DAY SEVENTEEN:Sept. 27:
It's another dark day, with the telltale chill of autumn in the air. In "normal" times this would mark a distinct fashion moment, when the women of Manhattan would suddenly, as if on some special cue system, all abandon sandals, whites, ecrus and pastels in favor of boots and browns in tony new styles. If autumn caught them by surprise, said Manhattanites would race to Barneys or Bloomies or Saks or Bendels to stock up swiftly on the hottest fashion statements their credit card limits would allow. In a "normal" year.
But the woe-is-me expressions on department store employees tell all: nobody is buying. And though I confess to having spotted one bona fide fashion slave this afternoon, her hair dyed plastic crimson and her suit a new D&G, high heeled Guccis setting it all off nicely, she was a rare bird. Despite the upward burps of the stock market, and elapsed time since the Great Calamity, New Yorkers seem less obsessed with trends and fashions than I can ever recall. The hot trend clubs usually packed with the fashionista are now crying potential bankruptcy.
Perhaps that is because the Medical Examiner's office has started issueing death certificates, despite the lack of bodies, bodies parts, DNA or any other remains for well over 90% of the missing World Trade Center victims. With that comes official mourning, funerals and rites of true passage. So numerous are the funerals that families are complaining of sparse attendance, and the media cannot keep up with even the passing of the noteworthy, much less the unnamed immigrant janitors and storekeepers.
Or perhaps it's because people have become increasingly fearful. The NY Times reports today that there has been a run on ciprofloxicin sales. Yes, that's true. But it's more than that: New Yorkers have bought out all retail supplies of gas masks, surgical mask supplies are low, sales of many antibiotics -- not just cipro --- have skyrocketed and I've been getting Emails from perfectly reasonable, rational folks inquiring where they might purchase whole body protection suits. One fellow even stipulated: Orange, Size Extra Large, please. It's a damned good thing the flu season hasn't commenced or half the city, given its current anxiety level, would be convinced they had anthrax, and the other half would say it was smallpox.
Yom Kippur adds a reasonable rationale for fearfulness: "After all," a jewish reporter colleague said, "didn't THEY attack us so many times before on Yom Kippur?". If a symbolic date of assault were needed, there it is.
But of course there was no particular symbolism to September 11, yet it served somebody's needs quite well. The anxiety about other shoes yet to drop, future dates to add to the days of infamy, is palpable. Jittery as New Yorkers are about this, my conversations over the last two days with top policy wonks and national security folks in Washington reveal genuine fear. To a one, there is a strong belief that the terrorist game plan was far larger, and that other actions will be carried out unless police and intelligence authorities are able to identify and round up all the conspirators swiftly. As one such individual put it to me, "The game plan was and is to bring down our society. It's not symbolic targeting. It's not a sort of shout, 'Here we are and these are our demands'. It's war. They messed up on September 11. They were supposed to take out the government, the White House, Capitol Hill, Pentagon. They failed, in a sense. But that was only Plan A. We haven't figured out yet what Plan B is."
We have clearly reached a point in New York City where some kinds of information are simply too much information. Nerves are on edge. Panic is percolating right up to the surface. I can't even keep track of how many friends and associates have told me in the last few days that they are thinking of moving away. In such an atmosphere risk assessment is rarely a rational process. As a journalist I find myself wondering if I should actully publish all that I know, or sit on information in order to avoid whipping up hysteria. I have never previously so-censored my work. It's an awful thought.
No doubt all the city's political candidates sense the mood. That explains why Green, Ferrer and Bloomberg appear to have all agreed to something astonishing: They will go ahead and complete the election process, but Rudy Giuliani will be allowed to continue serving as Mayor until April, four months longer than his legitimate term of office. The behind-the-scenes quid pro quo on this handshake deal is that Giuliani cease efforts to run, by one means or another, for reelection to a third, illegal, term. I suspect that all of the newspapers will editorially praise this move, seeing it as a way to relieve the very obvious anxiety city-wide about transition of governance during this time of grave uncertainty and despair. Yet to be detailed as I write this is which of Giuliani's staff will also stay on for an extra four months, including the Police and Fire Dept. chiefs.
As temperatures drop in New York and the rescue workers give up, leaving excavators and the Fire Department with the grisly tasks of picking up the debris and scouring for body parts, New York citizens now seem to have three topics of conversation: Osama bin Laden's psyche, the future of the WTC site and real estate.
Osama bin Laden's psyche, and ultimate game plan, is key to the paranoia and fear in the city. As noone actually knows what they are talking about, any and all speculation is fair game. My Pakistani cab driver last night insisted, for example, that bin Laden is a silly, over-rated fool and the US government is pursuing the wrong guy. In his calculus the worst is past because the events of September 11 were executed by a crazy renegade band of fellows unconnected to any larger movement. In contrast, my Egyptian newspaper vender insists that a vast conspiracy, originating in Cairo some twenty five years ago, is unfolding, and the most horrible acts have yet to be committed. He says they will destroy the Vatican and NATO headquarters next. I am left to wonder who has more accurate and authoritative information, the policy wonks in Washington who are advising President Bush, the FBI and its informants, the CIA, my taxi driver or the guy who sells me my morning paper.
As for the future of the World Trade Center site, a very sad moment has come and gone. Despite the vociferous pleas of such powerful figures as Mr. Phillipe de Montebello, the oddly accented director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mayor Giuliani approved the removal of the most dramatic remnant of the Center. It was a twisted steel outer sleeve of Tower Two, several stories high, that rose out of the largest debris pile and seemed to be reaching in agony to the heavens. Anyone who saw it, up close at Ground Zero, could not help but be moved to tears. Montebello and hundreds of other artists, political leaders and editorial writers, begged that the achingly evocative structure be saved as a future memorial, and a source of lasting solace; instant art forged by the flames and blast of terrorism. When it came down, many New Yorkers sensed that all hope of creating something lasting and beautiful on the site, rather than ugly buildings that satisfy real estate greed, was lost. As public outcry rose the Mayor announced that fragments of the structure would be saved, and could be reassembled at some future date if such a memorial were desired. I can't help but wonder, however, how in the world a realtor could lure businesses into towers at that site if every day the CEOs and Presidents would have to pass such a stark reminder of the risk posed by such a symbolic set of reconstructions. It will take a fair amount of courage, or mighty spectacular rents, to seduce American Express, Lehman Brothers, Standard and Poors, Merrill Lynch and the like into buildings on that Ground Zero site, even without such a clear daily reminder of mass homicide.
But New Yorkers have managed to return to the most popular topic of conversation in "normal" times, namely real estate, seeing the rosy side to disaster. They are asking, over their martinis or capuccinos, whether lofts will now be cheap in TriBeCa and SoHo, and how many frightened souls are abandoning luscious apartments in Brooklyn Heights. Leave it to New Yorkers to swiftly return to the number one centuries-old hunt in this town, square footage with a view.
Ah well, the market went up a few notches today, the temperature dropped several degrees and sales of antiobiotics soared. All in all, not a bad day.
Be well. Be safe. Stand defiant.
Laurie Garrett
