Harry Roland, ‘The World Trade Center Man,’ Dies at 70

Harry Roland, who after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, spent most days for the rest of his life on the sidewalks near the World Trade Center site, calling out to pedestrians in singsong rhymes about damage that could never be undone, died on May 23 at his home in Upper Manhattan. He was 70.

The cause was a heart attack, his son, Kajuane Devon Roland, said.

Within months of Sept. 11, Mr. Roland, a self-described former tour guide and security guard at the World Trade Center, haunted the streets surrounding the ruins. He was not a street preacher of the End Times to come, but something more unusual: an orator who insisted that passers-by reckon with a tragedy of the past.

At first, Mr. Roland filled an unmet demand.

The attack reduced the World Trade Center to a deep gash in the earth called ground zero. Cleanup and construction dragged on while officials argued over plans for the site. Tourists from around the globe visited and found nothing, not even a memorial sign — just construction barriers blocking off heavy machinery that clanged and whined.

But a voice made itself heard above the din.

“History, don’t let it be a mystery!” Mr. Roland would shout. “How many buildings were there before they were gone? Don’t get it wrong! Don’t say two, ’cuz that’s not true!”

The right answer was seven buildings in the World Trade Center complex, all of which were leveled.

His spiel recounted the destructiveness of the attack. He spoke of the immensity of each Twin Tower — about four Statue of Liberties stacked atop one another. He hollered that the World Trade Center had merited its own ZIP code, 10048 — “a city within a city,” he said.

Profiles on NPR and in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and elsewhere depicted Mr. Roland as a symbol of “what every New Yorker has struggled to do: finding a way to come to grips with the losses of Sept. 11,” as The Orlando Sentinel put it in 2002.