The document describes the author's experiences visiting areas around the Brooklyn Promenade and lower Manhattan in the aftermath of 9/11. They saw memorials for victims along the Promenade with views of where the Twin Towers once stood. In lower Manhattan, they passed firefighters who had lost colleagues on 9/11 and saw debris where WTC 4 once was. Security was tight near Ground Zero and the military had a presence in Lower Manhattan. Impromptu memorials and missing posters were placed in areas like the post office as the desperate hope for finding missing loved ones still persisted at that point in the recovery.

1. After getting off my
train on 9/17, I
walked along the
Brooklyn
Promenade before
getting on the
bridge.
The promenade
offers a great view
of the Manhattan
skyline, which
included a visible
smoke cloud in
place of the Twin
Towers. The smoke
would continue for
more than a month
as the massive
debris pile
smoldered.

2. I walked through some of the residential area
near the Brooklyn Promenade, passing by the
neighborhood firehouse.
Some of the firefighters there responded to 9/11
and never came back. I left a donation there in
the boot of one of the survivors after reading
this sign.
Among both civilians and emergency workers,
the desperate hope that loved ones were
merely “missing” still persisted at this point. But,
rationally, most people knew there was little
likelihood of that. Regarding the recovery effort
at Ground Zero, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had
already candidly said at a press conference
that, if a particular person hadn’t been found
yet, he or she was unlikely to be recovered
alive.

3. Some people placed
memorials for their loved ones
along the promenade, with its
view of Lower Manhattan.
Here, a bouquet in the fence
has a note in both English and
some Asian language that I
can’t quite make out at this
point. Perhaps Korean or
Chinese.

4. Another
memorial on
the
promenade...

5. As I walked over
the Brooklyn
Bridge, I got
another wide-
ranging view of
Lower Manhattan
from a more
elevated vantage
point. Again, keep
in mind that most
of this cloud is
smoke and dust,
not Mother
Nature.

6. Just before
reaching
Manhattan, I came
across this French
TV crew
interviewing relief
volunteers in town
from a Tennessee
church.
As New Yorkers,
we’re often used to
being disliked by
the rest of the
country. But in the
post-9/11 world, the
outpouring of love
for our city from
other places was
unabashed.

7. Once in Manhattan, I tried to
get as close as possible to
Ground Zero. From one of the
nearby side streets, I could
see the wreckage of 4 WTC,
which sat at the base of the
Twin Towers.
The building was home to the
New York Board of Trade, one
of the markets I covered for
the Journal. To outsiders,
NYBOT is most famous as the
spot where Eddie Murphy
traded orange-juice futures in
the movie Trading Places.
Pre-9/11, the Twin Towers
would have been in the light-
colored, U-shaped area of this
photo, tall enough to stretch
way past the top of the frame.

8. Eventually, police stopped me from
getting any closer to Ground Zero. I
headed north instead to Canal
Street, the dividing line above which
security was a little more lax. I
wanted to see if life was closer to
normal there.
Police barricades like this one were
at every cross-street intersecting
with Canal, which runs east-west
across Manhattan’s Chinatown.
Nothing but official vehicles was
allowed past these checkpoints, to
guard against a possible truck bomb.
For a Monday in New York, this sort
of shutdown was unheard-of. Lower
Manhattan was back “open for
business,” but only to a point.

9. In addition to a large
contingent of NYPD
officers, state troopers
and heavily-armed
national guardsmen
were also patrolling
streets throughout
Lower Manhattan.
This martial presence
was striking. Until that
day, I’d only ever seen
such a thing in restive
foreign countries on
television.

10. The post office on Canal Street
was one of several popular
spots for people to put up
“missing” posters of loved ones.
All the local hospitals saw
similar impromptu collections
spring up, but that effort was
futile, really. The violence of 9/11
was so sudden and
catastrophic, people near
Ground Zero either survived or
not. Emergency rooms were
eerily quiet after.
Note the diversity of the victims
in this small sample.

11. More
“missing”
flyers at
Canal St.

12. More love from out of
town. “United we
stand,” was a
widespread
sentiment/slogan at
the time. Imagine.
This item was mixed
in with the “missing”
flyers at the post
office. People just left
behind impromptu
expressions of
support and
condolence, a
practice that would
continue for years
after Ground Zero re-
opened to
pedestrians, even
when it had no proper
memorial.

13. Mark Fichtel, CEO of the
New York Board of
Trade, speaking to
members during a
weekend test run of the
exchange’s backup
facility in Queens prior to
resumption of trading on
Monday, Sept. 17.
Though it wasn’t nearly
as famous as the NYSE,
the little NYBOT was
distinct in two ways: (1)
It was the only public
financial exchange
whose headquarters
were destroyed on 9/11.
(2) It was the only one
with a physical backup
facility.

14. Pat Gambaro, NYBOT’s
executive v.p. of operations.
After the ’93 bombing of the
World Trade Center, he pushed
to establish a backup center.
Some members complained
about the expense over the
ensuing years, saying it was
unnecessary, especially as
memory of the ’93 attack grew
distant. But after 9/11, Pat’s
persistence paid off in a big way.