lex bet 26th & 27th: the wall: in my experience, there are very few things that can make a new yorker stop dead in their tracks right in the middle of an ever-moving sidewalk. vendors, though more frequently, bootleggers, for one, with their shoddily-recorded versions of pop hits and blockbuster films, their sunglasses and watches, their $1 underwear. even then, there are still people trying to get buy, weaving their way through the traffic while still taking a moment to sneer at the bootlegger and his clientele.

what i saw today on lexington avenue between 26th & 27th street was quite a different thing entirely. it was almost as if they were lined up -- it was like the scene on 34th st. around christmas when people assemble to peer into the windows of macy's, to see what they've cooked up this year for the holidays, with the exception, and a notable one it is, that those people are frequently tourists. what we had here were true-blue new yorkers, dyed-in-the-wool manhattanites.

it's called "the wall of hope" ("la pared de la esperanza") and it was much like the scene i described the other day -- walls papered with human faces and descriptions ("5 foot 6," "last seen in tower 2," "please contact..."). certain flyers caught my eye and broke my heart more than others, like the flyer by a little boy bearing the title: "please help us find my daddy." there were drawings by children of the world trade center and there were cards and candles and shrines. we all walked by, taking a look at each face -- have we seen any of these people? in what capacity would we have seen them? and yet that didn't deter us. a wall, one that seemed like nothing so much as an extension of a wall in washington, d.c., the vietnam memorial. there the names are etched into stone, here the faces are carved into concrete -- both indeliby burned into our consciousness and hearts. victims of a war that shouldn't have been; victims of a day that shouldn't have been. i only hope that neither will ever be again.