But soon, commuters and tourists who buy a MetroCard may be dealt a vivid reminder of a moment immediately after Sept. 11, when such a metamorphosis seemed almost unimaginable.
A series of limited-edition MetroCards will feature photographs from ground zero in the weeks after the towers collapsed, showing firefighters, police officers and aid workers from around the country who trudged through rubble and ash to search for victims.
“To the rest of the world, it’s history now,” said Michael Nugent, a firefighter from Florida who is featured on one of the MetroCards.
The MetroCards, which will be available starting on Wednesday, are meant to recognize the people still living through the trauma of the attacks, including the responders who wrestle with the physical and psychological wreckage that stemmed from their experiences.
The effort is timed to May 30, the 17th anniversary of the conclusion of the recovery effort, and the day the Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum is set to dedicate a new Memorial Glade, a pathway with hulking stone monoliths.
The MetroCards “invite all of us to remember the courage and selflessness of the rescue, recovery and relief workers who responded after 9/11,” Alice M. Greenwald, the president and chief executive of the museum and memorial, said in a statement on Sunday. With the memorial and the card, she added, “We continue to raise awareness of the challenges still facing this community by sharing their stories with millions of global visitors.”
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will issue 250,000 of the MetroCards, largely in stations near the World Trade Center as well as at busier stops in Midtown Manhattan. It is not the first time the MTA has offered limited-edition MetroCards. Past ones have celebrated artists and advertised brands like Supreme. They have also commemorated the anniversary of the attacks.
“The memory of Sept. 11 is part of our DNA as New Yorkers, and as a transit agency whose employees heroically helped bring the city back after those terrible attacks,” Patrick J. Foye, the MTA’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “We’re proud to have played a major role in the city’s recovery and in joining ongoing remembrances such as this one.”
The series includes four photographs, including one of Roslyn Nieves, a retired crime prevention specialist from the New York Police Department.
While she will never forget her experiences at ground zero, Nieves said the MetroCards will refresh other people’s memories, prodding them to see the needs of responders who are dying of ailments tied to their work on the piles. “It gives them a little bit more information,” said Nieves, who retired from the Police Department in 2004 and is now a host and community development manager for Queens Public Television.
Nugent, the division chief of special operations for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office Department of Fire Rescue in South Florida, was glad to see the MetroCard, too, even though, he joked, “I don’t even know what a MetroCard is.”
“I think people have forgotten,” he added, noting that most new firefighters were young children in 2001 and know of the attacks only from photographs. “The only people who haven’t forgotten are the people who dealt with it.”
Nugent, who spent two weeks at the site, said he realized how the devastation endured when heart problems caused him to crash a fire vehicle while he was on a highway driving 65 mph. As in the case of many other responders, his ailment, scarring of the heart, was attributed by his doctors to the noxious dust he breathed in at ground zero.
And there is the emotional toll. Many responders, including Nieves, will return for the dedication of the Memorial Glade. Nugent, 62, will not.
“I still don’t have it in me to go up there,” he said. “I can’t do it. It’s still in my mind like I just left yesterday.” That said, he added, “If it happened again this afternoon, I’d be the first one to say, ‘Send me.’”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.