DAY TWENTY TWO:Oct. 2:
Today marks Week Three post-catastrophe. Psychology pundits were saying two weeks ago that the shock and depression would wear off by now. But what I see and hear all over New York is still clear depression. Many long time, die-hard New Yorkers are talking about moving away from the city and local universities report a significantly elevated drop-out rate among out-of-state students.
Not everyone is contemplating departure out of fear: For many it's the hassle factor and sense of economic doom that is driving them to consider leaving our fair city. There are now so many restrictions on the movement of taxis and automobiles in New York that it's impractical, even impossible, to get around in a four wheeled vehicle. I have become a commuter cyclist, and each day I notice a slight increase in the numbers of bikers braving the streets of Manhattan. Bike or no bike, however, it's significantly harder to get any place in the five boroughs than it was prior to September 11th, and most of the changes will remain in place for many months. Because of restrictions on bridge access, for example, the major spans into Manhattan from all directions have witnessed anywhere from 30-80% decreases in auto use.
Such a sharp decline in the numbers of combustible engines spewing fumes in Manhattan might, under other circumstances, be cause for celebration, but in this traumatic case it is simply fueling anxiety over Gotham's economy. How, people wonder, can the city get back on its feet if people can't get into the city? When a friend told me yesterday that it had taken him four hours to drive across the Brooklyn Bridge and into midtown Manhattan --- a distance I can easily traverse on my bike in less than 30 minutes -- I thought immediately of my artist/carpenter pal, Bob. His very livelihood depends on a van loaded with heavy equipment, tools, wood, slabs of marble and other objects far too cumbersome to carry on a subway car. How in the world will Bob, and thousands of workmen like him, get to their job sites? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that each additional increment of difficulty in maintaining the interconnectedness of the five boroughs and New Jersey has profound implications for people's costs of living, costs of doing business and the economy as a whole.
Uncertainty about the economy, and rounds of layoffs already felt in the tourist and restaurant businesses seem to have a powerful, probably subliminal effect on many workers in this town. Just a month ago waiters and maitr'ds in posh eateries were notoriously rude and snobby. While I haven't had much time for high class dining, so my sample pool is small, I have been struck by the difference, as polite treatment of customers, speedy service and even a bit of personal charm seem to have replaced the aforesaid behavior. At take-out places, where teens and young adults are employed, it was not uncommon a few months ago to be completely ignored while the cashiers discussed fingernail polish. Most such places were then posting desperately-seeking-employees signs, so the employed felt no real pressure to pretend they cared about customer satisfaction. Now those same employees are hustling, moving fast, being polite and paying attention to their jobs. The entire atmosphere of retail and cheap eats have changed: Were it only for a less fearful reason.
This morning as I manuevered my bike down the stoop of my building the smell of Ground Zero slammed me hard. Each day it worsens. Soon even the rich folks on the Upper East Side won't be able to completely ignore what has happened. It's very hard to say what, exactly, we are smelling. There is a decidedly electrical aura to it, but something else, as well. Something I cannot identify. As I ride home, heading down from 33rd Street towards Ground Zero, and then across the Brooklyn Bridge, the odor grows stronger, of course, and my sense of alarm instinctually rises. Some of my friends have taken to donning surgical masks whenever they are below Canal Street, but I can see no purchase in that. Whatever we are inhaling is molecular in scale, and such masks are useless. Something is cooking deep in the bowels of Ground Zero, emitting gases, the contents of which are surely known to health authorities but not yet revealed to the citizenry. As the stench worsens, and Wall Street traders increase their complaining the city authorities will undoubtedly be compelled to reveal details.
Near City Hall, where the smell is quite powerful, I spotted a clutch of very well dressed tourists rising out of a subway station, seemingly unaware of the odor. They laughed and pointed, as tourists do, and I suddenly had a flashback to the northern Siberian city of Nor'ilsk in 1997. It is undoubtedly the most polluted place in the world, and the smell of Nor'ilsk was something like Ground Zero, but with an overlay of sulfur and acid. I remeber how unnerving it was to watching the pollution belching from smokestacks all over Nor'ilsk, feel the burn of acid on my face and see sable coat-attired Russian ladies blithely tip-toeing in high heeled boots across the black snow. It made me wonder what Ground Zero will be like in a few weeks when New York's snows begin to fall.
For now, however, I must focus on my reporting, which these days is about bioterrorism. (Today's story in Newsday can be seen, if you're interested, here: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usbio022395239oct02.story?coll=ny%2Dnationalnews%2Dheadlines.)
It's tough trying to figure out how to balance the need-to-know against the need-to-not-panic. Last night I took my Columbia University class to the AIDS vaccine laboratory of Dr. John Moore where for nearly two and a half hours we talked of nothing but science. It was delightful. Afterwards John and I discussed the tensions in New York and he, like so many folks I know from the UK, harkened back to the worst of the IRA-Provo attack days in England. "You just lived with it," John said. "You never knew when a bomb might go off and there was nothing you could do about it, so you just lived with it. You Americans have had it easy all these years."
Well, three weeks into the New Terrorism World is perhaps too soon for such adaptive behavior to surface. New Yorkers are still too raw, and, in most cases, too depressed.
And too jittery. Those shoes Ashcroft told us were yet to drop.....when? what? how? who? With all the discussion from Washington of nefarious infiltrators who are organized into cells and live, invisibly, among us it's hard not to grasp about in search of metaphors that might help process the implications of it all. On the one had, the Attorney General sounds like the Cold Warriors of the 1960s who warned of commies infiltrating our schools, churches and workplaces, and one has a tendency to therefore assume it's all paranoid and overstated. On the other hand, reading Mohammad Atta's instructions letter to his comrades reminded me of the classic film, "Battle of Algiers", made in 1965 by Gillo Pontecorvo. It depicted the Algerian revolt of 1954-1962 against the French colonialists. I keep recalling the scenes in which devout Muslim women were recruited and trained to wear French clothing, removing their veiled attire, and lighten their hair with bleach, make up their features with cosmetics and learn how to walk in spiked heels. Passing then as French women, they carried purses full of bombs into restaurants, department stores and police stations.
These days New Yorkers are asking, "Are we all becoming absurdly paranoid, or is it true that the destruction of the World Trade Center was simply the first of many acts to come?".
John Glusman, who edited THE COMING PLAGUE, says it breaks his heart to look out from his home in Hoboken, New Jersey at the gap once filled by the World Trade Center. We both were moved by Ric Burns' final installment of his documentary series on PBS about the history of New York. Last night it showed the construction, step-by-step in 1970 of the World Trade Center, and the triumphant grins on the workers as they completed the final 110th floor. I sobbed. What else could I do? It's not just buildings and precious lives that are gone, it's the hard work of thousands of builders, forgers, welders, electricians, plumbers, dreamers, architects and engineers.
Stay well. Stay safe. Stand defiant.
Laurie Garrett
