Christmas In New York

It's been over three months since Osama bin Laden's agents killed thousands of innocent Americans. It was an act of terrorism -- and many say cowardice -- that may have scarred New York City forever.

In less than a week, New York will try to celebrate Christmas – a usually joyful holiday that can, even in the best of times, be difficult for people in need and people in mourning. It's hard to find a city more needy or mournful this Christmas than New York.

But gently and respectfully, a city that has always been known as tough and gritty and aggressive is trying to move on, and trying to celebrate.

It looks like Christmas on Wall Street. For the first time ever, they've lit up the American flag on the New York Stock Exchange with Christmas bulbs. But like the rest of New York, Wall Street is in mourning. Even the Christmas songs played on the street sound mournful.

"Everyone you know, they are trying to move forward, people are talking about getting gifts," says Julian Watts, who works at the Exchange. “I am trying to participate, I have a little kid in the Bronx I am buying gifts for this year, but I am really just going through the motions this year."

Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been New York's political and emotional leader since the attack.

Giuliani says that people must both grieve and celebrate. "I was at a funeral this morning, cried, then went and finished my Christmas shopping because I have to get it done," he said. "So what I keep telling people is that they have to learn how to mourn and cry and at the same time celebrate Christmas with even more enthusiasm this year. We don’t want the terrorists to take our holiday away from us, we don't want our children deprived of this Christmas season."

In Brooklyn, at a special party, Santa was trying to cheer up children who are still very much in mourning. Fourteen of the kids at the Dean Street firehouse lost their fathers at the World Trade Center. A firefighter dressed up as Santa and climbed up the ladder to shower them with candies and presents. Seven firefighters from this house, Engine 219, Ladder 105, lost their lives trying to save others on Sept. 11.

Inside the firehouse, under the uniforms of the seven dead heroes, the children came to sing Christmas carols, along with the wives and fiancés of the seven men. Since Sept. 11, all the families here have become one family, spending a lot of time together, mourning. But this was time to celebrate Christmas.

Giuliani says that the city now has a stronger sense of community than it did in the past: "I don't think there is any question that New York emerged from this attack stronger than it was before spiritually, which is the most important thing. This could have been an indelible mark for the worst for New York or an indelible mark for the best and I think the way New Yorkers have responded have made it for the best."

Visitors from all over the country have responded as well. They mak the pilgrimage to Ground Zero. Some merely gawk. Others come to pray. A fence outside St. Paul's Chapel on Broadway has become New York's wailing wall. People pay their respects to victims they never knew. But like Mitzi Scott and her family from Oregon, they feel as if they knew them.

"I felt like someone in the family had died and I couldn't be here to participate in the mourning and the loss, and so I really wanted to come here now, even though it is three months after the fact," says Scott. "I wanted to touch. I wanted to touch it. I mean I can’t really touch it but I wanted to touch it with my soul, my feelings."

At Ground Zero, sparks from magnesium torches have replaced the Christmas lights that used to shine in thousands of offices that no longer exist. Ironworkers have been carving up the last pieces of the twin towers. Sometimes the 19-ton pieces of steel they’re working on shear off and dangle dangerously in the air. The ironworkers from Local 40 say they're used to risky work. But Larry Keating says they’ve never had a job like this.

He says they are not tearing it down: "Osama Bin laden tore it down. We are just trying to get it out of here. We are just trying to clean it up. There is nothing that I can think of that I can hold this up against as far as the work experience goes."

As Christmas approaches, the work is emotionally challenging as well.

"Sometimes it's little things, you find a woman's shoe in the pile - a beautiful woman's shoe and it's half burned away or something. That's actually sometimes more disturbing than actually finding part of someone," says another worker, Brad Bonaparte.

It is difficult work. "There are 3,000 people, over 3,000 people, that were killed. I can't do this and that's the only thing that keeps me going," he says.

Firefighters and other workers who have been searching for bodies for months don’t stop their gruesome work for the holidays. They pick through the wreckage piece by piece, using their hands and hoes and rakes. And they keep finding bodies, providing some solace to some families, and providing inspiration to the ironworkers who’ve come to view the firefighters not only as heroes but as brothers.

"Our job is essential to helping our brothers, the firefighters and the Port Authority cops. You know, those guys got a tough job,” says Bonaparte. "We do everything we can to make it easier for them. You do what you gotta do; it’s the best job and the worst job."

"It's been like a rollercoaster," says another worker. “It’s up and down. The other night, we watched a father firefighter walk down in the hole while they had his son, draping the flag and kneel down over his son, and watched them carry him up to the ambulance. It’s a procession that we have watched more times then we can count in the last three months and they are down there crawling around. Tthey just keep coming up with them.

Bonaparte can't wai to get home for Christmas to see his family: "I'm going to take time out just to get a breather and get healthy again."

As Christmas approaches at Ground Zero, there are thousands of survivors who lost their offices on Sept. 11. They don't know where they'll be working next month or next year. Some companies that used to exist here have laid off workers. Others are moving to offices still being constructed across the Hudson in New Jersey. Others are moving even farther away.

Many tourists have decided to stay away instead of flocking to New York City as they usually do during the holidays. Patriotism is on display at Times Square, along with images from Ground Zero. But Broadway is hurting, and so are restaurants and hotels. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost. One-hundred thousand more jobs may be lost next year.

"I think it is about eight, ten percent reduction," says Guiliani. "Maybe in some cases it could be 12 to 15 percent. It's bad, you don't want to see any reduction at all, but it's nothing like people thought it was going to be three, four, five weeks after the event."

In an attempt to lure tourists back. the city created an ingenious made-in-New York advertising campaign. It highlights tourist destinations like the Rockefeller Center skating rink and uses New York celebrities to make the pitch.

New Yorkers Billy Crystal and Robert DeNiro went in costume to Central Park to get ready for the Thanksgiving Day parade. Even the usually reclusive Woody Allen agreed to be part of the show, at Rockefeller Center. But not surprisingly perhaps, it was Yogi Berra - at Lincoln Center - who stole the show.

Giuliani himself has been called a miracle worker, but New York needs more than a morale-boosting ad campaign. The mayor is leaving office at the end of the year. The city faces enormous, expensive challenges and must always be on alert for another possible terrorist attack.

"I think about the people of London in 1940 and 1941 who had to live through 13 months, not just of threats of attack, but bombing every day," Guiliani says. "They were strong enough to get through it and we are going to have to prove that we are strong enough to get through it."

There is proof of that strength every day and night at Ground Zero. From the rubble of the World Trade Center, a new spirit has arisen.

"Any day you miss here you feel guilty because you know your buddies are still here. You just want to get back and do your part," says Bonaparte.

On Sept. 11, debris from the terror attack rained down on historic cemeteries outside Trinity Church. At the time, it was said, not even the dead were spared. Today, honor and respect have been restored to the departed. And inside the historic church, undamaged by the attack, there was a performance on Sunday of Handel's Messiah - a Christmas tradition that dates back 231 years.

The terrorists may have destroyed the nearby twin towers, but they couldn't prevent this majestichurch from performing the Messiah with its message of peace and rebirth.

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