New Yorkers often take pride in their ability to assess risks on the fly. That skill has been put to good use over the past week, as the spectre of biowarfare emerged with news of anthrax exposures and full-blown cases in NYC.
Anthrax. In New York City. Until now, the stuff of terrorist thriller movies. And now, a potential hazard to be considered along with commuter traffic, street people and, recently, high-rise buildings. Especially for my friends in the media, life continues to be bifurcated. The stuff of normal workday and family life is interspersed with issues so hard to comprehend, so monstrous, that they can’t yet be integrated with what we used to know as real life.
All in all, New York has handled a week of anthrax scares and uncertainty with great aplomb. The city is clearly back in business. Almost everyone I know did their work, went out to eat, met with friends and carried on. Most people keep half an ear out for news — lots of us frequently hit “Reload” on our favorite news website — but otherwise anxieties seemed to stay in check.
From this point of view, the reaction in DC this week seems a little less measured. New York has always had a contentious relationship with our government capital, since NYC views itself as the nation’s REAL capital (culturally, economically, socially). But I’ve heard almost no chortling or smugness over DC’s apparent confusion. I think New Yorkers have sadly realized that everyone reacts differently to fear and stress, and does the best he or she can with the information at hand. If there is a New York response, it’s lowkey pride that living here may make us tougher, and hence perhaps better at emergency response.
The subways are a focus of concern over bioterrorism. One friend has added half an hour each way to his commute by taking the bus rather than descending into the ground, though he’s the exception rather than the rule. But what surprises me is that New Yorkers now read less on the subway. I’ve always enjoyed looking around the car to see a dozen readers, with newspapers in three languages and four character sets. Now, most people stare into a middle distance. Theirs is not the neutral gaze that was the usual “subway face”. Instead, many people seem to be watching their own internal televisions, their eyes hollow and blank.
A few statistics. The city on Thursday updated the number of victims: 4,515 are reported missing, 458 bodies have been removed and 408 identified. By Wednesday, workers had removed 277,525 tons of concrete and other rubble, and 61,523 tons of steel.
One Liberty Plaza, directly across Church Street from the World Trade Center site, is expected to reopen Monday. The 53-story building is now the tallest in the vicinity. It has great symbolic importance: On 9/11, news reports said it was in danger of collapsing. Structurally it has turned out to be sound, and yesterday it had multiple cleaning crews fanned out across its facade. It also houses the Brooks Brothers store that served as the emergency morque on 9/11.
At the World Financial Center, 1 WFC — home of Dow Jones, Lehman Brothers — is scheduled to open Nov. 19. Merrill Lynch, the main tenant in 2 and 4 WFC, is repairing those two towers. 4 WFC was largely untouched, and should open in the next few weeks. The eastern facade of 2 WFC, which faced the World Trade Center, was severely damaged and still has a section of what looks like WTC skin protruding from one corner about 15 stories up. It will be several months to a year before it reopens.
Meanwhile, the city has set up a virtual tour operation to Ground Zero. The main clients are the thousands of families of the missing, followed by visiting dignitaries from around the world. And in a room at Police Headquarters, a NYPD honor guard in full-dress uniform is solemnly assembling wooden urns with ashes from the site, 4,000 of them, to be given to victims’ families who want them.
Crowds of visitors to the city continue to file down the east side of Broadway (the “west” in my last letter was a typo) to view Ground Zero. They are subjected to swarms of aggressive evangelists, many of them apparently Christians from the U.S. south. They wear bright t-shirts and hand out tracts or pamphlets, some with Twin Tower images. The visitors adopt the New York response of side-stepping the outstretched hand, and courtesy is maintained.
The economies of Soho (the cast-iron shopping district SOuth of HOuston Street) and Tribeca (TRIangle BElow CAnal Street) have been decimated. (The visitors to Ground Zero are not staying downtown.) Long dependent on now non-existent tourist traffic, most shops and many restaurants are doing only a fraction of their usual business. A few never reopened after the exclusion zone shrank. Others are desperately offering specials. A Tribeca Coalition has formed out of necessity, to pool resources and get the message out: Streets are clear, stores are open. All that’s needed are customers.
A group of us went to Tribeca Grill (Robert DeNiro’s restaurant, a 10-year mainstay with excellent food) this week to support the area. It was packed. But newer places, spots with more attitude, are suffering. It seems likely to be a long, cold, tough winter for small businesspeople.
With the NYPD stretched thin, many officers still working 12-hour shifts six days a week, the focus on quality-of-life offenses that so improved NYC over the last decade has evaporated. Street drug dealers in Washington Square Park are far more brazen and aggressive. Beggars and peddlers have returned to the subways.
Many, many New Yorkers are having trouble sleeping. I’ve been waking up a few times each night. Others can’t get to sleep before 1 or 2 am. Some have nightmares, others awake exhausted and leaden, deeply weary, not wanting to face the day. All of this is normal stress response.
But it raises a deeper fear. What will the winter be like? Friends in mental health professions — all of whom seem to have aged 10 years in the last month — tell me it takes six weeks to six months to incorporate traumatic events into a person’s worldview. As the days get shorter, colder and darker, my friends fear for the mental health of the city and region.
The U.S. has never been through a trauma witnessed on TV by so much of the nation, and experienced live by at least several hundred thousand people. We have no experience coping with such a shock to 8 million residents of a city, and 20 or more million in the affected region. Even California’s earthquakes have only affected a fraction of these numbers.
I do know that a nonprofit serving battered women is gearing up for its worst winter ever. Already its clients report increased violence from men who are drinking far more than usual. So the winter may be unpleasant.
And still the funerals continue. A friend who heads a NYPD fraternal organization has been going to a steady schedule of them. He notes that firefighters and police officers often clustered in suburban towns — as did employees of various companies. Washingtonville, NY (population 5,000) lost 5 firefighters. Pelham, NY (population 9,000) had 9 victims: 5 Cantor Fitzgerald employees, 1 Aon employee, 1 firefighter. Staten Island, home to many uniformed city employees, has just 5% of New York City’s population, but was home to fully 20% of the 9/11 victims.
Today is clear and blue, one of the last warm days of a crisp New York autumn. Walking to work, it was clear that the wind had shifted. The acrid smell of Ground Zero was apparent fully two miles uptown. The smoke from the site is no longer visible down Sixth Avenue, but reminders are still with us. And most likely will be for some time.
Of course, a small part of me is fascinated to find out what NEXT week will bring ….
love, jv.
Author’s note: Once again, I am honored and humbled by the reaction to my continuing letters since 9/11. They have been redistributed multiple times; I’ve received dozens of responses from around the world. Each e-mail helped connect me to caring people and friends, and I thank you all. As always, feel free to pass this along to anyone you think might want to read it — especially outside NYC.