WEBVTT - A Memorial for the Living 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:26.116 Bushkin. In the space of a week, back before the 0:00:26.156 --> 0:00:33.436 world came to a halt, I took two trips. One 0:00:33.796 --> 0:00:37.396 was to downtown Manhattan to the nine eleven Memorial. I'm 0:00:37.436 --> 0:00:40.316 ashamed to say I'd never visited before, even though I 0:00:40.356 --> 0:00:44.516 live in Manhattan, one Express subway stop away. I'd seen pictures, 0:00:44.996 --> 0:00:48.236 I'd walked right by it, but for some reason, I'd 0:00:48.276 --> 0:00:51.756 never gone right up to it. So I did. Finally 0:00:52.476 --> 0:00:54.916 saw the two big holes in the ground marking the 0:00:54.956 --> 0:00:58.556 spot where the Twin Towers once stood, saw the waterfalls, 0:00:59.076 --> 0:01:02.956 the black stone, the somber lines of trees surrounding the memorial. 0:01:03.716 --> 0:01:08.236 It was pouring rain. There was no one else there. 0:01:11.236 --> 0:01:16.196 My second trip was to Jacksonville, Florida, two unseasonably cold 0:01:16.276 --> 0:01:20.516 winter days. I wanted to see a chart. I know 0:01:20.596 --> 0:01:23.156 that might seem odd who goes to Florida to see 0:01:23.156 --> 0:01:25.996 a chart? But there I sat in the conference room 0:01:26.276 --> 0:01:28.996 of what looked like an old bank right by the freeway, 0:01:29.516 --> 0:01:31.836 and someone hooked a laptop up to a big screen 0:01:32.156 --> 0:01:36.716 and showed me a scatterplot X axis, Y axis, a 0:01:36.756 --> 0:01:39.716 bunch of dots, each in the shape of a human figure. 0:01:42.556 --> 0:01:44.836 At the time, I didn't think of my visit to 0:01:44.876 --> 0:01:48.476 Florida and my visit to the nine eleven Memorial as connected. 0:01:49.076 --> 0:01:51.556 They were just two random quests that seemed like they 0:01:51.636 --> 0:01:54.556 might lead somewhere. That's what I do at the beginning 0:01:54.556 --> 0:01:56.676 of every year when I start the research for a 0:01:56.676 --> 0:01:59.116 new season of the show. I spend a lot of 0:01:59.116 --> 0:02:04.276 time pursuing random ideas. But then March came and the 0:02:04.316 --> 0:02:08.076 world turned very strange and very dark, and I sat 0:02:08.156 --> 0:02:11.676 in my room and realized that those two trips were 0:02:11.716 --> 0:02:16.436 about the same thing. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're 0:02:16.476 --> 0:02:21.436 listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. 0:02:26.996 --> 0:02:30.036 This is the final episode of a season that has 0:02:30.076 --> 0:02:35.796 been preoccupied with understanding our attachments to objects, to rituals, 0:02:35.996 --> 0:02:41.556 to traditions, to elaborate bits of machinery like airplanes. This 0:02:41.636 --> 0:02:46.156 episode is about our attachment to our memories, the things 0:02:46.236 --> 0:02:49.236 we choose to remember as a society, and the things 0:02:49.236 --> 0:02:57.796 we choose to forget. In September of two thousand and one, 0:02:58.196 --> 0:03:01.596 when two hijacked passenger jets crashed into the World Trade 0:03:01.596 --> 0:03:05.276 Towers in New York City, a young architect named Michael 0:03:05.396 --> 0:03:07.996 Arod was living in downtown Manhattan. 0:03:08.276 --> 0:03:13.116 And a couple of nights after the attack, I was 0:03:13.156 --> 0:03:15.076 on my bicycle and I made my way to Washington 0:03:15.076 --> 0:03:17.476 Square Park and at two or three in the morning, 0:03:17.516 --> 0:03:20.396 there were a dozen or so people standing around that 0:03:20.516 --> 0:03:22.276 fountain in the middle of the park, and there was 0:03:23.236 --> 0:03:26.036 no ceremony, there was no speech. There was just people 0:03:26.116 --> 0:03:30.876 standing there together, not even you know, in ones and 0:03:30.916 --> 0:03:32.836 twos and threes. And when I walked up to the 0:03:32.876 --> 0:03:35.636 edge of that fountain and stood next to a stranger, 0:03:36.796 --> 0:03:41.076 I felt, for the first time in two three days 0:03:41.116 --> 0:03:46.236 since something shift that I was supported by these people, 0:03:46.276 --> 0:03:48.196 and in turn, just by standing next to them, I 0:03:48.276 --> 0:03:56.716 was supporting them. And I think that sense of belonging 0:03:56.756 --> 0:03:59.596 for the first time pushed me some way to on 0:03:59.796 --> 0:04:03.156 to participate in this idea for a memorial. 0:04:04.716 --> 0:04:08.676 A memorial. The vision that came to a Rod was 0:04:08.716 --> 0:04:12.196 of two two giant, empty concrete vessels in the Hudson River, 0:04:12.556 --> 0:04:15.756 a few blocks from the twin towers, each roughly the 0:04:15.796 --> 0:04:18.556 size and shape of the footprint of the towers. 0:04:18.196 --> 0:04:22.676 Themselves, imagining the surface of the Hudson River somehow shorn open, 0:04:23.396 --> 0:04:26.316 forming these two square voids in the water, cascading into 0:04:26.356 --> 0:04:30.076 these voids and never filling them up, and so they 0:04:30.116 --> 0:04:32.436 remained these empty, inexplicable vessels. 0:04:33.076 --> 0:04:35.596 A few years later, the city set up a competition 0:04:35.676 --> 0:04:38.316 to design a memorial for the site. It was the 0:04:38.396 --> 0:04:43.436 largest design competition in history, over five thousand entries from 0:04:43.516 --> 0:04:47.436 sixty three countries, including some of the most famous architects 0:04:47.516 --> 0:04:51.796 in the world. Michael Arod was a nobody. He worked 0:04:51.796 --> 0:04:56.236 for New York's Housing Authority designing police stations. He took 0:04:56.236 --> 0:04:59.076 his original idea and moved it from the Hudson River 0:04:59.156 --> 0:05:02.956 to the actual site of the fallen towers. Two deep 0:05:03.116 --> 0:05:07.636 voids representing the footprint of the twin towers, each with 0:05:07.716 --> 0:05:11.356 a waterfall and reflect pool, ringed by the names of 0:05:11.356 --> 0:05:14.676 those who died. He entered, and he won. 0:05:15.556 --> 0:05:18.196 The towers were about two hundred and twelve feet across, 0:05:18.516 --> 0:05:22.716 and the reflecting pools that you see on the site 0:05:22.756 --> 0:05:25.956 today are one hundred and seventy six feet across from 0:05:25.996 --> 0:05:29.276 waterfall to waterfall. That waterfall is ringed by eight foot 0:05:29.276 --> 0:05:32.316 wide water table that brings that out further to one 0:05:32.356 --> 0:05:34.796 hundred and ninety six if I'm not mistaken, and then 0:05:35.076 --> 0:05:40.596 surrounding that water table where the names are displayed is 0:05:40.796 --> 0:05:42.876 an area where you can walk around the pools, and 0:05:42.916 --> 0:05:45.396 that area is ringed by trees, and so that first 0:05:45.516 --> 0:05:48.516 row of trees that surround each pool is precisely two 0:05:48.636 --> 0:05:50.196 hundred and twelve feet across. 0:05:50.836 --> 0:05:56.116 He called his design Reflecting Absence, a precise representation of 0:05:56.156 --> 0:05:58.676 what was taken away on the morning of nine to eleven. 0:05:59.716 --> 0:06:02.156 What I wanted to do is convey to people who 0:06:02.156 --> 0:06:08.196 come here, very clearly without embellishment, how large these towers were. 0:06:08.316 --> 0:06:11.316 And that's very evident when you stand at the edge 0:06:11.356 --> 0:06:14.276 of that pool, and there is something that no photograph 0:06:14.356 --> 0:06:18.076 can capture until you're there. At the sense of the 0:06:18.116 --> 0:06:20.596 scale of the you as a person next to this 0:06:20.756 --> 0:06:25.916 enormous space is you have to experience it there and 0:06:26.036 --> 0:06:30.076 to see the thousands of names that surround these two pools. 0:06:30.996 --> 0:06:34.356 To convey the loss of so many lives. 0:06:35.036 --> 0:06:39.076 A rod conceived of something simple and beautiful. The task 0:06:39.116 --> 0:06:44.916 of making it real fell to the Port Authority. The 0:06:44.956 --> 0:06:48.876 Port Authority builds and runs much of the transportation infrastructure 0:06:48.916 --> 0:06:52.796 in the New York region, the bridges, tunnels, airports. They're 0:06:52.836 --> 0:06:56.876 like the metro areas in house engineer, contractor, and handyman 0:06:57.036 --> 0:06:59.796 all in one. If your handyman had an annual budget 0:06:59.836 --> 0:07:03.716 in the billions. They actually built the original World Trade Center, 0:07:04.236 --> 0:07:07.476 and the responsibility for building the memorial was theirs. 0:07:07.956 --> 0:07:12.476 Nice to see you on time today. Yeah, so we 0:07:12.476 --> 0:07:13.956 were just so. 0:07:13.996 --> 0:07:17.196 I asked the two former Port Authority executives who oversaw 0:07:17.236 --> 0:07:21.476 the memorial project, Chris Ward and David Tweety, to meet 0:07:21.476 --> 0:07:24.796 me at ground zero. I wanted to understand what it 0:07:24.836 --> 0:07:27.756 means to make memory real in the way that Arod 0:07:27.836 --> 0:07:28.436 was proposing. 0:07:28.916 --> 0:07:32.276 What a complexity of just building it, then the complexity 0:07:32.316 --> 0:07:35.036 of the symbolism and the culture of why did people 0:07:35.116 --> 0:07:37.556 choose to put so much into the site, which then 0:07:37.636 --> 0:07:40.156 exacerbated or made instructibility. 0:07:40.316 --> 0:07:41.956 You can walk around a bit, sure, why don't we 0:07:41.956 --> 0:07:44.916 start by really simple? I'm happy the nine to eleven 0:07:44.956 --> 0:07:48.836 Memorial wasn't an ordinary project. The design committee made it 0:07:48.876 --> 0:07:51.236 clear that they wanted something built on the site of 0:07:51.316 --> 0:07:55.996 the old towers, which created a logistical nightmare because ground 0:07:56.116 --> 0:07:59.036 zero isn't some vacant lot, It's one of the most 0:07:59.036 --> 0:08:02.356 dense urban spaces in the country. I met the Port 0:08:02.356 --> 0:08:05.236 Authority guys in the lobby of four World Trade Center, 0:08:05.556 --> 0:08:08.356 which is seventy two stories high, but it is also 0:08:08.676 --> 0:08:11.116 a one World Trade Center at one hundred and four 0:08:11.196 --> 0:08:14.756 stories and a two or three, a planned five and 0:08:14.796 --> 0:08:18.196 a seven World Trade Center, plus the nine eleven Museum, 0:08:18.396 --> 0:08:21.996 a performing arts center, and a massive transit hub where 0:08:22.036 --> 0:08:25.356 the Path commuter trains enter from New Jersey. The hub 0:08:25.356 --> 0:08:27.876 looks like the bones of a beached whale or a 0:08:27.876 --> 0:08:32.116 giant hair clip, depending on your perspective. That structure also 0:08:32.156 --> 0:08:35.676 contains a mall, and underneath it all, running right through 0:08:35.676 --> 0:08:38.196 the middle, is a subway line, the Number one train. 0:08:38.996 --> 0:08:41.236 All of these structures had to be built at the 0:08:41.276 --> 0:08:45.156 same time as Michael Arod's memorial Voids, and because everything 0:08:45.236 --> 0:08:48.676 is basically on top of everything else, the logistics of 0:08:48.716 --> 0:08:51.356 planning and building were overwhelming. 0:08:57.956 --> 0:09:01.236 So you have memorialization, you have a museum, you have 0:09:01.316 --> 0:09:04.716 real estate, you've got a security center, you've got an 0:09:04.996 --> 0:09:08.196 ecumenical religious city. You pour all that in and then 0:09:08.196 --> 0:09:11.316 you've got the overlag of the families were wondering, you know, 0:09:11.316 --> 0:09:12.516 where's my commemoration? 0:09:12.636 --> 0:09:15.036 Where will I warn? You put that all in? 0:09:15.076 --> 0:09:18.676 And it's impossible to disentangle a stet of priorities. 0:09:19.436 --> 0:09:22.276 Tweetywood and I stood by the two black Stone voids 0:09:22.516 --> 0:09:25.276 in the pouring rain, and they tried to explain what 0:09:25.356 --> 0:09:26.036 they went through. 0:09:27.196 --> 0:09:30.396 So we use the analogy that the construction was so 0:09:30.516 --> 0:09:33.596 difficult because it was like the children's game of pickup 0:09:33.636 --> 0:09:36.076 sticks that if you if you know that little game 0:09:36.116 --> 0:09:38.636 where you've got the multi colored sticks and if you 0:09:38.676 --> 0:09:40.916 pick one up, the other one moves and then you lose. 0:09:41.516 --> 0:09:42.916 Everything here is connected. 0:09:43.796 --> 0:09:46.116 The political leadership in New York made it clear that 0:09:46.196 --> 0:09:48.596 the memorial had to be finished in time for the 0:09:48.636 --> 0:09:53.116 tenth anniversary of the attacks September eleventh, twenty eleventh. 0:09:53.436 --> 0:09:54.836 Just to be tangible about it. 0:09:54.956 --> 0:09:57.596 The memorial plaza, which we were on a huge pressure 0:09:57.596 --> 0:10:00.676 to get done by the tenth anniversary, is sitting on 0:10:00.716 --> 0:10:01.636 the ceiling of the hub. 0:10:02.156 --> 0:10:05.716 The hub the place where all the underground transit lines converge. 0:10:06.396 --> 0:10:11.236 We have to completely refashion the construction process of how 0:10:11.236 --> 0:10:13.916 that hub got built. That huge costs by the way, 0:10:14.516 --> 0:10:16.516 in order to get this done first, so they built 0:10:16.556 --> 0:10:19.076 top down rather than the normal traditional. 0:10:19.636 --> 0:10:22.756 The normal traditional way is to build from the bottom up, 0:10:23.316 --> 0:10:26.716 start with the foundation, go from there, and Tweety says 0:10:26.716 --> 0:10:29.156 the Port Authority originally had a plan to do things 0:10:29.156 --> 0:10:29.516 that way. 0:10:30.236 --> 0:10:33.916 The problem was when you did that schedule, the memorial 0:10:33.956 --> 0:10:36.716 plaza wouldn't have been done until the end of twenty thirteen. 0:10:37.476 --> 0:10:40.156 And so that's when we were starting to go, wait 0:10:40.196 --> 0:10:42.596 a minute, the city is not going to tolerate the 0:10:42.636 --> 0:10:45.516 port authority telling them me, telling them, you're gonna have 0:10:45.556 --> 0:10:50.196 to wait till twenty thirteen before you can commemorate the anniversary. 0:10:50.436 --> 0:10:52.236 And dates matter. I mean, ten. 0:10:52.116 --> 0:10:55.036 Years is different than thirteen years, which is different than 0:10:55.716 --> 0:10:59.156 twelve years. And you know, the engineers, a couple of 0:10:59.236 --> 0:11:03.756 them came up with the idea build the ceiling first, basically, 0:11:03.956 --> 0:11:07.076 go across the entire site with the ceiling, which is 0:11:07.156 --> 0:11:08.916 the ceiling of what's. 0:11:08.716 --> 0:11:11.236 Below, but most important, it's the floor. 0:11:10.956 --> 0:11:14.836 Of the plaza. And then once you've done that, build 0:11:14.916 --> 0:11:15.716 down from there. 0:11:16.716 --> 0:11:19.396 As if that wasn't enough, the governor of New York 0:11:19.396 --> 0:11:22.636 at the time insisted that the subway, the Number one line, 0:11:22.836 --> 0:11:25.996 keep running throughout all this. So they had to build 0:11:25.996 --> 0:11:29.436 a box around the subway tracks, suspend the box high 0:11:29.476 --> 0:11:32.756 above the site, and work around it. Which is one 0:11:32.756 --> 0:11:35.396 of those odd facts that you only think about if 0:11:35.396 --> 0:11:37.396 you live in New York and you took the Number 0:11:37.396 --> 0:11:39.916 one train, as I did many times. In those years, 0:11:40.436 --> 0:11:43.076 and you suddenly realized that on all of those trips 0:11:43.436 --> 0:11:45.916 you were in a real life version of Jenga, you know, 0:11:46.036 --> 0:11:48.036 the game where you have a stack of building blocks 0:11:48.316 --> 0:11:51.596 and you remove them one by one until everything crashes. 0:11:52.236 --> 0:11:55.796 So there was a whole re engineering of how you'd 0:11:55.836 --> 0:11:59.716 support the one train, how the path train would get protected. 0:12:00.156 --> 0:12:02.516 And remember you got an operating railroad. 0:12:02.916 --> 0:12:07.916 So you're building a temporary structure and housing the ceiling 0:12:07.956 --> 0:12:12.596 of a hub with train tracks below you, below the 0:12:12.676 --> 0:12:15.556 ones here, but the path trains were right under. 0:12:15.356 --> 0:12:17.916 The building up platforms exactly, That's exactly. 0:12:17.956 --> 0:12:20.316 And then you build a platform and then you plump 0:12:20.436 --> 0:12:23.276 the memorial on top of the platform, and even as 0:12:23.356 --> 0:12:24.396 things are going on there. 0:12:24.316 --> 0:12:25.956 And then you're feeding. And that's what I was getting 0:12:25.996 --> 0:12:26.356 up before. 0:12:26.356 --> 0:12:31.036 You're feeding the construction horizontally rather than vertically, which you know, 0:12:31.116 --> 0:12:34.236 added about sixty million dollars worth of additional cost to 0:12:34.276 --> 0:12:37.036 handle them. Like I was saying, at one point, you 0:12:37.076 --> 0:12:41.676 had people hand excavating underneath the one train because there 0:12:41.716 --> 0:12:44.116 just wasn't room to get any heavy equipment down there. 0:12:45.116 --> 0:12:47.396 If you could put the memorial in the Hudson River, 0:12:47.796 --> 0:12:50.756 you wouldn't have this problem. Of course, you just build 0:12:50.796 --> 0:12:53.636 some pilings into the riverbed, and if you didn't have 0:12:53.676 --> 0:12:56.956 to race and finish by September eleventh, twenty eleven, your 0:12:56.956 --> 0:12:59.276 life would be easier as well. You could start at 0:12:59.276 --> 0:13:02.036 the bottom and build up the normal way, not start 0:13:02.036 --> 0:13:04.956 at the top and build down. In the service of 0:13:04.996 --> 0:13:09.356 fulfilling the very strict requirements of memory, something that would 0:13:09.356 --> 0:13:12.876 have been straightforward was turned into something very complicated. 0:13:13.476 --> 0:13:17.476 Okay, So again, take something as simple as exactly where 0:13:17.476 --> 0:13:21.276 we're standing here. Yeah, here's the brass with all the names. 0:13:22.036 --> 0:13:24.436 We were standing by the perimeter of one of the voids. 0:13:24.876 --> 0:13:26.876 Ward was pointing at the rows of names of all 0:13:26.876 --> 0:13:29.756 those who died in the attacks. The names are embossed 0:13:29.796 --> 0:13:34.436 in brass and inlaid into the void's stone walls. It's 0:13:34.476 --> 0:13:37.636 meant to be something solid that people can touch. But 0:13:37.676 --> 0:13:39.876 if you're the port authority, you have to think through 0:13:39.876 --> 0:13:40.996 the implications of that. 0:13:41.676 --> 0:13:44.916 Due to the ability for brass to capture heat. 0:13:45.796 --> 0:13:48.476 And then if on a really really hot day someone 0:13:48.516 --> 0:13:50.636 could put their hand down on this, they could get 0:13:50.676 --> 0:13:52.876 literally a second degree burn if the sun had been 0:13:52.916 --> 0:13:53.556 on this all day. 0:13:53.836 --> 0:13:56.916 So there's a cooling system underneath. 0:13:56.396 --> 0:14:00.716 This brass so that it will always stay safe, so 0:14:00.756 --> 0:14:03.276 people can end up touching it. At the same time, 0:14:03.676 --> 0:14:05.436 if a little kid in the middle of winter when 0:14:05.436 --> 0:14:07.636 it's freezing, came out here and wanted to stickness tongue 0:14:07.676 --> 0:14:09.756 on it, you know, the famous get stuck to the 0:14:09.756 --> 0:14:10.876 flagpole in the playground. 0:14:11.116 --> 0:14:14.116 So there's a heating system underneath here as well. 0:14:14.476 --> 0:14:17.956 So just to end up showing these names, you've got 0:14:17.956 --> 0:14:21.276 a system which is both heating and cooling a copper 0:14:21.516 --> 0:14:23.956 you know facade here for where the names are atched. 0:14:24.076 --> 0:14:26.276 Well, if you just did concrete, would you have. 0:14:28.116 --> 0:14:29.676 There are a lot of different ways you could have 0:14:29.716 --> 0:14:32.876 put names, you know out there, but this was and 0:14:32.916 --> 0:14:35.356 there they're all backlit as you can see. 0:14:35.396 --> 0:14:38.116 So in some respects, would there. 0:14:37.956 --> 0:14:41.716 Be a more efficient way to have names r absolutely, 0:14:41.796 --> 0:14:43.876 but this is a special site. 0:14:48.876 --> 0:14:51.556 In the end, the price tag for the National September 0:14:51.556 --> 0:14:55.436 eleventh Memorial and Museum came to somewhere around seven hundred 0:14:55.516 --> 0:15:00.596 million dollars. To put that in perspective, the cost of 0:15:00.636 --> 0:15:05.316 the Vietnam Memorial in today's dollars was twenty million. The 0:15:05.356 --> 0:15:08.836 cost of the Lincoln Memorial in today's dollars was forty 0:15:08.836 --> 0:15:14.156 five million. Now, is seven hundred million dollars too much? 0:15:14.916 --> 0:15:17.596 I don't know. It depends on what you're comparing it to. 0:15:17.676 --> 0:15:20.316 I suppose the point is that we could have done 0:15:20.316 --> 0:15:24.396 it for less, but we chose not to because we 0:15:24.436 --> 0:15:29.996 wanted to memorialize that event as perfectly and precisely as possible, 0:15:30.596 --> 0:15:36.036 down to its dimensions, location, and date of completion. When 0:15:36.076 --> 0:15:42.596 we want to we take our memories very seriously. The 0:15:42.716 --> 0:15:45.716 maintenance schedule on that kind of thing must be intense. 0:15:45.756 --> 0:15:48.676 I mean, you're right, you can't fail, right, it's exactly. 0:15:48.876 --> 0:15:51.756 On the ice in the winter issue, right, It's just 0:15:52.076 --> 0:15:54.556 every part of that. Global warming makes it easier. 0:15:54.596 --> 0:15:57.196 So one of the problems is if you'll see the 0:15:57.236 --> 0:16:01.676 way the water flows underneath the perimeter, it's horizontal to 0:16:01.756 --> 0:16:04.556 the ground. Here about the side, you get a heavy 0:16:04.556 --> 0:16:07.356 wind in the wintertime and it whips across the top. 0:16:07.676 --> 0:16:11.036 It picks up moisture and then blows it onto this brick, 0:16:11.556 --> 0:16:13.396 which then potentially creates ice. 0:16:13.196 --> 0:16:18.716 Conditions between keeping the fountains going and security and the 0:16:18.716 --> 0:16:22.156 heating and cooling systems and the museum staff and chipping 0:16:22.236 --> 0:16:24.876 the ice off the brick, the operating budget for the 0:16:24.916 --> 0:16:28.876 memorial comes to another eighty million dollars a year. So 0:16:28.956 --> 0:16:32.836 all told, we're somewhere over one point five billion dollars 0:16:32.996 --> 0:16:36.996 for the memorial so far. The nine to eleven Memorial 0:16:37.156 --> 0:16:44.436 is option number one for memory management. The alternative option 0:16:44.556 --> 0:16:48.356 number two is Jacksonville. 0:17:02.476 --> 0:17:05.556 Do you have your high school Clumbar Jr. 0:17:05.596 --> 0:17:09.276 High School, Dicloma AMA veneer's degree from the University of Connective. Wow, 0:17:09.316 --> 0:17:09.956 what'd you major in? 0:17:11.596 --> 0:17:12.996 Okay? 0:17:13.476 --> 0:17:14.756 Did you ever go to jailer Quicksand? 0:17:16.516 --> 0:17:20.556 I went to Jacksonville, Florida during the count. Every homeless 0:17:20.636 --> 0:17:23.476 organization in the country does this during the last ten 0:17:23.556 --> 0:17:26.996 days of January. Volunteers go out and count the number 0:17:27.036 --> 0:17:30.036 of people living on the streets. The group I went 0:17:30.076 --> 0:17:34.236 to see Changing Homelessness had one hundred and eighty volunteers, 0:17:34.596 --> 0:17:39.556 divided up into shifts morning, afternoon, and evening gathering information. 0:17:40.076 --> 0:17:40.956 What are you working at? 0:17:41.516 --> 0:17:46.596 I work, do someone and do what I already actually do? 0:17:47.716 --> 0:17:48.836 Wherever were Yeah? 0:17:49.916 --> 0:17:51.196 So when you became homeless? 0:17:51.196 --> 0:17:52.596 Did you become homeless? 0:17:52.596 --> 0:17:54.236 Did you like run away from a family? 0:17:55.396 --> 0:17:58.076 Was there violence at home? Any kind of differences? 0:17:58.796 --> 0:17:59.156 Jobs? 0:17:59.236 --> 0:18:00.516 Did you start? 0:18:00.836 --> 0:18:01.516 Okay? 0:18:02.596 --> 0:18:05.436 Jacksonville did its first count more than fifteen years ago 0:18:05.916 --> 0:18:08.276 more as an academic exercise than anything else. 0:18:09.116 --> 0:18:12.236 I honestly thought, we knew, why do we need to 0:18:12.236 --> 0:18:12.836 do a registry? 0:18:12.916 --> 0:18:13.036 Right? 0:18:13.076 --> 0:18:13.996 We know everybody? 0:18:14.676 --> 0:18:18.356 That's Don Gilman, who runs Changing Homelessness. The more they 0:18:18.396 --> 0:18:21.116 thought about this idea of a registry, the more they 0:18:21.116 --> 0:18:23.636 wondered if they were missing people. What if there were 0:18:23.716 --> 0:18:26.316 homeless people out there who never stayed in a shelter 0:18:26.716 --> 0:18:29.836 or who never showed up looking for services. So Gilman 0:18:29.916 --> 0:18:31.396 decided to do a real count. 0:18:31.556 --> 0:18:33.516 So that was the first time we went out when 0:18:33.556 --> 0:18:37.036 it was convenient for our clients and not convenient for us. 0:18:37.116 --> 0:18:41.596 We went out between four and six am on a Tuesday, Wednesday, 0:18:41.596 --> 0:18:42.156 and Thursday. 0:18:42.516 --> 0:18:43.076 Yeah. 0:18:43.316 --> 0:18:46.076 The idea being, if you're on the streets in the 0:18:46.076 --> 0:18:47.716 early morning, you really are homeless. 0:18:47.756 --> 0:18:54.676 You are homeless, that's where you spent the night. 0:18:55.516 --> 0:18:58.756 So now for the count. The volunteers gathered before sunrise 0:18:59.316 --> 0:19:02.716 College students, formerly homeless, people who remember what it was 0:19:02.796 --> 0:19:06.396 like on the streets, teachers helping out before their day starts. 0:19:06.796 --> 0:19:13.596 Nurses from the nearby hospitals. I carry with them hygiene kits, toothpastes, socks, soap, shampoo. 0:19:14.516 --> 0:19:19.156 They fan out across Jacksonville looking under bridges, in park cars, 0:19:19.476 --> 0:19:23.196 in abandoned buildings. If you're sleeping, they leave you alone. 0:19:23.476 --> 0:19:29.036 If you're awake, they ask you questions. What they learn 0:19:29.116 --> 0:19:31.956 gets fed into something called the by name list, and 0:19:32.036 --> 0:19:34.716 the data from that list is graft as a scatterplot. 0:19:35.396 --> 0:19:38.596 That was the chart I went down to Jacksonville to see. 0:19:38.676 --> 0:19:42.076 Each homeless person they found is represented by an icon 0:19:42.156 --> 0:19:45.916 on the chart. The vertical axis is a measure of vulnerability. 0:19:46.396 --> 0:19:49.196 Do they have disabilities or mental illness? Can they take 0:19:49.196 --> 0:19:52.676 care of themselves? The horizontal axis measures how long they've 0:19:52.716 --> 0:19:55.676 been without housing. If your name appears down in the 0:19:55.756 --> 0:19:59.036 left hand corner, that means you're pretty healthy and haven't 0:19:59.036 --> 0:20:01.396 been on the streets that long. If you're in the 0:20:01.516 --> 0:20:05.196 upper right hand corner vulnerable and homeless for an extended 0:20:05.236 --> 0:20:07.436 period of time, that's a different story. 0:20:07.916 --> 0:20:11.236 Looking at that scatter plan, it's not dots, it's little people. 0:20:11.756 --> 0:20:15.276 So it's always bringing it back to even though we're 0:20:15.316 --> 0:20:18.196 looking at aggregate data, we're always bringing it back to 0:20:18.236 --> 0:20:22.156 that individual who's experiencing homelessness, so we know their name, 0:20:22.356 --> 0:20:23.276 we know who they are. 0:20:25.196 --> 0:20:29.716 The fundamental condition of homelessness is invisibility. Those on the 0:20:29.756 --> 0:20:33.756 streets are the easiest to ignore and the easiest to forget. 0:20:34.396 --> 0:20:37.636 The scatter plot reminds us who they are, what their 0:20:37.676 --> 0:20:41.516 lives are like, what their needs are. I pointed to 0:20:41.556 --> 0:20:44.076 someone way over on the right hand side, the side 0:20:44.076 --> 0:20:47.716 where the most vulnerable people are clustered. Don Gilman's colleague, 0:20:47.756 --> 0:20:50.436 Charles Temple, recognizes the name right away. 0:20:50.876 --> 0:20:54.996 He's talked about every meeting that we have now that guy, that. 0:20:55.036 --> 0:20:57.556 Guy, because he's our guy. We get him house like 0:20:57.596 --> 0:20:58.076 our whole. 0:20:58.316 --> 0:21:00.116 That drops our whole after time. 0:21:00.516 --> 0:21:03.116 Some of these clients, even if they're not up on 0:21:03.156 --> 0:21:08.836 the vulnerability index, they can be difficult people to work with. 0:21:09.516 --> 0:21:12.836 Some people need all kinds of help. Others really only 0:21:12.876 --> 0:21:15.716 need one thing. Housing But which. 0:21:15.476 --> 0:21:17.556 Which ones are? Clay County guy that's been out there 0:21:17.556 --> 0:21:18.356 for a long time. 0:21:18.796 --> 0:21:20.796 He's been on the list for over a year, and 0:21:21.036 --> 0:21:24.236 like you're saying, there's just nothing out there for him. 0:21:24.516 --> 0:21:27.236 But we bring him up every week, We talk about 0:21:27.276 --> 0:21:29.596 him every week, and actually just last week we may 0:21:29.636 --> 0:21:32.916 have identified a housing resource hud Vash might take him, 0:21:33.076 --> 0:21:35.156 make a waiver and actually accept him through. 0:21:36.276 --> 0:21:39.076 Every Tuesday at one o'clock in the same room where 0:21:39.076 --> 0:21:42.276 I'm sitting all the key housing advocates in Jacksonville gather 0:21:42.396 --> 0:21:45.916 and comb through this list, all the names one by one. 0:21:46.556 --> 0:21:50.476 What's happening? I mean, what is the barrier? Is it 0:21:50.516 --> 0:21:53.356 because they want to stay in a particular part of 0:21:53.436 --> 0:21:55.916 our community and there's not a whole lot of affordable 0:21:55.916 --> 0:21:59.436 housing there? Is it because they have a very recent eviction? 0:21:59.676 --> 0:22:02.156 Is it because they have a very recent or a 0:22:02.236 --> 0:22:04.756 violent felony at some point? And how do we who 0:22:04.796 --> 0:22:07.316 are our landlords that will maybe work with this person? 0:22:08.196 --> 0:22:12.076 The names on the jack list are arranged deliberately. Where 0:22:12.116 --> 0:22:15.996 they fall on the scatterplot gives each name meaning. And 0:22:16.076 --> 0:22:18.596 I was struck as I sat in that conference room 0:22:19.036 --> 0:22:21.516 by how similar that was to the names list at 0:22:21.516 --> 0:22:26.236 the nine to eleven memorial. The victims there suffer from 0:22:26.276 --> 0:22:29.276 the same condition of invisibility, and the list of the 0:22:29.356 --> 0:22:31.996 names around the top of the voids is supposed to 0:22:31.996 --> 0:22:39.116 give them permanence. Why not do it alphabetically like other 0:22:39.196 --> 0:22:39.796 memorials do? 0:22:42.276 --> 0:22:46.196 I think the biggest reason, at least in my mind, 0:22:46.436 --> 0:22:50.116 is you lose so much of the story of these 0:22:50.156 --> 0:22:52.396 people by doing that. 0:22:54.116 --> 0:22:56.436 The job of figuring out which name went where on 0:22:56.476 --> 0:23:00.276 the parapet fell to another architect on Michael Arod's team, 0:23:00.836 --> 0:23:01.716 Amanda Sachs. 0:23:02.316 --> 0:23:04.916 I think it's important to know if they were on 0:23:04.956 --> 0:23:08.236 a plane, if they were in the North Tower or 0:23:08.436 --> 0:23:15.276 South Tower, if they were a first responder. I think 0:23:15.396 --> 0:23:19.716 it adds a level of meaning. It brings meaning to 0:23:19.796 --> 0:23:25.636