the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. Participants
gathered around tables to listen, to disagree, to deliberate and to
find common ground.
On September 11, 2001, William Zybach stood high above Washington, D.C., in the Cairo condominium building and watched smoke rising from the Pentagon.
Like millions of Americans that morning, he had no idea what would happen next. Zybach gathered several close friends and left Washington for his home in Mollusk, seeking refuge in the quiet of the Northern Neck. A year later, he found himself in a very different place: inside New York City’s vast Jacob Javits Convention Center, helping nearly 5,000 strangers wrestle with one of the most emotionally charged questions imaginable: What should we do with Ground Zero?
Twenty-five years after the attacks, that story is coming back with him to the Northern Neck.
Beginning September 11, Compass Cinema 6 in Irvington will present a one-week run of “9/11: Reclaiming Ground Zero,” a new documentary about “Listening to the City,” the remarkable 2002 gathering in which thousands of New Yorkers were invited to help shape the future of the World Trade Center site.
“I remember looking out from the Cairo and seeing the smoke rising from the Pentagon,” Zybach said. “We didn’t know what was happening or what might happen next. We gathered our friends and came here, to Mollusk. I certainly couldn’t have imagined that a year later I would be in New York, helping thousands of people decide together how a city could rebuild after something like this.”…..
