Ivy Lappin, co-owner of the Lappin-Paoli hairdressing salon just a couple of blocks north of the militarily “frozen” disaster zone, says, “Some woman came in the day that it happened, when the first building was burning and everybody was hysterical, and said, ‘Can I still get a trim?’ We told her, ‘I don’t think so’.” And NEWSWEEK’s art critic received a letter, dated Sept. 14, from an artist who saw the disaster out her studio window, requesting he visit her to see a new series of paintings in progress, begun as a “response to this tragedy.”
Wretched insensitivity, yes. And probably representative of a caricature image many people have in their heads of TriBeCa and SoHo-the two New York residential neighborhoods closest to the calamity-trying to shake off the dust and recover some semblance of business as usual. The two districts-each with a surfeit of art galleries, fashion boutiques, smart restaurants and bars, and under-construction luxury lofts and penthouses-might seem to embody the term “nonessential.” But as a manager at the nearly empty Independent restaurant in TriBeCa puts it, “Everything seems trivial at this point. But people have to eat, people have to drink and I have to pay my rent.” Lappin adds, “People down here want to do something normal-cut it, color it, blow-dry it, whatever. Actually, at times like this a lot of people just want to cut their hair off.”
It’s a sunny Wednesday afternoon in TriBeCa, eight days after the attack. Businesses are open and reopening, but not all of them. People shop, but not crowds of people. A few wear surgical masks because the smoky air is still bad, and it can get worse from the changing wind at any moment. The functioning establishment closest to ground zero is, of course, a Starbucks shop on the northeast corner of Chambers Street (everything south is sealed off by the National Guard) and West Broadway (everything west of it is no-go). The place is fairly humming, with an equal mix of soldiers, police and civilians being served by three hurrying young counter personnel.
Proceed away from the disaster area along Chambers and you find the Cosmopolitan Hotel open, the barber shop closed, the menswear store open, the beauty-supply shop open, the used bookstore closed, the Hip-Hop Fashion Warehouse open, the African Gift Shop closed, the Electronics Maven closed (possibly out of business), and the pizza place shuttered. Attitudes vary similarly: the blackboard outside one bar says NO PICTURES in large chalk letters (meaning don’t stand here and indulge in Minolta morbidity), while the T-shirt stalls do vigorous business selling patriotic garb.
Anne Whittaker stops at such a stall and buys several flag-bedecked shirts for nephews and the like, even though “I’ve sort of lost my job, because I’m in tourism.” A native New Yorker who resides in Washington (“I live two miles from the Pentagon, and the plane went right over my building”), she simply had to make the journey by train to see how her hometown was handling it. “I’m so proud of my country,” she says emphatically. “We have to bury our dead and then show the world we can do it. The British were able to do it in the Blitz. The Germans did it. The Japanese did it. And they had a lot more adversity than we have with this.” Role models in rising from the ashes apparently transcend former enmities.
Farther north in TriBeCa, near where giant pneumatic cranes have restarted their engines to put the finishing touches on edifices refurbished for posh lofts, Christopher Giglio, who runs a flower shop, says, “A lady came in the other day and bought a gardenia. I asked if she wanted it wrapped, and she said, ‘No, it’s for me to walk around with and smell’.” That small succor is almost poetic in its simplicity. Is there any indulgence that’s really over the line? Soshanna, a maitre d’ at the formerly bustling Odeon restaurant (where rescuers are fed for free) says, “I wish they wouldn’t eat on the patio right now. Eating outdoors just a few blocks from where thousands of people are dead is disturbing to me personally.”
Canal Street is the east-west artery-along which you can buy almost anything, from Chinese silk slippers to a car-stereo system capable of rattling windows up in Connecticut-that separates TriBeCa from SoHo. Theoretically, only residents and workers are allowed south of its pourous police checkpoints. But the sidewalks are crammed with long-distance gawkers wishing they had telephoto lenses on their camcorders, and the boulevard itself is host to cruising cars, many flying American flags. A strange, slightly macabre pep-rally-in-reverse atmosphere is present.
A real massacre-not some metaphorical war with clashing athletic teams-is past, not future, and the “We’re No. 1” attitude is expressed in unanimous regalia, not contesting shouts. Still, the sight is daunting and somewhat disheartening. Is everybody missing the grimness of the events of Sept. 11?
No. The resumption of normal life in America has to be done like this. We are a big, powerful, free and generous country. We’re also a vulgar, snack-food-stuffed one, driven by instant gratification. When we pick ourselves up off the floor, we don’t straighten our ties, go on with afternoon tea, and listen to Vera Lynn sing “The White Cliffs of Dover.” Instead, we grab a beer and crank up the SUV. We don’t have a stiff upper lip. We have a beefy belt line and a quick middle finger. Parts of our recovery may not look noble, but at bottom they are, and they will most likely work.
Of course, not every civilian on Canal Street is merely a rooter. Young Anthony navigates the crowded sidewalk wearing a Latrell Sprewell Knicks jersey and carrying a plastic shopping bag. Are you resuming normal life? he’s asked. “I just got off work, a construction job down the street. I stayed at home for two days, then they called, and I’m happy to get back to normal.” What did you buy, in the bag? “Nothing. These are just my dirty clothes, from the job.” Inside a building, Ishmael Martinez is a big guy doing his job, which, at the moment, is guarding the rear exit (and potential hole in the checkpoint setup) of Pearl Paint, the huge art-supply store. Is business off? “Yeah, mostly because it’s cash only-no phone lines for credit cards.” Belying his tough looks, Martinez adds, “I think people want to do creative things like art at a time like this, but sometimes they just can’t get here.”
That night, thirtysomething Eva sits with a friend at a table by an open window in SoHo, eating dinner at one of a clot of specialty restaurants (1930s Paris, Indian “bistro,” etc.). “Yes, I’m trying to resume normal life because I’m forced to,” she says. “I’m still living.” Is there anything in her own resumption she thinks is beyond the pale? “The thing I love to do is dance. I don’t want to dance right now.” Amy Bessa, the proprietor of Cendrillon, which she calls a “true neighborhood restaurant,” beams at her crowded tables and booths. “We reopened Friday and it was a ghost town. Saturday and Sunday, too. We had 14 people a day for four days. I was scared. I thought we’d be gone. But whatever the mayor said has worked. We’ve been getting calls from people away for the summer, saying hold on, we’ll be in when we get back. Now they’re here.”
Still, considerable dreariness hovers over SoHo at 9:15 p.m., usually prime time on a mild September evening like this. A guy playing cello on the corner of Prince Street and West Broadway attracts no coins to his instrument case. At the fancy eatery Barolo, there is exactly nobody at any of the white-draped tables. Equally stylish Zoe is almost empty. To be sure, a few handholding couples stroll the defiantly picturesque streets; one mutually earringed twosome affectionately entwines in an office chair somebody’s put out for trash. Now, this kind of resumption is probably already operative, in spades. After all, it’s the classic the-next-moment-together-may-be-our-last thing to do. It’s also free. And with any luck it will lead to a new generation that never has to agonize over the ethics of simply resuming a normal life.
