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CNN Live At Daybreak

Talk With Jimmy Barrett

Aired September 12, 2002 - 05:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're going to Jimmy Barrett now I believe, right?
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, yes, it is time for our Talk of CNN agreement and we want to check in with Jimmy Barrett from WRVA News Radio 1140 in Richmond, Virginia. Except Jimmy's actually on the phone with us from New York City this morning because he's been broadcasting from New York for the September 11 memorials.

Hello, Jimmy.

JIMMY BARRETT, WRVA CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, guys. How's it going?

COSTELLO: Good.

BARRETT: Good. Happy...

COSTELLO: Tell us what the mood is now.

BARRETT: Well, you know, we did two shows yesterday from New York City. We did a morning show between 5:00 and 9:00 a.m. and then we did an afternoon show from 3:00 to 7:00. The afternoon show was right across from ground zero and it was a very moving and very interesting experience to be a part of, especially not being a New Yorker.

COSTELLO: Yes, tell us how many radio outlets and television outlets you saw in New York.

BARRETT: Oh, you know, you'd have to count them by the tens of dozens. There were, there's satellite trucks surrounding the entire area. There was a lot of radio stations doing their broadcasts live. We were just one of many who did them. And I think probably we all tried to bring our own little unique perspective, in most cases, as outside stations coming in and living the New York experience.

But it was, you know, one of the more surreal moments from yesterday was when Rudy Giuliani began reading the names of those who died at the World Trade Center. The winds had been perfectly calm right up until the moment he began reading those names and then the winds picked up and the dust picked up and, you know, it almost felt like something spiritual was going on. It was very moving.

COSTELLO: Yes, the winds were quite strong at some points, right, Chad?

MYERS: Yes, 43 knots, almost 45 miles an hour at Central Park yesterday.

BARRETT: Yes, they blew all afternoon.

You know, here's a great question. Here's what I'm wondering today. You know, it's been a little bit over a year now. It's a year and a day. I think a lot of New Yorkers, a lot of northern Virginians, as well, because of the Pentagon, are ready to move on.

Now the Pentagon has been rebuilt, but the World Trade Center site still looks like a construction site. What should go there? What should go there? Do you rebuild an office complex? Do you put big towers back there and just tell tourists the hell with you? Or do you make some sort of an appropriate memorial and leave it at that, hey?

COSTELLO: Well, you know, unfortunately, I think it's a little more complicated than that because of, you know, the ownership of that land.

MYERS: Of course.

COSTELLO: And, you know, some people want to put retail space back in there and then build another office building because, you know, it generates money for the city. Some people feel that's just hallowed ground and, you know, we don't have any business making money off that site anymore. So it's a very complicated issue.

BARRETT: Well, in...

MYERS: I would like to see the footprint of the two buildings remain unused and all the other buildings, the new buildings, however many there may be, surround those two centers, those two footprints and those two footprints remain as courtyards, interior courtyards, dedications to the people that actually died there. And if you can take the 16 acres and surround those areas and build up from there, I think that would be pretty good.

BARRETT: But you...

COSTELLO: You know, Jimmy, how different, though, that the people in Washington at the Pentagon think of it a whole another way? The Pentagon has been rebuilt exactly the way it was, inside and out. So that when people went back to work, they walked into an office that was exactly the same as it was before.

BARRETT: And they did it in record time. They spent $500 million and they got it done in record time and we had our reporters there yesterday and they said that other than the fact that there is a plot there now and a ceremony going on, you would never know that anything like that had ever happened at the Pentagon.

COSTELLO: It's just really sad.

BARRETT: And I think that's a military way of handling things, too, don't you?

COSTELLO: Yes. Oh, yes.

MYERS: Yes. Hey, Jimmy, I got a quick e-mail from your wife yesterday, Princess Elizabeth. She said there was great calamari in New York. What was that restaurant?

BARRETT: No, I'm sorry, we can't divulge that information.

MYERS: OK.

BARRETT: That's top secret. We found a place in Tribeca, as well. But you'd better bring money, lots of money.

COSTELLO: Well, it is New York.

Thank you, Jimmy Barrett.

MYERS: All right, my friend.

BARRETT: Talk to next week.

COSTELLO: We'll catch you on Monday.

MYERS: Good day.

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