On Monday morning, along with other working New Yorkers, I returned to lower Manhattan's financial district for the first time in almost a week. I moved to New York from the Republic a year-and-a-half ago but now, having shared the experiences of last week with the natives of this city, I feel justified and compelled to label myself a New Yorker.
Without doubt, the resilience and unity that the people of the city have shown since this tragedy gives every reason to hope recovery is possible. This morning, however, on seeing the financial district - New York's engine room - one thing is for sure: last week's moment in history will have a permanent affect.
Coming up from the subway station on Fulton Street, about four blocks from where the twin towers stood, what's immediately noticeable is the falling of snow-like particles. The grey flakes, like nuclear fallout, have an acrid smell. The buildings and streets are covered with this concrete-coloured snow. Shop owners frantically clean it from their windows and doorways.
The NYPD are everywhere. The National Guard patrol the streets in armed Hummer jeeps. At almost all intersections, checkpoints must be negotiated. Only by providing ID and documented proof of your work location can you pass. "Ground Zero" (as the recovery site is being called) is still cordoned off for a two-block radius. But even from this distance, the destruction is distressingly obvious.
On turning the corner of Liberty and Nassau Streets, on my way to my office on lower Broadway, I saw what's left of the once-magnificent twin towers - reduced now to a single six-storey-high shard of metal. Scattered around this main ruin, like huge silver splinters, are the remnants of the other 214 floors of what was once the World Trade Centre.
Many onlookers cluster around the corner of Liberty Street, just one of the vantage points from which to view the devastation. Wall Street's hard-nosed populace all stand transfixed, hands over gaping mouths, some with eyes moistened by tears.
Here, close to Ground Zero, in the face of the terrible death toll, with the number of those who have "not been heard from" continuing to mount, all global and national ramifications are at least momentarily deferred - and for good reason.
For, no doubt like many of those standing beside me on the corner of Liberty and Nassau, I lost work colleagues last Tuesday morning. Also, like many others, I am feeling some unjustified survivor guilt - I was due at a 10 a.m. meeting on the 40th floor of the first tower and am wondering what might have happened had I been able to fit in the 9 a.m. appointment the client had requested.
My company's salesman, Eric (a father of two), and its marketing manager, Catherine (a single mother with a two-year-old son), have not been seen since their 8.45 a.m. meeting at Cantor Fitzgerald on the 106th floor of the same tower. For those lost, going to work was never supposed to entail such risk, or result in so ultimate a sacrifice.
Walking those streets this morning, it was impossible not to notice the stillness. Shops and offices were open, the streets full with workers, but still there was a strange quiet. On the subway to work I had noticed it too, total silence, faces staring blankly, heads just rocking freely with the shuddering of the train. People just trying to get to grips with what we'd lost and what the future could possibly mean.
The inevitable return to business was not without trauma. On the first day of trading since "that" day, the market went into an immediate freefall - the Dow ending the day down 685 points, the largest single-day points decline in its history.
Large and small companies alike are unsure as to what their next move should be. The larger ones, especially those that had significant space in the twin towers - Wall Street institutions like Cantor Fitzgerald, Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers - will now have to plunge all resources into rebuilding and relocation. Even though it's expected that these costs will be offset by insurance claims, jobs may still be lost.
As for the many smaller companies (including my own, an IT consultancy), the picture is much bleaker. These firms are largely dependent on the direction of the Cantors and Morgans. But never has this been more so than right now. If those at the top of the Wall Street chain should decide to cancel contracts, many smaller fish will not survive. I have been told to continue with a project for a client who had three floors in tower one "until we hear otherwise".
Crumbs of comfort are very hard to find and very small when come by. On lower Broadway, framed photographs, postcards, in fact any images of the towers are selling fast. American flags are selling like never before in the city. This morning, the famous pillars of the New York Stock Exchange were draped in an enormous Stars and Stripes.
On a larger scale, a flagging corporate real estate market will be boosted by having to provide space for some 15,000 displaced office workers. But nobody is under any illusions - there is an arduous recovery process ahead.
Last Sunday night, for the first time since September 11th, the Empire State Building's lights were turned on. The symbolic heart of New York - again tragically its tallest building - was crowned in red, white and blue. New York's healing process had begun.
Ferghil O'Rourke is a senior IT consultant with Random Walk Computing, a small software development shop with 80 staff servicing the IT needs of most large Wall St-based companies. Aged 33 and from Dublin, he has been in New York for 18 months, after working previously as a software developer in Dublin, Stuttgart and San Francisco
