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American Morning

Interview With New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Aired May 30, 2002 - 07:09   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: Bill, you were at ground zero right after September 11.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

ZAHN: You went back there yesterday. What did you find?

HEMMER: I'll tell you, it's the first time I have been back in about six-and-a-half months, and that place is so loaded with emotion, the people who work there, the people who visit there. I mean, it's absolutely inescapable when for today, certainly one has to think about the families who will be watching this recovery operation come to an official close today.

And again, Paula, we went to ground zero to talk with the people who work there and those who visit there as well, and what we found is that ground zero is a very personal matter.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER (voice-over): By the hundreds, visitors still flock to St. Paul's Chapel, with its cluttered fence stuffed with greeting cards and flowers. This church showers rescue workers with food and prayer. And people like Elsie Lloyd (ph) would know. She drives two hours a day, five days a week from the state of Pennsylvania to work for free, and this week, her work ends.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, I have a lot of friends that I have met and a lot of great guys, you know, that I'll still keep in touch with, and you know, you don't ever lose that. You know, you become a family with these people. So even though you are from one state, it doesn't matter, you are family.

HEMMER (on camera): You are going to miss it, aren't you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

HEMMER (voice-over): Ground zero has become a New York tourist destination, 50 at a time taking turns on a wooden platform. Not everyone is happy about scenes like these with handy-cams floating in the air and tape rolling on a human tragedy, but they still come, and for very personal reasons.

Lynn came this week. She lives in New York and made her first trip to the site on Wednesday.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel sad that there was a lot of (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I feel sad. I lost a friend.

HEMMER: It's hard not to be moved by this enormous concrete field. Today, some see it as a construction site, perhaps not too different from pictures 34 years ago. Then it was 1968, and the towers were just getting started.

In the early days after 9/11, New York Governor George Pataki took our CNN crew for a tour. Up close, the devastation just gets worse.

This week, we ran into William Valdeez (ph), another New Yorker making his first visit to the site. He brought his uncle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In my mind, I keep the picture of what I saw, and I couldn't handle it until now.

HEMMER: For people like William, a small healing process may be just beginning.

(on camera): 1.8 millions tons of debris removed already, and the workers will tell you they finished three months early.

(voice-over): Pride is a good word to use around here. New Yorkers have it, and they have shown it. Long after the recovery phase ends, the pride will still burn, and so will the cameras.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: One of the things that really surprises me, and people who live here on the island of Manhattan who have never gone down to ground zero, and you might stop and think why not? But I think that story again points out how much of a personal decision this is for everyone who go down there -- more coming up throughout the morning.

ZAHN: Yeah, and right now -- thanks, Bill -- we are going to go back to ground zero, where New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg joins us -- good morning, Mayor -- glad to have you with us this morning.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, NEW YORK: Good morning.

ZAHN: We know that the ceremony will get under way at 10:29, which symbolizes the time at which the second tower collapsed. Describe to us what we will see from that point on.

BLOOMBERG: Well, we are going to ring the fire department bells that signify a firefighter has died in the line of duty. That's five bells repeated four times. And then we are going to have an honor guard carry an empty stretcher up the ramp. That signifies all of those whose remains we either have not found or have not yet identified. And then we'll have the pipe and drums come up playing a funeral dirge.

And then the last piece of structural steel, a 58 or 59-ton beam on a flatbed truck covered with an American flag, it will come up as well. That signifies all of the construction work that has been done in removing and recovering and what's going forward in the future.

We'll play "Taps." We'll play "America the Beautiful." We'll have a helicopter fly over in the missing man formation. And then we're going to get on with rebuilding to show that the terrorists haven't won, and we're going to build for those left behind.

ZAHN: I know that a great deal of thought and time and sensitivity went into planning today's ceremony. What was the balancing act that you found that you had to travel here?

BLOOMBERG: Well, you want to make sure that we do two things. That we use this to memorialize those that we lost, but also to say thank you to the firefighters and police officers and construction workers and volunteers, who in eight months did such a masterful job and did it faithfully. We did not have one additional life lost during the recovery effort, which is quite amazing, given we worked outdoors 24 hours a day, seven days a week with lots of heavy equipment.

So it's that looking back and looking forward at the same time and making sure that the ceremony lets everybody have in their own mind ways to think about the past and the future, because that's where the real thought takes place, in your mind, not out in front of you.

ZAHN: It is quite remarkable that there wasn't one serious injury suffered, when you look at the some the million man hours that were logged here. Many look at the fact that you are three months ahead of schedule with this effort, and under budget I might add, as a symbol of the strength of the American people. What does this symbolize to you?

BLOOMBERG: I think it shows that when people want to work together, they can work together. The government officials did not let partisan politics create any bickering or dissension. Everybody joined forces. Labor and management joined forces. The public and private sector joined forces. The city, the state and the federal government all worked together. And what the challenge for all of us now is to take that and use that as a model going forward, not just here in lower Manhattan, but every place in this country.

ZAHN: We have just gotten access to some of the intercepts between suspected al Qaeda militants discussing surprise attacks and 9/11. And one of the conversations recorded before September 11, you hear one of the speakers saying, there will be such a mess that they won't know how to put things back together. Within the context of what you are doing today, what should it symbolize to those men behind these vicious attacks?

BLOOMBERG: They are wrong. They are wrong, Paula. We do know how to put things back together, and we do know how to come out of this stronger than ever before. We are not going back to where we were on September 10. We are going forward. And the terrorists will not destroy everything that we in the free world hold dear, the right to practice our religion, the right to say what we want to say, the right to be in charge of our own destiny and raise our families. They will not win.

ZAHN: We thank you for sharing some time with us this morning leading into this ceremony -- good luck later today, Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

BLOOMBERG: Thank you.

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