A new normal

Sights and sounds from a changed New York
10.15.01 | The Capital Times

by Jason Shepard  

NEW YORK CITY -- Just when the routines of life seemed to have gotten back to normal, the past weekend's bombings in Afghanistan sent a second wave of fear through this already jittery city.

People had strangely gotten used to the sights and the sounds associated with the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and some went about their lives with almost a collective numbness to the tragedies around them - from the lingering smells of the rubble that spread across this island to the news of thousands of funerals still continuing today.

We got used to the boosted police presence around potential terrorist targets. My bus ride home into Manhattan from the South Bronx, where I teach, runs past Yankee Stadium, and on Wednesday night I stopped counting police officers when I got to 300. If any scene reminded me of what a different city this is, it was seeing the streets of the South Bronx overtaken by police in preparation for a baseball game.

We've gotten used to the small inconveniences. My bus ride home used to take 20 minutes. It now takes as long as an hour because police have such tight restrictions on the traffic flow across the bridges and in the tunnels that connect the island of Manhattan to the rest of the world.

By this past weekend, restaurants were again being filled and the lines for Broadway shows had gotten longer. But on Sunday, I was in a stationery store in midtown Manhattan when I noticed people scrambling to a radio to learn about the bombings. A middle-aged couple quickly paid for their purchases and said they didn't feel safe being out shopping. I boarded the subway and headed home, too, not really in fear, but to be honest, not totally free from fear either.

It was one month ago that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were demolished by terrorists, bringing to a halt the manic Manhattan pace of life.

For days, this city and its people were under a haze, not knowing what to do or what to think. I spent the Saturday night after the attacks in Union Square Park in Greenwich Village with hundreds of strangers, who were lighting candles and singing hymns and painting signs and posting peace symbols.

People cried as they read flier after flier announcing the missing, each of which had its own sad tale. Others cried at the thought of more death that war would inevitably bring. People sang together songs like "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine" by John Lennon.

Slowly though, things here got back to normal. The bridges and tunnels reopened and Manhattan was again accessible to the rest of the world. The subways and buses resumed. There was even the business of politics to take people's minds off terrorism, although even the election for a new city mayor struggles to make headlines here. People seem a little afraid to turn over the helm of the city to someone besides Mayor Rudy Giuliani (who is barred from running again by term limits). We've christened him our counselor as well as our commander.

I spent my birthday two weeks ago having dinner in Little Italy, dining outside with a magnificent view of the Empire State Building, which was lit in red, white and blue. The smell of the rubble that was the World Trade Center still lingered in the air, but you sort of became used to it.

Police barricades downtown have also become a regular sight. A week ago, I walked along several blocks of barricaded streets in Chinatown and Soho. I hardly thought about them as I went about my shopping.

While returning to normalcy has become a goal for New York City, the terrorist attacks, and the fear of possible new attacks, are still close to the surface of consciousness of many people. The other night at a bar on the upper west side, a group of law students talked about where they were when the planes struck. Last Monday afternoon at a coffee shop on Amsterdam Avenue in the same neighborhood, college students tried to study but watched CNN instead, learning details of the second day of airstrikes. One of them talked about returning home to California if "something else" happens in New York.

At P.S. 166, where I teach, things got back to normal within days of the terrorist attacks. I thought my students would be shocked and captivated, but my seventh-graders were amazingly untouched by the horror.

One of my students lost an uncle in the attacks, while several others were blessed to have their relatives among the survivors. One girl wrote in her journal that on Sept. 11 she sat quietly in my classroom thinking that her dad had died. He worked on the seventh floor of one of the towers.

He managed to escape, but I can't imagine her fear as she thought about the alternative.

In the wake of the attacks, my students struggled with answering the question of why someone would want to kill so many innocent people. We talked about our feelings a lot, and we studied the issues surrounding Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan. We wrote in our journals often, and my students spent two days asking themselves what it must feel like to be an Arab or a Muslim living in America today -- feeling subtle and not-so-subtle discrimination and having your patriotism and loyalty questioned.

I have a remarkably diverse range of opinions in my class. Students like Jonathan and Aungelique support a strong military action and were pleased to see the bombings begin this weekend.

"I think this bombing was appropriate," Aungelique wrote. "The Taliban and Taliban followers deserve the bombing that occurred. The Taliban destroyed the World Trade Center. We destroyed part of their land and I don't care. Innocent people died here. We wanted revenge."

There are others like Selena, who says she's confused by it all, seemingly wanting the horror to just go away. She is afraid the bombings will prompt "the people who are against the United States ... to strike back and maybe even kill more innocent people. I don't feel safer now (that) they have bombed Afghanistan because now I know they (are) going to attack America."

And then there are students like Maricela who don't know why violence always has to be matched with more violence.

"I feel OK about the bombing but at the same time I feel sad," she wrote. "I have learned to never hurt the people back but even though the people had killed thousands of people some other people had nothing to do with the attack. They are suffering badly and children are poor and they are running from the battle."

They might be seventh-graders, but the range of opinions and feelings in my classroom model those of the rest of the nation.