An Uptown Commentary on a Downtown Tragedy

Whilst taking a stroll through the Upper West Side I was taken aback by a beautiful work of art on the corner of 73^rd and Broadway. It was an intricate mural on the sidewalk, overpowering the dirty, gray street with its with its size and vibrancy. Apart from the piece’s large scale and animated color scheme, the two most captivating aspects of the artwork were the Twin Towers and a large black cross towering over them as the centerpiece. Surrounding the cross were scattered figurines soaring up into what seems to be the sky. The details in the mural led me to the conclusion that this piece was created as a commentary on the fatalities of 9/11.

Thousands of lives were lost during the September 11 attacks. The tragedy left the U.S. and the rest of the world in grief – hence why there is a face that is filled with an image of the earth looking away from the twin towers and the figures. The artist of the mural approached this anguish through a Christian lens by using the imagery of the cross, specifically a Catholic perspective because there is a body nailed on the small cross similarly to the way Catholics depict a crucified Jesus, closest to the largest one. Within the artwork, there are figurines, resembling spirits, floating from the carnage on the bottom to the sky. The placement of the spirits floating up supports the artist’s connection to Christianity because the artist was upholding the Christian tradition about the after life – the spirits of those who died are on their way heaven. One of the most interesting notions about the afterlife is that its creation was for the living – meaning, it serves as a comfort for people imagining that their loved ones are in a fruitful and serene heaven rather than thinking of their loved ones as merely buried corpses.

 This artist’s approach to the mortalities of 9/11 can be put into conversation with the poetry that we have read from Emily Dickinson in our class. Although, Dickinson’s poetry and criticism revolved around the Civil War and the amount of lives lost in battle, much like 9/11, thousands of people died during the Civil War due to gruesome violence. Dickinson criticized the purpose of the war. Although it was a triumph for the North, it was also a huge loss for families and communities because the soldiers who were killed in fighting for both the North and the South were once their sons, brothers, and fathers. Dickinson writes, “It feels a shame to be alive when men so brave are dead,” and questions the validity and geography of heaven because she finds it hard to imagine that there can be a peaceful Heaven in the sky while there is war and violence on land. The illustrator of the mural answers Dickinson’s question through his art. The spirits of those who have passed in the bottom of the mural travel upwards to heaven, this is why there is one sky-filled face facing the spirits flying up as well as the twin towers and crosses. It is reassuring those who are alive and fixated on the after life that in the sky/heaven, someone is watching after their loved ones.