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CNN Live Saturday

Shops Sell Clothes Covered With WTC Dust

Aired November 17, 2001 - 16:24   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: As we look at ground zero on this Saturday afternoon, what's significant about this picture -- the aerial shot does not afford us the greatest vantage point from this perspective -- but I can tell you, from being on ground zero earlier this week, there's earth movers there actually two or three floors below the street level. Indeed, there was progress to clear up quite a bit of debris. That's in the South Tower location.

CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: There's no way to get the full meaning of what happened on September 11 just by looking at a little video.

HEMMER: Yes. And in that part of Manhattan, there are many business owners near the World Trade Center site who could not wait to get back to business, certainly.

CALLAWAY: That's right. And for a few store owners, there's plenty of memories for them. Jeanne Moos is in New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You could seep it away. You could vacuum it up, or you could just leave it, leave it right where the dust settled in an unsettling display.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's scary is what I think, but I think it's really important.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's hard to see, but it's important.

MOOS (on camera): Now, how bad was the destruction here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we see behind, that's exactly how the store looked like.

MOOS (voice-over): Chelsea Jeans is located just a block away from what's left of the World Trade Center. When the towers collapsed, that infamous cloud of ash came through smashed windows and smothered David Cohen's store.

DAVE COHEN, OWNER, CHELSEA JEANS: It felt like in a black and white movie. There used to be so many colors. MOOS: More than two months later, the store has reopened, but in memory of September 11, Levi jeans and Ralph Lauren sweaters remain covered in ash, enclosed in glass.

DAVID COHEN, OWNER, CHELSEA JEANS: Years from now, the city will build a beautiful memorial. Everything's going to be beautiful, nice, green, you know, flowers and trees and everything, but that's not the truth. That's real September 11. That's what happened.

MOOS: Just around the corner, at 10 Toes Shoes, the new arrivals don't look so new. The new shoes are inside. Those in the window were there on September 11. Passers-by stop to take photos.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Remnants of what happened.

MOOS: Business is awful, and owner David Cohen is reluctantly planning to clean his front window.

DAVID COHEN, OWNER, 10 TOE SHOES: I've got few customers that are buying the shoes with the dust. They didn't want to buy it to wear it. They wanted to buy it for memory, you know.

MOOS: It's even more eerie, when you recall how some terrified New Yorkers lost their shoes in a stampede to escape the collapsing towers. The dust shrine at Chelsea Jeans is permanent.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It gives me some comfort. I don't know why.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I get goose bumps.

MOOS: Though some suspect the store's out to cash in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Way they do it is a way to draw customers in.

DAVID COHEN, OWNER, CHELSEA JEANS: It's nothing to make money off. Its something to remember.

MOOS: Cohen says he spent $10,000 constructing the display. He remembers the day a woman showed up with her 10-year old child.

DAVID COHEN, OWNER, CHELSEA JEANS: They walked in, and she asked if she could take some dust. I said, "Sure. What for?" And she stared at me. The father of this child was in one of the buildings.

MOOS: These days, the store plays uplifting music, and passers- by are free to do some window shopping for the soul.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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