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CNN Live At Daybreak
America Recovers: Journey Through Manhattan
Aired September 27, 2001 - 07:25 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Actor and playwright Anna Deveare Smith has made a name for herself creating one woman shows examining turning points in American culture. Crown Heights, the Los Angeles riots and the impeachment of President Clinton are three examples. But many may know her from her role as press secretary in the film "The American President."
We asked Anna Deveare Smith to take a cab ride starting at 125th Street and down New York's Fifth Avenue, the heart of Manhattan, talking to cab drivers and others along the way. It was a 100 block journey that showed New York City as a city going about its business until she drew closer to what used to be the World Trade Center.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNA DEVEARE SMITH, PLAYWRIGHT (voice-over): This is 125th Street and Fifth Avenue in Harlem, about a block and a half away from former President Clinton's office and a world away from ground zero. But if life seems normal...
(on camera): You work in this shop here?
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: Yes.
DEVEARE SMITH: Here, as everywhere, people are worried.
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: The little man gonna be the one that's fighting this war, you know?
DEVEARE SMITH: The little man. Some of your friends?
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: Yes, yes. My sons.
DEVEARE SMITH: Your sons over there.
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: Yes. This is going to be on the ground fighting this war.
DEVEARE SMITH: You feel safe up here in Harlem?
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: Yes, I feel safe up here.
DEVEARE SMITH: You don't think they'd come here?
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: No, they won't come here.
DEVEARE SMITH: How come? Why?
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: Well, there's nothing up here, you know, they can't make no point by coming here.
DEVEARE SMITH (voice-over): They can't no point by coming up here. We left Harlem and headed down Fifth.
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: I came to the United States in two years and a half now.
DEVEARE SMITH (on camera): Two years and a half?
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: Yes.
DEVEARE SMITH: From?
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: From Morocco. From Casablanca to try the American dream.
DEVEARE SMITH: You know, some Americans are afraid now of the Muslim people, right?
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: Yes, everybody's thought that what happened is inhuman and our, like Muslim, our, that's against our religion.
DEVEARE SMITH: What do you think is going to happen to your American dream now?
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: Now we're like Americans because we pay taxes, we pay our bills.
DEVEARE SMITH (voice-over): The Metropolitan Museum of Art seems sturdy and strong as the beacon of classical culture.
(on camera): Some people are very afraid that art is just going to disappear off the face of the earth in a time like now. What does it give you to come to a museum under these circumstances?
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: I think it gives you a sense of normalcy. All the great old master pictures provide a sense of security in that they've survived so many hundreds of years through so many wars that to just look at them again in these times just provides that sense of security that we're all looking for.
DEVEARE SMITH (voice-over): Security, safety. Is everyone worried about it?
TUR KIM (ph): My name is Tur Kim. I am from South Korea.
DEVEARE SMITH: Not Mr. Kim.
KIM: I believe a thousand, million of the thousand angels on my head. DEVEARE SMITH: A thousand million angels, huh?
KIM: Yes.
DEVEARE SMITH: This is a place where people come from all over the world and from all over the city to feel New York at its best and except for a couple of flags at half mast and one single tattered flyer of a missing person, it would be hard to believe that in this city our world was turned upside down.
(voice-over): People are still going into FAO Schwarz.
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: I didn't buy anything today. Nothing. I left the wallet home. As much as I want to buy anything.
DEVEARE SMITH: Vendors are as entrepreneurial as ever and ladies still lunch. But some of the people who usually work in this neighborhood have nothing to do. And then, across the street, the Plaza Hotel, famous for the fictional adventures of Eloise, now offers bed and board to exhausted French rescue dogs.
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: Huge. The scale is huge. A tremendous amount of metal.
DEVEARE SMITH: The Plaza is happy to have guests, even if they are dogs, because without tourists, everybody's business is suffering.
(on camera): Mr. Fuentes?
MR. FUENTES: Yes?
DEVEARE SMITH: I am Anna.
FUENTES: Hi, how are you?
DEVEARE SMITH: Nice to meet you.
FUENTES: All right, thank you.
DEVEARE SMITH: Yes. Where are you from, sir?
FUENTES: I'm from El Salvador.
DEVEARE SMITH: And how is your business been this week?
FUENTES: Oh, it's been terrible since this.
DEVEARE SMITH (voice-over): There are a few tourists to be found at the Empire State Building, disappointed it was closed, but undaunted.
UNIDENTIFIED TOURIST: On the way in, our pilot dipped his wings as we went over the Trade Center and everybody on the plane applauded as a show of respect.
DEVEARE SMITH (on camera): We started at 125th Street and Fifth Avenue and as we got closer to the end, we found ourselves in almost the same route as that plane which came down Fifth Avenue before it hit the World Trade Center. And it took us these 100 blocks to see this real palpable evidence of what's going on.
Have you been passing this on a daily basis?
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: Oh, yes. And I must say it's, I can't go by without stopping and without being reduced to tears.
DEVEARE SMITH: How are you working on yourself to help yourself with it?
UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: Day by day. You just keep bracing yourself. You cry on your own time and while you're there, you do the job you're paid to do.
DEVEARE SMITH (voice-over): If we learned anything from our journey down Fifth Avenue, it's that both our work and our tears are essential to begin the healing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: That again was actor and playwright Anna Deveare Smith and her journey through Manhattan.
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