A Changed World Part 2: Pulling Together
Written by
Peter Grier
| Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Reported by Monitor Staff
Union Square Restaurant is one of New York's most beloved high-end eateries. It's also located in the lower half of Manhattan, relatively close to the scene of the World Trade Center disaster. Last Tuesday, as the enormity of what had happened sunk in, Union Square management and staff decided that it was not a day for business as usual. They threw open their doors and offered free food and service to anyone in need.
Many who came in had fled the disaster area on foot. At least one was coated in ash and debris. A man who had escaped from a World Trade Center tower's 51st floor was reunited with his wife just outside the restaurant. They embraced. "You're looking at one happy woman," said the wife. She burst into tears.
As the day went on, a number of elderly residents from the neighborhood came in just to sit. They couldn't bear to be alone in their apartments.
America is traditionally a nation that has valued freedom over community. Its cinematic and literary heroes are loners, rogues, people who have little regard for rules. Even its affinity for small clubs and societies, like the Jaycees and Kiwanis, has declined in recent years, according to some. There's a pop-sociology phrase for this, taken from the title of an academic study: We're "bowling alone."
That American trait, at least for now, has vanished in a day of villainy. One reflexive reaction to the terrorist blows against America has been a collective rush to grief, remembrance, and relief - all together.
At one level, this means a rush to do something, anything, to help. Just try to give blood at the local Red Cross - the wait may be weeks. Cash is pouring in to recovery charities.
In New York, rescue crews toiling in the moonscape that was once the World Trade Center want for nothing. At least, nothing material. Restaurants have quickly come together to coordinate food deliveries. At the four-star French restaurant Daniel, 50 cooks have been working overtime on a sandwich assembly line, using materials they have on hand - filet mignon, leg of lamb, and duck.
"In a lot of people's minds, it used to be that there was New York and then there was the rest of the country," says Kenneth Adams, president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. "Now it's all just one place."
But there is another aspect to this new community that seems to include a need for personal connection. It is as if millions of people want some outlet to say, "We are all wounded. We are in this together."
Thus a young Marine scrambled through the wreckage of the Pentagon to retrieve an undamaged corps flag. He walked to the Marine commandant's office to deliver it, in person. Three civilian firefighters came with him, filthy and tired in their turnout gear.
The emotion transcends boundaries - even borders. The outpouring of sympathy for America from many nations of the world has been unprecedented. Weeks ago, allies grumbled about a crisis in relations, and what they saw as the Bush administration's unilateralism. Now, tragedy has put things in a different light.
Almost overnight, the world is reordering into two camps: countries that are ready to try to eradicate terrorism from the planet, and those that are equivocating or even sympathetic to the causes of such attackers. It used to be communism versus democracy, socialism versus capitalism. Now it looks more like Islamic militants versus the West.
Will this realignment last - or even should it?
The initial emotions, at least, point to a wide solidarity with the US. In France, old women stop strangers who seem American on the street, and ask how they are doing. In Israel, a main thoroughfare in Jerusalem has been temporarily renamed "New York Street." In England, Queen Elizabeth II ordered the playing of the US national anthem Thursday at Buckingham Palace. She sang along and cried.
One of the cruelest aspects of these attacks is that they have left the families of the missing without certainty. It would be almost inhuman for them to completely abandon hope that their loved ones will be rescued, or are even now lying injured and unidentified in a hospital bed.
So, last week, many of the families spent their time walking. They went from hospital to hospital on foot, checking occasionally at Chelsea Piers or the armory on East 27th Street, where they register their relatives as "missing" and check master hospital lists.
Many have set up what they call "command centers" at one person's house. They are places where relatives and friends can congregate and draw up plans of attack. (Two people to deploy to lower Manhattan, for instance, with another group to check New Jersey hospitals, and someone left behind to man the phones.)
Outside the armory, outside Bellevue hospital, and at Union Square park, certain walls are covered with fliers about missing people. The one at Bellevue has become known as the "Wall of Prayers." Seeing it is like visiting the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. People start at one end, and work their way down, stopping to peer closely at photographs and the information provided. Sometimes they smooth down a flier that is sticking up out of place. Every so often, someone comes along and adds another one.
In recent days, one corner of Union Square has turned into an impromptu memorial. Its sidewalks are covered in chalk inscriptions. "Blessed are the peacemakers," said one. "Laura God Bless you," ran another. "I'll see you soon Calvin. Love Always," said a third.
Continued |
Part 3: Reverberations
Reported by staff writers Kim Campbell, Mark Clayton, Stephen Humphries, and Susan Llewelyn Leach in Boston; Liz Marlantes, Ron Scherer, Marjorie Coeyman, Alexandra Marks, and staff photographer Melanie Stetson Freeman in New York; Abraham McLaughlin, Gail Russell Chaddock, and Dante Chinni in Washington; Daniel B. Wood in Los Angeles; Mark Sappenfield in San Francisco; Peter Ford in Paris; Cameron W. Barr in Jerusalem; Ilene R. Prusher in Tokyo; Danna Harman in Nairobi, Kenya; Robert Marquand in Beijing; as well as contributors Harry Bruinius and Elizabeth Armstrong in New York, and Craig Savoye in St. Louis.
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