Greetings from New York. A quick update from somewhere near Ground Zero, 2002:
It's a strange new world we live in, indeed. I never thought I'd see the day we'd rejoice to hear that "only" 2,937 people are now considered to be missing at the World Trade Center. They say the number will decrease more. It's still far too many.
The firehouses downtown, even now, all still have shrines set up outside. People leave flowers, candles, teddy bears. Although most of the walls of "missing" posters have come down, people still put up individual pictures, replacing them when the weather or the city takes them down, so that you might be walking down any street and find yourself introduced to the names and faces of men and women who went to work that Tuesday morning and never came home. Some of them seem familiar, by now, even though I never knew them.
The New York Times dedicated a page a day to profiles of the missing every day through December 31. The feature was called Portraits of Grief; not obituaries, but each a brief story of some aspect of that person's life, caught in about two hundred words by one of a special team of reporters, who collected those flyers and worked tirelessly to reach the loved ones of every victim. All can be viewed online at Portraits of Grief. If you don't live in New York, come and visit. One Portrait is of Stephen Roach, who was a special friend to the FOP community, a man I'm sorry I didn't have the opportunity to know. One I've looked for is Tonyelle McDay, whose pretty picture stayed up longer than almost any other at my local train station. For some reason, hers never appeared. They say that some of the relatives contacted didn't want a Portrait, weren't yet ready to talk about their loved one. Maybe her family isn't ready yet. Maybe someday.
Flags fly everywhere--businesses, houses, cabs. The Stars and Stripes flash from lapels, backpacks, car antennas. The Empire State Building stays lit from dusk till dawn every night--normally they turn it off at midnight, but the workers at Ground Zero asked them to leave it on. They said it made them feel better to pause in their work and look uptown, just to see it there. For the holidays they switched to red and green, but usually it's lit up in red-white-and-blue.
The city still stands tall.
No one who didn't live in New York can really understand the change that has come over the city. For years I've told people, New Yorkers aren't unfriendly, we're just in a hurry.
We've slowed down. People stop to look at those memorials, read small details about the lives of people they didn't know. People smile at cops walking their beats (with black ribbons over their badges). When, at a bar on Friday night, tourists excitedly talk about where they've been and what they've seen, people listen. (Well, unless they mention the Hard Rock Cafe. We've got to preserve some of our dignity as New Yorkers, for heaven's sake.) Yes, things are getting back to normal, and maybe by this time next year the little differences will be gone. For now, it's nice to see it.
A new year, a new mayor, a new world.
The city pulls together. And so do we all. Thanks, everyone. Happy New Year.