In New York, an eerie quiet

NEW YORK, Sept. 12, 2001 - Times Square, the fabled crossroads of the world, was nearly deserted Wednesday. Normally packed with pedestrians and jammed with traffic, this symbol of the city’s hustle was a sleepy plaza at noon time, a day after the catastrophic attack on the World Trade Center. If you listened closely, you could hear the stop lights blink: The hush was that quiet.

Giant-sized video screens in Times Square usually play to streets filled with shutterbug tourists gawking at the neon wilderness. Not today. “They say this city never sleeps,” said Victor Tahiri, 31, standing in his Mr. Softee ice cream van. “It sleeps. Look at this. Nobody.”

Some establishments were shuttered. The huge Virgin Records emporium was one. “Closed until further notice,” read the sign. The Barcode, a vast game and video arcade, was also closed. A few doors away at the Palace Theatre, the curtain wasn’t going up. “Dear Patrons,” said the note posted on the lobby door, “Unfortunately, today’s performance of ‘Aida’ [the hit Elton John musical] has been canceled ...”

Mike Turk, 40, a security guard for the Bertlesman Building, on Broadway between 45th and 46th streets, surveyed the subdued scene. “It’s empty and dreary,” he said. “At this time of day I usually see a sea of yellow. Taxis are stacked on top of each other. Now I see one standing at the red light with one cop car behind him. Usually it’s so crowded here, people have to walk sideways. Today? They’ve got all the room they want.”

While rescue and recovery teams worked at Ground Zero several miles away in a gray netherworld of twisted ruins, a small group of pedestrians stood on a traffic island in the middle of Times Square watching them on the ABC television network’s high-tech, high-definition video screen.

Across the street, beneath a fashionable Liz Claiborne billboard several stories high, three white sheets were tied to the building scaffolding, a much more apt reflection of the city and the nation’s mood. Their blood-red, home-made lettering proclaimed: “PRAY FOR FAMILIES & VICTIMS,” “GOD BLESS AMERICA” and “FREEDOM WILL BE DEFENDED.”

Caroline Hirsch, a 24-year-old photo magazine editor, stopped to look. She was already on her way home from work, headed back to her Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn. “Nobody was in the office,” she said. “Even coming over on the subway, everybody seemed like zombies. There was just this look they had. Everybody was so polite. None of those jolly, mean New Yorkers. They seemed solemn. I haven’t seen anybody smile.”

In the nearby Diamond District, ordinarily teeming with businessmen, the lunchtime crowd was sparse. That didn’t surprise Anthony Quiroz, 34, a plainclothes guard for the Reliance Security Corp., who was standing sentry on West 47th Street. He estimated that “a good 85 percent of the dealers” were closed.

“They come in, check their messages and leave,” he said. “I think people are scared the bombers are coming back. Maybe next time they’re coming back for Rockefeller Center, which is right around the corner. Or maybe they’re coming back for the Empire State Building. Those are the places that make New York famous. That’s what those guys are after.”

‘The street is dead'

Kevin McDermott, 37, shared that feeling. When he rode his bicycle to work at the Gotham Bookmart, where he helps curate the literary papers of Edward Gorey for Gotham proprietor Andreas Brown, he made sure to give a wide berth to major public landmarks.

“This morning I hightailed it past the Port Authority [bus terminal] and any of those buildings,” he said. “I would rather not be here. Obviously the street is dead. It was dead yesterday. I just feel like I shouldn’t be here.

“I feel like I’m intruding,” McDermott added. “I think a lot of people feel that way. They’re trying to figure out how to behave. They feel like they can’t behave in a normal way. They don’t know if they should.”

Manhattanites apparently couldn’t get enough news of the disaster. Early Wednesday morning, they lined up for the daily papers at the newsstand on Broadway and 116th St. The paper vendor said she had never experienced that before. To make sure the day’s papers wouldn’t end up in hoarders’ hands as a “collector’s edition,” she rationed them one to a customer.

‘Shock and grieving'

At the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism across the street, university President George Rupp sent a telephone announcement to students, faculty and staff that all classes were canceled. Andras Szanto, deputy director of a fellowship program for mid-career journalists, said that some “hardened journalism students who had chosen a career of reporting about human calamities were nevertheless in shock and grieving. ... I have seen people gently sobbing.”

Meanwhile, Manhattanites who live downtown, close to Ground Zero, are being turned out of their apartments — or, if they weren’t home at the time of the catastrophe, they haven’t been back since then.

“You can’t go home,” said one resident. “The police won’t let you. You don’t want to go back anyway. There’s no power, no water, no nothing — and the smell is bad. It stinks.”

Jan Herman is a senior editor-producer at MSNBC.com.