John Voelcker's
New York Letters

Subj:   giving thanks, Dec 11 2001

Even in a city of unusual sights, shorts and t-shirts in early December are startling. The weather here has finally turned toward winter, with colder temperatures and rain. But last week was sunny and pleasant, with temperatures in the low 70s. Only the low angle of the sun gave away the month. Some flowering trees blossomed, and the rest of us scratched our heads at another unexpected ripple in the fabric of normality.

For me, the warm weather precluded any thoughts of Christmas. There seem to be fewer holiday decorations in NYC stores, or at least they're less lavish. Or maybe I'm just not noticing them. It's the sales that dominate: "30% Off Everything in Store!" and "Two-Day Special Discounts" and an absolute blizzard of e-mailed "family and friends" discount coupons. The sales include brands whose discounts are customarily small, discreet and promoted only to the select few.

NYC street-level retailing, in short, is desperate. While tourism is said to be down between 10% and 20%, the biggest hit has been vacationers who came to NYC and spent money in retail stores. Business visitors still come, it seems, but they don't shop as much. The tourists who shopped just aren't here, meaning that theatre, shopping and many restaurants are floundering. You can get  tickets, reservations and attentive sales help this month, unknown during December til now. And predictions for January, always the toughest month on Broadway, range from gloomy to dire.

The recent 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor has generated much commentary on our nation at times of crisis. But for me, Thanksgiving was the holiday that resonated. I've spent  time since then reflecting on the things I'm grateful for. Like many, I changed my holiday plans (a good friend's wedding in Atlanta) to drive a few hours and spend Thanksgiving with family. It was the right thing to do.

About now, dignitaries are gathering at Ground Zero to mark the three-month anniversary of 9/11. The events of that date seem much longer than three months ago, but then so much  has changed in our local and national psyche since. To me the ceremony still seems an appropriate and necessary thing for New Yorkers, though I wonder when such events will become overkill. I hear occasional discussions about "getting over it" and "moving on" and wanting "closure". Personally I'm not sure what consitutes moving on. I think we've been doing that since the start.

Thankfully, New York has returned to (a more sober version of) itself. Litigiousness, pleasantly suppressed for a couple of months, is re-emerging. Chase Bank, for instance,  which had 2,500 safety-deposit boxes in a lower-level WTC branch, is being sued to force their recovery. The bank says the boxes are too heavily damaged to be worth salvaging; boxholders want the effort made. The  first hearing was last week.

A few days ago, I wandered in the sunshine down to Ground Zero. It is clearly a tourist destination, as it has been since the Restricted Zone began to shrink. Perhaps visiting NYC now means a Broadway show (perhaps the cheerful "Mamma Mia," built around Abba songs), visiting Times Square and traveling to Ground Zero? For many tourists, it clearly provides their first  (involuntary) subway ride, since there are no cabs to be found downtown.

Looking down Chambers Street at the edge of a blue NYPD barricade, I noticed one end of the wooden crossbar was charred. From 9/11? No idea.

The crowds of tourists are muted and respectful, but stunned silence is rare. A packed sidewalk of out-of-towners files past the block-long memorial on the fence in front of St.  Paul's Church, many adding thoughts and prayers to a blank sheet of canvas attended by a motherly woman who hands out and collects the marker pens.

It's now possible to circumnavigate Ground Zero, though it's cumbersome. Battery Park City is open to the public, and every vantage point has small crowds of people staring at  the void. Rector Street, the southern border of Trinity Church, has been eviscerated from end to end, dozens of old and new conduits exposed as multiple crews work to rebuild severed utilities. Trinity Place, the  western border, is confined to heavy trucks traveling to and from the site.

Hand-written cardboard signs proliferate. Half are desperate "We're open!" signs with arrows pointing to routes among the tangle of barricades and construction trenches. The rest are "No photos" signs, seemingly put up by tired, hollow-eyed utility and construction crews working just feet away from the steady flow of people from Somewhere Else. They're  alternately polite ("Please ...") and firm ("This means you!").

With more vantage points come better views of the damage. American Express has announced it will return to the World Financial Center in the spring, and construction work is underway to repair the corner of its building 25 stories up that seems to have been chewed by a gigantic dog. South of the WTC, a gash 15 stories high on the front of the Banker's Trust building looks like a zipper had burst, opening the guts and structure of the building to the light. The arched glass roof of the Winter Garden, one end blown out, resembles a Victorian train station after the bombs of WW2.

Though fewer than before, shrines are still visible. A wire barrier covered in wilted bouquets ... a cast-iron fence hung with t-shirts and cards from schools and fire  departments across the country ... a garden of Teddy bears, their fur now matted and faded.

Meanwhile, half the debris is now gone from the site, an amazing accomplishment. More bodies are being recovered, as buried stairwells are uncovered. The 300th funeral for a missing or dead firefighter was held last week, its only news value being in the numbing statistic.

And yet the death toll continues to fall. It may ultimately go as low as 3,000 people from the WTC (plus 500 or so in the airplanes and the Pentagon). It's worth underscoring that we don't sufficiently focus on the 18,000 people who escaped the conflagration. Indeed, WTC tenants were probably better prepared for evacuation than anyone else, as a consequence of the '93 truck bombing. On a normal day, the WTC held as many as 50,000 people with all workers in place and a full complement of tourists visiting the observation deck. On 9/11 before 9 am, the number was less than half that. Something to be  thankful for indeed.

Fewer American flags are visible in NYC, but they're still there. Store windows hang them, car radio aerials fly them, and most subway trains have bright, clean vinyl flags on the side of every car -- a voluntary project by one car maintenance shop in the Bronx.

I'm also thankful that my street is getting back to normal. One day last week, the orange cones that closed off the next block were no longer there. No idling police van blocked  the road, which passes the Police Academy building. The NYPD seal on the roof has been uncovered again. And while police cars are now angle-parked on the sidewalks (which experience says may become permanent,  unfortunately), it's another sign that we've taken a breath and moved on.

Drinking is still way up. Sales of anti-anxiety and anti-depression drugs are reportedly through the roof. Every surviving member of the FDNY -- a brotherhood historically resistant to almost anything progressive -- is undergoing mandatory counseling, with no resistance from the union. But New Yorkers are coping, as they always do

This jittery city took another jolt when flight 567 went down in the Rockaways, a working-class community already deeply battered by losses of both WTC workers and firefighters.  But that was a momentary interruption; business goes on. Some businesses will fail, but others will be founded in their space.

The social and economic ecosystem of the city stretched, but it didn't tear. In the first week after 9/11, when I wrote daily, it wasn't clear to any of us that this would be the case. I am, I think, most grateful that New York is still New York.

love, jv.