From Hip To Housewife

English: United Airlines Flight 175 crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City during the September 11 attacks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is a re-post from 2008.  I’m glad to say that finally, the gaping hole where the Towers used to be is finally filled.  The memorial busy and reverent. But 9-11 wasn’t the only collapse in downtown Manhattan.  When I wrote this post, the financial crisis was just starting.  9-11 is now more than a decade past, but the scars still hold, the wounds still hurt.  And NYC’s other downtown collapse – well, it’s only just begun re-building.

The other day, I went down to Wall Street. While I was there, I couldn’t help but look for signs of the evil arch-enemy of Main Street politicians keep talking about.  I was hoping to see the callous, ultra-rich, a-moral, self-serving “Masters of the Universe” Tom Wolfe wrote about back in the eighties–the women wearing shoulder pads that made them look as tough as line-backers, the men smoking cigars that cost more than some people made in a week.  Instead, I saw  exhaustion.  Tired senior executives, harried young businessmen, “runners” heading home too tired to remove their tell-tale jackets.  I also saw the same thing I see everywhere in New York: people getting ready to go out for the evening, working mothers on their cell-phones telling their babysitters they were running late.  It wasn’t a disaster area, but those Masters of the Universe – - they were no where in sight.

Then, as I reached Pearl Street, I saw something.  Not the kind of Master I had expected, but a Master nonetheless.  There, on the sidewalk, it’s cord and plug snaking out behind it, was a Stairmaster looking as if it were waiting to be used, waiting for a second chance. And suddenly, I had as apt a metaphor for what’s been happening in the financial sector as any I’d heard. (more…)

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