BEIJING — Tiananmen Square, now:

On a hazy Wednesday morning, bicycles and buses and taxis choke Chang'an Boulevard. The Olympic torch is due later in the day. Kids in red Coca-Cola shirts fill the sidewalks. A teenager in Los Angeles Lakers pants and a Kobe Bryant shirt hands out water bottles. The center of China's universe is alive.

Tiananmen Square, then:

The tanks rolled in the night of July 3, 1989. China's leaders had been shaken by protests, by students ensconced on the square, talking about change and freedom. The rebellion was to be crushed. By the time it was over, hundreds would die, possibly thousands.

On the morning of the 5th, a line of 17 tanks rolled down Chang'an toward Tiananmen Square. A young man in dark slacks and a white shirt, apparently carrying his shopping, stepped in front of the lead tank.

Down the street, on the fifth-floor balcony of the Beijing Hotel, was an American photographer named Jeff Widener, working for The Associated Press. He is a reason why the world would know what happened next.

The young man stood in front of the tanks and made them temporarily stop, one voice of rage against a battalion of armor. The photo went everywhere. The legend of the Tank Man was born.

Now ...

A flashing signal in the middle of an intersection near the Forbidden City says "Smile," a friendly request to have a nice day from your Beijing traffic cops. Tiananmen Square is filled with thousands of tourists and locals and police, uniformed and otherwise.

Then ...

"There was a very organized structure for the protesters," Widener said in an e-mail interview from Hawai'i, where he is now a photographer for The Honolulu Advertiser. "Everyone was very excited and optimistic about the future. Sometimes there was peace, and at one point the soldiers were singing with the protesters on the square."

Now ...

A sign slowly turns near Mao's tomb: "Beijing 2008." Across the street, his mammoth photo gazes approvingly over the landscape. Millions died during his reign, but he is his own Mount Rushmore. It is one of the greatest feats of political spin in history.

Then ...

"During the night of the shootings," Widener writes, "I recall one old man approaching me with a toothless grin. He opened a heavy coat and there was a blood-drenched hatchet in his belt, obviously from a soldier he had attacked. A few minutes later, a burning armored car came down the street. Protesters had used pipes and broken fences to ram the treads. As I waited for my dying camera flash batteries to recharge, a terrific block struck my face as the viewfinder came to my eye. A stray brick had hit my head, and the Nikon camera had absorbed the impact. ..."

Now ...

Clearly, the Chinese are enormously curious about Americans. A man from Seattle, Matthew Henry, is visiting the square with his 5-month-old son in a backpack, and a dozen Beijingers crowd around with cameras to get their picture. Henry's sister-in-law mentions it had been like that all morning. It is as if a tourist from Washington with a baby has turned into Madonna.

Then ...

"Everything was in slow motion, people running, buses on fire, red tracers arching over the Great Hall of the People. I was so disoriented, I questioned the logic of shooting off fireworks. It actually ... was large caliber machine-gun fire."

Now ...

A couple of Chinese gentlemen stop and ask a question. Something about economic issues. Soon, 10 gather around, and then 10 more, and then 10 more. They want to know what Americans think of China, if they are worried about its growing economic might. Question after question as the huddle grows thicker. I suddenly feel like Tom Brady on Super Bowl media day.

Then ...

"I was so spaced out by the rock that I really wasn't thinking clearly. In fact, as I looked out at the row of tanks approaching me, I commented to Kirk (an American student who was helping him) that 'the lone man was going to screw up my composition.' I managed only three images and one was sharp. Then Kirk smuggled the film back to the AP office in his underwear, where it was later transmitted worldwide."

Now ...

I ask the group, who's their favorite athlete? It's nearly unanimous: Yao Ming. I ask if they could visit the United States, what would they like to see first? One answers the White House, another the Pentagon. They act as if they could talk all day.

One last thing. About the Tank Man ...

"It happened here?" one says.

"No one knows about that," another says.

Widener has no idea what has become of the man he helped make a global figure. No one does. He might be dead, imprisoned, in exile, or still in China, safely lost in the masses.

What we know is that his was the face of Then in China, when the tanks rolled in, leaving Tiananmen Square filled with blood and ghosts and the unanswered fate of a man who is famous, but still anonymous.

Now, the square has surveillance cameras on every lightpost and is filled with flowers and visitors.

The Olympics are coming.

Mike Lopresti is a sports columnist for Gannett News Service.