By: Larry McShane
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - It was the eeriest of sounds,
blanketing New York from skyscraper to subway
on the first anniversary of the September morning
when two jetliners pierced the twin towers:
Silence.
In Times Square, hundreds of people stood mutely,
watching the World Trade Center memorial service on
giant screens.
In a Manhattan firehouse, firefighters listened quietly
to the roll call of their 343 lost comrades.
On the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue,
mourners wept soundlessly, many staring downtown
at the shattered skyline.
"I'm here to just pray and hope," said Charles Frank,
49, of Manhattan, standing outside the landmark
church in a Fire Department shirt with an American
flag pin. "Pray for peace, and hope for the best."
On this day of remembrance, the city that never sleeps
paused to catch its breath. Cab drivers stayed off their
horns, and straphangers barely spoke. Lower Manhattan's
financial district was as quiet as a Sunday morning.
"It's definitely more somber than I've ever seen it,"
said tourist Jennifer Blackburn, 25, of Charlotte, N.C.,
a frequent visitor to the city.
It was impossible to avoid reminders of the terrorist
attack from 365 days ago. A news zipper scrolled
the names of the 2,801 victims, while the streets
sported a surplus of red, white and blue flags, pins
and T-shirts. The warm weather was reminiscent of
last year's fateful morning.
The quiet was perhaps loudest at ground zero, where
mourners listened intently as the name of each victim
was read aloud. There were two official moments of
silence - for when the first tower was struck, and the
last collapsed.
There were thousands of individual memorial moments,
from the mourners inside Brooklyn's 160-year-old Christ
Church to a group of electricians pausing for reflection
on the Empire State Building's 86th-floor deck.
"It's emotional, just staring out there and not seeing the
trade center," said Mark Adler, one of the crew fitting the
building, now the city's tallest, with transmission towers to
replace those lost when the towers collapsed.
Around Manhattan, and along the Brooklyn shoreline,
people paused and looked in vain for the missing 110 story
buildings. In Brooklyn, someone hung a photo of the towers
on the Promenade that was taken from that same spot.
Inside the Neighborhood School, an East Village elementary
school where many faculty members and parents watched
the planes hit last year, some drew their strength from the quiet.
"It's important for me to be with other people," said Nancy Smithner,
the mother of a student. "I don't necessarily need to talk about it."
At 8:46 a.m., the time when the first plane struck, Smithner wept
as she held hands with the group.
Amid the mourning were some calls for revenge. A sign,
spray painted on a bedsheet and strung across a Long Island
Expressway overpass in Queens, read,
"United we stand, Bin Laden will fall."
There were signs of normalcy: Buses and trains were running
with plenty of passengers, and workers walked to their offices.
Jeff Mason was at a deserted LaGuardia Airport, catching a
business flight to Arkansas.
"It doesn't seem like that long ago," the Long Island man
said of Sept. 11. "This year went by like a week."
At the Port Authority Bus Terminal, harried commuters paused
to stare at a glass replica of the World Trade Center. But few
spoke. At an Eighth Avenue shoeshine stand, the owner noticed
that passers-by had little use for the usual banter.
"People seem a little busier today," said the gregarious proprietor,
known to all as Mr. Benjamin. "It's a sad thing."
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