Manhattan's new way of thinking

As Mark Sokolow peers down from his new office into the hole where the World Trade Center once stood, he's filled with an incongruous mix of emotion. There is a deep sadness for the lives that were lost and frustration over the terrorists' still-present threats - both here and abroad. But today, in this new workplace redolent with the scent of fresh carpet and polished mahogany, he is also thrilled.

"It's exciting to feel you're part of the rebuilding of downtown," he says.

Two years ago, at 8:47 a.m., Mr. Sokolow was at his desk in Two World Trade Center on the 38th floor going through e-mail when he heard a loud noise. At first he thought one of the window-washing machines had broken loose. A short time later, though, a colleague rushed up to tell him one of the towers was on fire. He calmly descended 38 flights of stairs, until reaching the bottom, when he felt the building shake. He burst into a run - just as a half-mile of steel and concrete collapsed.

Thus began a two-year odyssey that has transformed the corporate lawyer, much as it has the city he's worked in all his adult life. On the surface, Sokolow is very much the same as he was on that fateful fall morning. He still wears his trademark dark suits, finessing the arcane details of corporate deals in an office a few hundred yards from his old one.

Yet he is also different, with an enlarged sense of humanity, a clearer connection to his family and religion, to co-workers in cubicles nearby, and even to victims of terrorism from Israel to Indonesia. He's gone through something of a rebirth.

Similarly, New York in many ways looks the same today as it did on Sept. 10, 2001, except for that expansive hole on Manhattan's lower edge. The subways are packed again with people with somber looks. Restaurants around the World Trade Center site cater to their usual polyglot clientele. Rents and real estate prices have returned to their robust levels. Even George Steinbrenner is back at it, using unsubtle antics to pressure another Yankee manager.

Yet New York, too, is not the same. The economy, though improving, is still struggling to recoup thousands of jobs lost in 9/11 and the subsequent recession, despite a nascent resurgence on Wall Street. The city's finances remain precarious, even with bold but controversial moves by New York's businessman-mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

The city exudes a more developed sense of community. True, cabbies still intimidate the most hardened. But, as the recent blackout showed, New Yorkers respond to emergencies with a greater calm and compassion.

Still, beneath the surface, an unease persists over the possibility of another attack, even as the raw emotionalism of 9/11 recedes from daily conversation.

"People are a little less edgy and a little more considerate, a little less aggressive and a little more focused on important things rather than just financial rewards," says Kenneth Jackson, president of the New-York Historical Society.

That New York has rebounded to this extent is not surprising: This is a city with a history of monumental tragedies, from a fire that destroyed a third of Manhattan in 1776, to deadly Civil War draft riots that brought on near anarchy, to a 1920 bombing attack that gutted Wall Street.

The history of America is a history of moving on. New York may epitomize that more than any other city, in part because of the rebirths of the past and in part because, as a hub of commerce, it can't wallow in tragedy too long.

As Mr. Jackson puts it: "The city is resilient and it's learned from that experience."

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