U.S.

Back To Work In New York

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

September 12, 2001 / 7:46 PM EDT / CBS

Maybe it wasn't quite business-as-usual in New York City Monday, but some parts of Lower Manhattan reopened, even as thick smoke drifted from the pile of rubble where the World Trade Center once stood.

Security was tighter, convoys of emergency vehicles sped down thoroughfares, and National guardsmen in camouflage stood silently on some street corners, gripping semiautomatic rifles.

Harvey Grossman, a state Insurance Department employee, emerged from a subway station in lower Manhattan and had to show two forms of identification to walk on the streets.

"Then I went through a second checkpoint, which is OK with me," he said. "They can stop me a half a dozen times if they want to. It's for my safety."

Reuters

A couple checks a missing persons bulletin board in Lower Manahattan

The missing haunted the streets: Homemade posters with smiling faces stared from telephone poles and restaurant windows.

Blocks away, the rescuers continued the desperate work of sifting the wreckage of the Trade Center, hoping to find survivors among 5,422 missing souls. Around 300 of the missing are firefighters.

After a two-minute silence — and a trading-floor chorus of "God Bless America" — a group representing New York's rescue workers rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. The market plummeted in early trading, and then stabilized.

"We're going to stick our thumb in the eye of the murderers," Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill at the NYSE building Monday where an American flag was draped over the entrance.

New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani praised stock excha2nge management and workers.

Park Memorial

As many as a million people are expected to attend a prayer service being planned for September 23rd in Central Park, in memory of the firefighters killed while trying to help others.

Newsday reports the memorial is being organized by a committee that includes Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Catholic clergy, as well as former mayors David Dinkins and Ed Koch.

CB/AP

"You kept it together, you got us back," he said. "We're going to be much, much stronger as a result of this. We're going to be a stronger city, a stronger country, and a stronger stock exchange."

The confirmed death toll from Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers hit 201. On Sunday, rescuers reached a train platform 80 feet below the center's remains but found no survivors.

The owner of the World Trade Center promises the complext will again rise on the site, reports Marla Diamond of WCBS-AM Larry Silverstein, the developer who bought a 99-year lease to the towers with a partner in July, says it would be a "tragedy of tragedies" not to rebuild.

"Should there be a memorial on site? Absolutely. Should it be 110 stories in height? I don't know," he said. "Should we redo the World Trade Center, the symbol of New York? Absolutely!"

Silverstein adds that not rebuilding would be a victory for those who sought to destroy the U.S.

"The federal government, the state government, the city government, all of us will try to learn from this," Giuliani said. "We can never assure perfect security. What we can assure is that we'll do everything that we can to make people safe and at the same time respect our freedoms."

Attitude Adjustment

People weep on the subway. Ads that were funny a week ago seem ghoulish now. And the flag is everywhere, from tenement windows to taxi cabs to bandanas.

The destruction of the World Trade Center has changed the zeitgeist in hip New York. Irony and bluster have given way to earnestness; strangers offer sandwiches and bottled water to anyone with a hard hat or a breathing mask; and red, white and blue has replaced black as a fashion statement.

Fashion, advertising, public relations and entertainment — industries affected by mood and perception as well as economics — are feeling the effects.

"Facetious and ironic things are not amusing anymore," said Valerie Steele, museum curator at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Steele said that historically, national emergencies have made people feel "it's inappropriate to be dressing up as frivolous or playful. They feel they ought to look more serious."

But people are hanging out at restaurants and bars.

"If you go walking around the city, particularly in the residential areas, they are full of mre people than ever," said Tim Zagat, head of the Zagat Survey restaurant guide. "People want to get out and be with other people and communicate with other people. There is a catharsis in sharing and talking to friends."

New Yorkers now display an uncommon politeness. At rush hour, commuters call out from packed subway trains, "Is everybody in?" and offer each other seats.

CBS/AP

Monday was a day for reopenings. Besides the markets, City Hall, other government buildings and courthouses opened their doors.

The narrow streets of the city's southern tip — home to the city's financial and government sectors — were crisscrossed with heavy utility cables. Portable generators hummed on sidewalks. Telephone and electric service was spotty.

The Wall Street subway station was closed, and only subways on the east side of downtown Manhattan were running. A new ferry service carried passengers across the East River from the borough of Brooklyn. Streets are closed to vehicles and some thoroughfares are blocked altogether.

Telephone and electric service were spotty; police headquarters was among the places with phone problems on Monday morning.

Newspaper vendor Dhiren Shah was apprehensive as he carried bundles of newspapers to his job on Broadway, even though he was about to start making money again after losing about $1,000 over the last week.

"We don't want to work, actually, but we have to pay bills," he said. "It's terrible. We feel like we are missing the landmark of New York."

Preparations for this day had been difficult, and fraught with emotion.

Felix Fajardo mopped the foyer of a Wall Street law firm Sunday, trying to clear off the film of fine gray dust that spread for blocks, sticking to shop windows, ATMs, awnings — "all over the place."

Dennis Goin, president of Goin & Co. brokerage firm, planned to sleep at his office down the street from the NYSE building, just to be ready for what he feared would be a financially tumultuous and emotionally searing day.

"You might be calling to people...who you might call once a month, and when you place that call, you might be told that Joe isn't here anymore," Goin said.

There was scant room for hope that all those missing Joes would be rescued.

"The recovery effort continues and the hope is still there that we might be able to save some lives. But the reality is that in the last several days we haven't found anyone," Giuliani said.

No survivors have been pulled out since Wednesday, and Giuliani said that most of what rescuers found was body parts, not bodies.

Among the grisly finds have been a pair of hands, bound together, found on a rooftop. Another was the torso of a Port Authority police officer, identified by the radio still hanging from his belt.

James Monsini, a volunteer and demolition expert from Brockton, Mass., said he and some fellow workers were concentrating on subbasemnt level garages and shops. He said they were hoping for air pockets that would allow victims — perhaps trapped in their cars — to breathe.

"I saw a car with an interior light on, and I got really hopeful that it was a sign (of life)," he said. "But the person was dead."

On Sunday, rescue crews for the first time penetrated into the lowest underground level beneath the towers, to the New Jersey commuter train station 80 feet down. They found gaps in the debris but not one survivor.

"In my opinion, I don't think we are going to find anyone alive," U.S. Marshal Paul Stapleton said. "This is worse than an earthquake."

More from CBS News