Tuesday - 9.11.01

ON SEPTEMBER 11 THE STAFF OF TALK WAS putting the final touches on this issue of the magazine, when we received the first reports of an attack on the TwinTowers of the World Trade Center, 40 blocks away. An hour later we watched on the street alongside a crowd of stunned neighbors as monuments built to last forever collapsed in a pyre of smoke and flame.

* It was a moment, we all realized, in which the city and the world were instantly and irrevocably transformed, and this grim reality made our brand new issue seem trite and obsolete. For the next four days, amid a string of bomb threats and missed deadlines, we ripped up as much of the magazine as possible and started anew. The result is the issue you have before you.

* We have devoted 37 pages to the terrorist attack on NewYork City and its aftermath, starting with a look at Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and just a few of the many anonymous heroes who emerged from the rubble: firemen and rescue personnel, doctors and nurses, all of whom labored tirelessly to save lives amid the seemingly endless terrain of death. Giuliani, who was almost killed in the first hours after the attack, consoled and led all of us who watched from dose and from afar. "The people of NewYork City will be whole again," he said. We believed him, even though Stephane Sednaoui's images of ground zero made it hard to believe anything would grow in NewYork again. Sednaoui, one of the first volunteers to arrive at the scene, worked alongside the firemen deep into the night of September 12, and his images of devastation and heroism are as evocative and haunting as anything we've seen. Trying to gain some distance and perspective, we asked writers, historians, filmmakers, and politicians what the attack meant. Th eir responses begin on page 104. Finally, no commentary on this tragedy would be complete without pointing out that even amid the destruction NewYorkers still harbor a measure of hope. The portfolio of lush photographs that begins on page 106 was originally commissioned for a different issue, one intended to celebrate the diverse and colorful tribes of NewYork-from East Village scenemakers to school kids in the Bronx. But when we reexamined the pictures in the dim light of despair, they had taken on an unintended poignancy. Flipping through them you feel the way survivors of the Titanic must have when they looked at pictures of the grand sunken ship. Pulsing with exuberance, each portrait seems like a ghostly anachronism, a snapshot of a city now submerged beneath 16 acres of ash and rubble.

* In fact, as we learned when we called to check in after the attack, none of the people we had photographed escaped from this tragedy unscathed. Instead they responded with a familiar litany: the victims they knew, the pain they felt, and their continuing belief in the future. People who had nothing in common before September 11 were suddenly united in grief--and hope.

* The New Yorkers featured in the next pages are a testament to the energy and creativity and diversity that built this city, and to the tenacious drive that has already begun rebuilding it. NewYork has always been a city in which ambition trumps adversity, one that even now remains passionately and defiantly alive. And life, as historian Simon Schama notes, is the ultimate revenge in these calamitous times.

As New York City teetered on the brink of despair, its may or rose to the challenge, keeping the spirit of the city--and the nation--defiantly alive. A Talk salute. Plus: inside Giuliani's command center.

NEW YORK AND THE WORLD -- WHAT'S TJE DIFFEREMCE? -- will always remember mayor Rudolph Giuliani as he emerged his friend die. Yet those are only the tragic incidentals of the morning of September 11. It was in important moment of symbolism that the mayor was there to share the common fear, breathe the foul dust, experience the anguish of all those who saw the pitifully trapped plunge to oblivion. But the mayor's leadership should not be confined to the vivid symbolism of his presence. He was there to do a job. That's what Giuliani does--take charge. New Yorkers would have appreciated his empathy and liked him for it, but they would not have admixed him as fervently as they do now if they did not trust him to rescue the city, to protect the afflicted, to reflect the civilized values of a community that has come together from so many places. He did well to restrain angry people with the reminder that thousands of the city's Arab-Americans recoil from the horror with shame as well as disgust; he did better still to ensure police protection. Another kind of leader would stride the rhetorical battlements. Giuliani is in the basement, fixing the furnace.

Leadership is more than command. Giuliani knows that. He earned the devotion of the men and women in uniform who have performed so heroically by stubbornly standing up for them in the past when things went grievously wrong. It was never a calculation, but an irrepressible instinct for loyalty.

Giullani instills confidence not just by keeping faith. He does it by managerial competence and the force of his will. The will comes at you in the thrust of his jaw when he's challenged. It is a dangerous quality. Some monsters-Hitler, Stalin, Mao-had overpowering wills. But Giuliani's willpower is moved by a fundamental decency above all by love of his city His passion for New York has transformed it from a maddeningly demoralized and dangerous metropolis into a gleaming, if wounded, powerhouse of the 21st century

And in the face of Giuliani's supreme confidence and determination, does anyone dare even wonder if restoration will be difficult? We all believe him when he says, "We're going to come out of this stronger than we were before-- emotionally stronger, politically stronger, economically stronger." Again, he is down to earth. "If you [normally] go to a park and play with your children, do that. If you like to go out and spend money, I would encourage that.... You might actually have a better chance of getting tickets to The Producers now." We can relate to that.

It has to be admitted that in the past Mayor Giuliani's passion, his tendency to moral absolutism, caused him to be abrasive, even divisive. One of the impressive features of his leadership now is his uncanny calm. A onetime NewYork police commissioner who prowled the meaner night streets, Theodore Roosevelt, had this same virtue. "The man's personality was cyclonic in that he tended to become unstable in times of low pressure," wrote biographer Edmund Morris. "The slightest rise in the barometer outside and his turbulence smoothed into a whirl of coordinated activity, while a stillness developed within." That is a fair description of Giuliani under pressure, but not a complete one. He has connected in these terrible days with an affecting gentleness, a compassion that is more than a slogan. No flack had, or could have, orchestrated such behavior.

Leadership, for good or ill, is an elusive phenomenon. Without it, in all large societies, we are adrift, vulnerable to the demagogue and panic. Words are yeast in the mix. Lincoln, said Garry Wills, remade America with the Gettysburg Address. In 1940, when Britain stood alone, Edward R. Murrow observed that Churchill "mobilized the English language and sent it into battle." Giuliani has talked long into the night about Churchill. He urges NewYorkers to go about their business, as Churchill inspired Londoners to do during the blitz. The two leaders have some things in common. Churchill rallied a nation. He was forever flying into danger. He could readily put his foot in it. And he too did not brook excuses, When bureaucrats solemnly reported that his idea of a floating harbor could not be built for the supply ships, Churchill simply scrawled on the file: "Pray don't argue the difficulties.... Just do it." Mulberry was built.

That is Giuliani-speak. Conceivably, he could say now, as Churchill did of the enemy when he addressed a joint session of wartime Congress, "What kind of people do they think we are?" But Giuliani is not a master of the pulsating phrases that make the blood race, and he is wise not to affect them. Giuliani's leadership is more like that of Truman, He does not pretend to be other than who he is, and he makes it clear, as Truman did, that the buck stops here. In the end his leadership is inspired by a very simple recognition: He is one of us. In this crisis, he has succeeded because his leadership has been the epitome of the city in its directness, its energy, its optimism, its capacity to absorb shock, and its widely unrecognized sense of community (the diversity and richness of which we acknowledge in the body of this issue). We recognize him as the genuine article, the real thing.

He has mirrored our resolve, expressed our resilience, nurtured our hopes. He has reminded us who we are.

NewYork without Giuliani will be like Rome without Caesar, Brooklyn without its bridge, a bagel without the cream cheese. But now with Rudolph Giuliani, we know something else for sure: It cannot be goodbye, only au revoir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor! Come back soon.

INSIDE RUDY'S COMMAND POST

By Ken Kurson

WE'RE GOING TO TAKE CARE OF this," Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said. "We will make things right." He had nearly been crushed by the collapsing Twin Towers of the WorldTrade Center There was soot in his hair and caking his shoes. "I can't believe this," he said, looking downtown at the smoke rising where New York City's tallest buildings used to be. In his heart, Giuliani knew there were thousands of people in the rubble. In his mind, he knew they were dead.

"We're going to take care of this," he said. "We'll make things right."

In the days and weeks that followed, he began to do just that. His infectious courage and steadying confidence helped calm the nation.

Giuliani had been at a breakfast meeting on Tuesday, September 11, and was on his way downtown to City Hall when the first phone call came. He was in his mobile office, a silver Chevrolet Suburban, with two members of his police security detail and his aide and friend Denny Young. One of the cops answered the phone.

"Tell the mayor a plane has hit the Trade Center," yelled Deputy Mayor Joseph Lhota.

The Suburban went barreling downtown to the scene, just as another plane tore into the second tower. Giuliani got out at the corner of West and Vesey streets, where the fire department was already setting up a command post, and soon ran into Tony Carbonetti, his chief of staff, and a group of other aides who had come from City Hall. Everyone was dolled up. It was primary day, and the staff had dressed for the television cameras that were sure to come with the results. Sunny Mindel, Giuliani's director of communications, was in four-inch heels.

The mayor's entourage moved downtown, toward the fire. "It was the most horrific scene I've ever seen in my whole life," Giuliani said later. "We saw the WorldTrade Center in flames, a big, gaping hole all the way to the top of it. We could see people jumping from the top of the building." The mayor's emergency command center at 7 WorldTrade Center was completely inaccessible; the building would soon collapse. A former cop working for Merrill Lynch took them to a suite of offices in the company's building at 75 Barclay Street.

They heard rumbling, and then smoke and ash began to rush under the doors and into the room. The south tower of the WorldTrade Center, a block and a half away, pancaked to the ground, narrowly missing them. A security guard led the mayor and his aides down into the basement and then up to the street at 100 Church St., where they emerged into a world gone gray with ash and silence. And then the north tower fell. Giuliani and his aides ran north, searching both for safety and a site to establish a command center.

What follows is a diary of the calamitous days that followed those first shocking moments-an exclusive account by Giuliani biographer Ken Kurson of what it was like inside the mayor's leadership team as it struggled to regain control of the city.

WITH HIS OFFICE OF EMERGENCY Management inside the WTC now a pile of rubble and City Hall evacuated, the mayor's office sets up a makeshift command center at the police academy on 20th Street between Second and Third avenues. The tiny, noisy offices are outfitted with a few phones, and the staff manages as best it can to keep the city running. The mayor's speechwriter, Pip Avlon, and his deputy commandeer a computer in one comer, as they struggle to keep up with the heartbreaking task of writing eulogies for the dead.

Pretty soon all sorts of other officials begin to arrive. New York governor George Pataki and his staff and Federal Emergency Management Agency personnel are everywhere. Former surgeon general Antonia C. Novello and U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson also set up shop on the dingy office furniture.

In this makeshift City Hall for the next five days, the mayor begins each morning as he has for the past seven years: with a meeting at 8 a.m. with his senior staff members. At his first one after the attack, the mayor announces that he wants to stage a major prayer service the following Sunday afternoon. "It would be enormously valuable to have a priest, a rabbi, a minister, and an irnam there," he says. Kate Anson, the mayor's director of scheduling, says that the Imam Pasha, with whom the administration has worked in the past, is traveling in Senegal and won't be back in time. "Get me any imam," the mayor says. "We've got to show unity." Then the subject of burying the firefighters and police officers who have died is raised. "We're going to have 20 to 30 police officers and maybe 300 firefighters who will need to be buried," the mayor says. "Most of their families will want their loved ones to have an individual funeral. Because of the number we're not going to be able to provide for each one. But we need to be clear how much we value their sacrifice."

Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik proposes "using the NYPD, the fire department, and the National Guard to create a mini ceremonial detail" to participate in individual funerals and then for the city to hold a larger special service for those who lost their lives.

The mayor and his staff must also decide on an appropriate locale for the gigantic memorial service for all of the victims of the disaster, which is being planned for the following week. Joe Lhota offers several options: "We've got Central Park, Madison Square Garden, Staten Island with a view of the World Trade Center site, and St. John the Divine..."

The mayor interjects that to select any one church would risk appearing to favor one religion. "If Yankee Stadium is available..."

"I wonder about the appropriateness ofYankee Stadium," Mindel says.

"The pope," the mayor replies with finality; "said Mass at Yankee Stadium."

ONE OF THE IMMEDIATE PROBlems the mayor faces is finding a place where the families of more than 5,000 victims can come to get comfort and information. Governor Pataki offers him the National Guard Armory on Lexington Avenue. The mayor spends hours there on Thursday, comforting family members of victims like 23-year-old Brooke Jackman. Three months earlier Jackman had started working as an assistant trader for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor of the north tower at the World Trade Center. She's missing, along with hundreds of other Cantor Fitzgerald employees.

Now her family gathers around a table at the armory and holds hands in a circle with the mayor. "I don't think the city realizes yet what it's going through," he tells them. "Fifteen minutes before the collapse, I was standing in front of the World Financial Center with the fire department's team, running the evacuation. We left to go to the command post. I took the fire commissioner with me and left his deputy there. He's dead now. The fire commissioner and I are alive. We left the department's priest there and he said he'd pray for us, that he always prays for us. He's dead now too."

As the Jackman family leaves, the mayor removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. He has barely slept since Tuesday. "The pain is just immense," he says. "The pain is unbelievable. And do you know what the worst part is? These people are going to live with this the rest of their lives."

The mayor will too. But for now, there are more immediate problems. Rosemarie O'Keefe, the head of the mayor's Community Assistance Unit, needs help. There is a mountain of resolve in O'Keefe, but here at the armory, with thousands of people desperate for information that simply doesn't exist, she is nearing her limit. "I need supplies so bad," she tells Giuliani. "There's plenty of food and bottled water. But I've got to find 100 more tables, chairs, fans, maybe a couple dozen air conditioners. It's so hot in here. Five Xerox machines, so that updated lists can be circulated more quickly. And good fax machines."

Joe Allbaugh, the director of FEMA, has been there all day, sent by President Bush. He is a big man with a crewcut and a take-charge manner, You'll get what you need, he assures O'Keefe and the mayor. He leans down and embraces the tiny O'Keefe. For about 30 seconds, as the whole tragedy swirls around them, they quietly hold each other.

Now Sunny Mindel needs the mayor. The Secret Service has shown up to tell her that Bill Clinton would like to come down and survey the scene. The agents are sheepish about asking, because they know how busy everyone is. The mayor says it's chaotic enough without the arrival of someone who can add nothing but good intentions. "President Clinton should not come here," he tells Mindel. "Nor should candidates for public office or anyone else who doesn't need to be here. There's nothing he can do to help here today. Tell him to come back in a few days."

A FEW HOURS LATER AT THE ARmory, the mayor is telling staffers that he's furious over the private websites that are posting inaccurate information about who is dead or missing. He wonders about the appropriateness--and the legality--of putting the correct list on the city's website. Giuliani recognizes how devastating it would be for a relative to find a loved one on a list marked "dead" when she or he is actually injured. And vice versa.

He calls the city's lawyer, corporation counsel Mike Hess. "First," Giuliani asks, "can we legally put on a website the names of people in a hospital so that people can see that their loved one is not dead? Second, can we legally publish the list of people who have been found and are dead? Third, can we publish information about people who we have some information on but haven't identified yet?

"Mike," he says, "some of this stuff is gruesome as hell: 'Unknown male, upper torso, salt-and-pepper hair...' The problem is, how do you limit this to the people who really need the information, not a bunch of maniacs?"

Hess says he'll look into it, and the mayor gets off the phone. Charles Hirsch, the city's medical examiner, is waiting for him at the morgue. When the mayor arrives there, Hirsch comes out to greet him. The ME's face and arms bear cuts and bruises from the debris that hit him while he was outside the World Trade Center when it collapsed. Tired and drawn, he tells the mayor that there is little hope of survivors.

ON MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, THE mayor holds his first morning meeting back at City Hall, downtown. Time Warner has rigged up an Internet-based phone system for the office, in place of the landline service destroyed in the blasts. The mayor has finally gotten some sleep. He appears relieved to be back behind his desk. Beth Petrone is there; she has been Giuliani's executive assistant for 18 years. Her husband, Terry Hatton, a captain with the New York Fire Department's elite Rescue 1 unit, often picked her up at the end of the day, waiting patiently for her in the antechamber outside the mayor's office. Hatton and his entire squad were lost on September 11.

There's much to be discussed as the city attempts to return to something approaching normal. "Let's ask Cristyne [Lategano-Nicholas, the head of NYC & Company, the city's tourism marketing agency] to take a look at tourism projections," the mayor says. "My sense is that the city's going to be very crowded during the holidays. Some people will stay away scared, but far more will come to make a statement. And let's discourage traffic right now. If someone calls to ask for help with bringing in 50 buses of people from wherever, tell them what we really need is for you to bring those people in three weeks from now and three months from now."

The mayor then thanks everyone for the endless hours they've spent trying to keep the city running over the past week. Police Commissioner Kerik stands up. He's not a large man but projects an image of unquestionable authority. "No, mayor. Thank you," he says. The room grows quiet; the memory of the horror hangs in the air. Mindel breaks the silence. "Group hug!" she yells. It doesn't happen--this is a tough crowd with work to do.

A few minutes later the mayor leaves City Hall and walks over to the New York Stock Exchange for the opening bell. On his way, he points out the building in which George Washington was inaugurated as the country's first president. "This was the first capital of the United States," he says. "All of those [federal] buildings were in the Wall Street area. So in addition to being the financial capital of the United States and the world, Wall Street is a monument to our liberty."

EIGHT DAYS AFTER THE TRAGEDY, the mayor and his team head to Pier 92 on the Hudson River at 52nd Street, which has become the new Office of Emergency Management. On the giant second floor are makeshift offices for every city agency involved in the clean-up operation.

Just north, at Pier 94, is the city's expanded family assistance center. Every social service agency a victim or family member might need is there, from the ASPCA to the Salvation Army to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which issues food stamps.

One of Giuliani's deputy mayors, Bob Harding, reports that he has spoken to some insurance companies about speeding up the payments of life insurance policies to families. They are having a hard time collecting because death certificates have not been issued to those who are still officially listed as missing. The mayor decides that someone at the corporation counsel's office should become an expert on this topic immediately.

"Also, set up a meeting with several religious leaders," he says. "And get them thinking on the issue of when someone missing ought to be declared dead. Call my friend Alan [Placa, a priest who's been Giuliani's friend since childhood] on this. I believe the canon law says you've got to be missing for seven years before being declared dead, but with tragedies this can be expedited."

Mike Hess mentions to the mayor that the law firm of Skadden, Arps has provided the city some extra office space. "Each of their offices has different art, with a little placard explaining the work and the artist," he says.

"The art in the room they gave us is by Chris Ofili." The mayor and his staff break into laughter. Ofili's painting of the Virgin Mary adorned with elephant dung became the center of a political storm last year when the mayor objected to its being displayed at the Brooklyn Museum, which is partly funded by the city.

"Would they donate it to me?" the mayor jokes. "I have a higher use for it."

Other decisions fly fast and furious. "Cancel all street fairs in Manhattan," Giuliani says. "One, the police have better things to do now. Two, it will increase traffic in stores. Three, it will reduce traffic while we've got these big vehicles coming in and out."

Deputy corporation counsel Larry Levy reports that pledges are pouring in from celebrities lute Arnold Schwarz enegger. He breaks into a credible imitation of the Austrian-born action star: "I haf my own plane, I'm very impressed vit that Giuliani, I'll do vatever you vant me to--donate money, shake hands vit firemen.. ." Steve Fishner, the mayor's criminal justice coordinator, cracks, "Let's send him to Afghanistan."

But the mayor stays focused. "You know what," he says, "let's keep all of that stuff--celebrity visits and all--on hold for at least a week. That's when morale will really need a boost."

Sunny Mindel brings up the idea of placing ads to thank everyone in the city for coming to work this week. Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen erupts. "No way!" he says. He's lost 300 men this week. "We're through thanking. People should come to work They don't need to be thanked. There are 5,000 families suffering because they've lost someone who can no longer come to work. If you have to be thanked for showing up, stay home."

The mayor nods, is about to speak. But Jacques Chirac is waiting upstairs, grieving families are waiting for news, the media is waiting for answers. There are thousands of other decisions to make right now. The city needs him.

THE FRONT LINE

SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 FIREFIGHTERS & RELIEF WORKERS arrive at the scene.

THOMAS VON ESSEN, fire commissioner, City of New York. I Keep looking at the list of people that are missing. I don't want to talk about all the names. Just a phenomenal group of people. The best of the department... The first alarm, second alarm, third alarm, fifth alarm companies, they were rolling in And a lot of companies were wiped out from what I understand. I don't know what to say. We lost people that have given over 40 years, some of the best people in this department. I can't find anybody from five rescues and seven squads, and it's a devastating thing. The fire department will recover, but I don't know how."

THE LIFELINE

SEPTEMBER 13, 2001: Part of the heroic medical staff called to St. Vincent's Hospital one of the principal sites for victims of the World Trade Center attack. LEFT TO RIGHT EDUARDO GONZALEZ (chairman of the emergency department St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan) ANNA TIGAR (head nurse, emergency department, St. Vincent's Hospital), SUZANNE PUGH (nurse manager, emergency department, St. Vincent's Hospital), MARIE BARNWELL (registered nurse, emergency department, St. Vincent's Hospital), ANGELA CORRADO (administrative assistant in emergency medicine St. Joseph's Hospital, Queens), MARCIA POORAN-MANGAL (patient care associate, Mary Immaculate Hospital Queens), LYNDA WRIGHT (registered nurse, St. Mary's Hospital, Brooklyn), STEVEN GARNER (senior vice president and chief medical officer of St. VincentCatholic Medical Centers, St. Vincent's Hospital)

LYNDA WRIGHT: "I was at the desk talking to the staff about patient flow, and someone said the Twin Towers were on fire. We thought it was an accident, but when we saw the second plane we knew it was terror. I work in Brooklyn: people had walked across the bridge and collapsed in the ER by early afternoon."

STEVEN GARNER: "I was in a finance meeting in preparation for a presentation to the board of directors. I was making a suggestion about how to improve the bottom line when I heard the droning of a plane. We ran out to the street and saw a gaping hole in one of the towers. While we were watching, we saw the other tower blow in front of our eyes. The first couple of patients that came in had massive chest injuries; they were burned beyond recognition. One was DOA. That day the entire staff worked overtime--I mean, you had the executive vice president moving stretchers and gathering supplies. There was no job description last week. We had one mission pulling together."

WITNESS

THROUGHOUT THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 11, STEPHANE SEDNAOUI, LKIE THE REST OF US IN NEW YORK CITY, STOOD motionless--paralyzed by the surreal spectacle of the two 110-story towers at the southern tip of Manhattan exploding, burning, crumbling into a grotesque heap of steel and glass and concrete...and whatever might be left of thousands of people. By one o'clock that afternoon the 38-year-old French photographer had stood all he could stand. So he set out from his apartment for what would soon be called ground zero--and later, in an effort to imbue the horror with a human dimension, "Ground Hero." * In the pandemonium of the hours that followed, no one at the corner of North Moore and Greenwich streets in Tribeca, where would-be volunteers assembled, quite knew what to do with him, so at 10 that evening he left, frustrated--but determined. * Sednaoui wasn't the first civilian to sign up the next morning as a volunteer at the Javits Center on 11th Avenue. He was the fourth. Even so, it took him until early Wedne sday evening to finally join the army of firefighters and rescue workers, police officers and medical personnel, steel workers and construction specialists crawling through the remains of that infamous day, on their knees, digging with their hands. "There were no words," recalls Sednaoui. "We didn't talk." * For the next 36 hours, until the rain came sometime before sunrise Friday morning, the photographer hoisted buckets of water, removed as much debris as he could carry, and thought about the birth of his first child, a month away. And during those moments when the cry for "Quiet!" would ripple through the ranks of sweating workers like a wave, when someone up front, knee-deep in the smoldering ruins, would hear even the faintest sound of the most remote possibility of life, and everyone would freeze, Sednaoui reached into his pocket for the little camera he always carries, a Ricoh, GR1, and took pictures--three rolls the first night, three rolls the second. -- CHARLES GANDEE

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