Sculpting a new image for Amtrak

By Maralyn Lois Polak

Departures are never as joyous as arrivals. And so my 28-hour train trip on Amtrak’s Crescent back to Philadelphia from New Orleans was more subdued than the ride down.

Since the train left at 7 a.m., many passengers were still groggy. Some, like myself, had gotten to the station hours early – time enough to sip coffee or tea and contemplate a huge tropical palmetto bug skitter and zigzag endlessly across the black and white tile floor as it circumnavigated an arresting triangular metal sculpture commemorating 9-11.

Never before could I recall seeing a piece of public art installed in a train station. From the vantage point of my bench, I stared at the sculpture, then studied people’s reactions. There it was, 6 a.m. in New Orleans, more than six months after the attacks. Folks walked around the thing – it seemed a “thing” more than a formal “sculpture” – reading and re-reading its informational panels, observing its heart-stopping color photographs of the doomed twin towers. Some took pictures.

The strangely powerful piece seemed to be a trio of twisted I-beams gleaned from WTC wreckage, but, no, it was entirely fabricated in a sculptor’s studio and re-assembled at the train station.

Later that morning, while reading in the empty cafe car, I was approached by a wiry fellow with piercing dark eyes and his pewter hair in a curly Einsteinian nimbus. “Could I borrow your copy of the morning paper?” he inquired. “The New Orleans Times-Picayune has a photograph on its front page of my sculpture at the train station.”

I’m stunned. “That’s yours?” I ask, incredulous at this synchronicity.

Bill, a voluble ex-Marine of Italian and Russian and English descent from upper New York state, originally studied international relations in college, then worked in the family business – stone-carving. Yes, he carved gravestones for a living! But then, society’s economic priorities changed. “People preferred to spend $20,000 or $30,000,” he said, “on their children’s college tuitions instead.”

Resourcefully, he shifted gears, changed careers, and began building wonderful houses from carved stone blocks. He made one for himself, but soon the taxes became so high, he couldn’t afford to live in his own house! Realtors wanted the houses faster than he could finish them, and he sold several for so much money he hardly has to worry about working any longer. His needs, and those of his family, are modest. And so he has time for his art, sculpture and photography.

After volunteering a month on the WTC site, he was moved to create an unofficial memorial sculpture for those whose lives were so horribly snatched away by terrorism against America on Sept. 11, 2001. Then, through Jim, an old college friend, currently a planning engineer for Amtrak, the sculptor arranged to have his piece make the circuit of various train stations across the United States, which is how it came to be in New Orleans where I saw it that very morning.

When I bade farewell to the sculptor and returned to my seat, I met “Yvette,” a lively, bright, humorous Jamaican woman in an interracial marriage. For 22 years, Yvette had worked as an NBC switchboard operator in Manhattan – until she was pushed off the corporate cliff in her 40s. Instead of wringing their hands, Yvette and her bridge toll-taker Jewish husband retired to Florida where they bought a spacious lot for 10 grand, constructed a house and pool on it for another 90 grand, and are now living better than some of their former bosses, another lesson in resourcefulness for us all!

Hey! Speaking of bosses and resourcefulness, let’s see what much-ballyhooed “transportation consultant” David Gunn, newly named Amtrak CEO, can do to turn the struggling national passenger rail service around, after heading high-pressure transit systems in New York, Washington, D.C., and Toronto. Most news accounts about his appointment fail to mention he also steered SEPTA – Philly’s transit system, otherwise known as “INEPTA” in its awfulness. To me, looks like Gunn’s just another corporate leapfrogger – staying a few years here, a few years there, polishing his resume, then splitting opportunistically – until he announced, prematurely as it turns out, his retirement to Nova Scotia back in 1998.

Naturally, though, Amtrak’s board of directors gush that David Gunn “comes aboard with exceptional experience and leadership skills.”

He’ll need them. Let’s hope he doesn’t become the Tom Ridge of trains – another hapless hood ornament – all show and no go.

Maralyn Lois Polak

Maralyn Lois Polak is a Philadelphia-based journalist, screenwriter, essayist, novelist, editor, spoken-word artist, performance poet and occasional radio personality. With architect Benjamin Nia, she has just completed a short documentary film about the threatened demolition of a historic neighborhood, "MY HOMETOWN: Preservation or Development?" on DVD. She is the author of several books including the collection of literary profiles, "The Writer as Celebrity: Intimate Interviews," and her latest volume of poetry, "The Bologna Sandwich and Other Poems of LOVE and Indigestion." Her books can be ordered by contacting her directly.
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