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Word Trade Center Killing Grounds

I have been sitting here for three hours trying to find a way to begin this blog entry. Where should I start? How do I bring it all up again? There are some things you don’t ever want to recall. Forcible recall is treacherous.

Yesterday, for the first time since September 11, 2001, I returned to the killing grounds of the World Trade Center. I returned, not by choice, but by the happenstance of mass transit. In my GO INSIDE Magazine article, Celebrate the Dead, Mourn the Living I reflect on what the World Trade Center meant to me and to a city. I have been uninterested in returning to “Ground Zero” because I have no interest in gawking at the empty space where once stood giants.

Yesterday, I had a meeting in downtown Manhattan and I decided to jump on the PATH train and get off at the WTC stop. Now, “WTC” has always meant “World Trade Center” even when it was not operable for four years, but WTC has always been a destination, and not a place, in the minds of many who ride the PATH every day. The recently re-opened WTC stop on the PATH brought the end-of-the line back to Manhattan proper and, I while I was prepared to get off at the WTC stop, I was unprepared for what I was about to witness.

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Murder in the Jersey City Heights

Over the last 12 months there have been seven murders within a one block radius of where I live in the Jersey City Heights neighborhood. These killings, I have discovered, are an unfortunate part of the fabric of living in Jersey City.

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Making it Worth the White Man's While: Jury Duty in the Shadow of O.J. Simpson

Jury Duty is a Civic Duty that many of us dread because it directly interferes with the every day business of our ordinary lives. The tricks on just how to get out of serving on a Jury are as wild and wicked as the day is long. For the record, I’m a self-confessed, big, dumb, White Bohunk originally from Nebraska and this is my story of serving on a New York City Jury. First, let’s take a look at how I got there.

Continue reading → Making it Worth the White Man's While: Jury Duty in the Shadow of O.J. Simpson