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From
the Rubble of the World Trade Center, a More Compassionate
New York
Anita
Negi, Hindustan Times (centrist), New Delhi, India. Translated
and posted Oct. 4, 2001.
Black Tuesday has shocked Americans across the country. It has
also changed the social life of New Yorkers.
Coming out of their shells, New Yorkers are meeting, exchanging
views with each other, getting social, talking politely, and
giving time to their neighbors. People have been helping each
other, breathing a new life of hitherto unknown kindness and
friendliness into the city.
Cheryl Rivers, who lives near "Ground Zero," as the
former site of the World Trade Center is now known, had a tendency
to be lazy in replying to messages from her friends overseas.
Now she sends dozens of e-mails every day, and she has found
that, like many New Yorkers, she has become a more social and
caring person since the Sept. 11 attacks.
"We heard many accounts of missing friends and relatives,"
she told me. "After staring at Ground Zero for a long time,
we came back to our friend's home, ordered pizza, talked about
the attacks, and even sang old songs until late at night. We
all needed to be with others, to laugh and be sad and recreate
the intimacy that we often lose in the hustle and bustle of
everyday life."
Senior journalist [and editor of World Press Review]
Alice Chasan, wrote, "I have frequently felt in past week
that I would like to escape from the reality of this horror
but I can't stop reading, listening, and watching news."
But Alice has noticed that "the mood among people on the
street and subways, offices and shops in New York is gentle.
Strangers are speaking to one another with a new kind of concern
and politeness."
"It was only after a candlelight vigil at Thompkins Square
Park that I came to know my next-door neighbor" says Christina,
a computer professional from New York. She remarks," We
have put aside our political differences and quieted the racial
and cultural tensions that often set the tone for public discourse
in this country."
All New Yorkers have been feeling as if some raw nerve has been
touched by the loss of life and destruction of property at the
World Trade Center.
"Yesterday, nobody was at home. My heart was sinking. I
just wanted somebody's company... Then my neighbor, whom I had
never met, came to my place enquiring about my well-being. Really,
if there is a silver lining to this mess, it's the new respect
people show each other." Kate Elmore, a student, said.
Most New Yorkers would say the same.
For now at least the attacks from outside appear to have brought
Americans of all races, ages, and socio-economic levels together.
But New Yorkers wonder whether this new openness and kindness
will last. One New Yorker hoped that "we will not turn
from this polite mood to one of hatred or suspicion of strangers
as we attempt to focus on the perpetrators of these horrible
attacks."
We in India join New Yorkers in this hope.
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