seemingly Black Israelites next to the Millennium Hilton Hotel, with their leader screaming into a microphone and occasionally asking the two flanking adherents to read biblical verses. I don’t know whether these individuals are technically Black Israelites, because there are a variety of similar or splinter groups operating under slightly different names.

From what I could gather, members of this group believe that they are descendants from one of the lost tribes of Israel. I don’t believe they claim to be Jewish, and they may, in fact, be anti-Semitic. One thing is for sure: they wrap themselves in the Bible as they spew a potent form of racism.

Early on the leader pointed in the direction of where the Twin Towers once stood, screaming that he was not concerned with the people who died on September 11, 2001, since they were not oppressed like the Children of Israel, a group which apparently include Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Seminole Indians. The leader might want to check the facts. An article in the Chicago Crusader reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that 215 Blacks died in the attacks on the World Trade Center; 49 died at the Pentagon; and three died at Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Axios reports that “around 250 Latinos were killed during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.”

According to the man with the mic, the Children of Israel are holy not because they are part of humanity, but because they are separate from humanity. Holy does not mean unity; it means separation. He went onto to say: “You are above all other people on this goddamn earth, plain and damn simple. You are not the minority, man. …That’s why they do everything, man, to depopulate us. … We talking about the people in power, man, the people that are running this earth; the people that are printing the money. … We out here to sit up here and expose that man. … If you so-called White people, man, are moral(?) with us, how come the Sun burns your asses up?”

For this group, the anniversary was another opportunity to inflame racial division. The leader and his two puppets—that is exactly what they were, speaking when Paul Winchell pulled their strings—apparently assumed they would have a large audience, but most people just kept walking.

As I headed toward the now-open 9/11 Memorial grounds, I encountered a lone, ragged demonstrator, protesting the Ukrainian War and Joe Biden. There is a similar protester in Chicago who stands outside the Chicago Cultural Center and who shows up at demonstrations expressing similar grievances. He claims the FBI raped him. Like the passersby in Chicago, New Yorkers stopped noticing the New York version of this lone (and probably lonely) wolf long ago. If no one is listening, does this fellow make a noise?

When I reached the memorial pool where the North Tower once stood, I saw that it was roped off, providing family members with the space necessary to continue grieving in some semblance of solitude. The police advised those behind the rope line to head to the memorial pool where the South Tower once stood for a similar experience—there was no barrier separating the public from pool. Both pools are large square structures comprised of shiny black stone, and bronze parapets etched with names of the deceased and framing waterfalls that send a continuous cascade of water into the infinity pool below, representing either the lost souls or the abyss, depending on your point of view. Michael Arad, the architect who designed the two memorial pools, says that his goal was to project “absence made visible.”

I spent about 90 minutes walking among the crowd. Although some first responders and family members remained, I suspect that many who attended the morning ceremonies were long gone. While some members of the public maintained a solemn demeanor, for most this was just another opportunity for a selfies — validating the decision to limit access to just family members for a period of grieving.

At sunset, my goal was to photograph the commemorative beams of light aimed four miles into the sky in a replica of the lost towers. After dinner at The Odeon, I headed up to an apartment building in Tribeca, where a friend gave me access to the rooftop deck. Although the view was spectacular—particularly if you stood on the jungle-gym surrounded by child-proof fencing—none of my photographs were usable, so I returned to the memorial site.

Contrary to what I had assumed, the two beams of light do not emanate from the two pools. Instead, the light source is positioned further south. I was fascinated that the beams only became visible once they are five or six stories above ground—a phenomenon probably attributable to light pollution.

I returned to Firehouse 10 for a closer look at the bronze relief lining the building’s west wall that I had seen earlier in the day while standing on the elevated plaza surrounding St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. When I moved closer for a detailed examination of the 57-foot-long bronze bas relief depicting the events of 9/11, I encountered a first responder who was wiping the bas relief with a cloth, eliminating what I viewed as symbolic teardrops from an earlier rainstorm. He offered a soliloquy for bystanders, asking them to note certain figures depicted on the relief. “Were they all men?”

It was now after 10:00 PM. Holdouts remained, but for the most part, the hordes had departed. I boarded a Number 1 train headed north from the Greenwich Street subway station that had been partially destroyed and then rebuilt.

Enough until next year; although I doubt I will be back for the 23rd anniversary. I had given 9/11 no advance thought; I was in town for another reason. It took a 10:00 PM New York 1 television report the previous night before I recalled that today was the anniversary of that awful day 22 years ago.

Yes, 9/11 is a Rorschach test. I see division, but also flickering signs of hope, particularly in the Mennonites’ annual trip in remembrance of lives lost.

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