NEW YORK – Grief still lingers in the heart of Manhattan, evident in the flowers tucked into the wire fence encircling Ground Zero, or in the hundreds of faded “missing” posters that still stretch across the wall of a nearby hospital.
But out across the rest of the nation, with the approach of the second anniversary of 9/11, Americans have shown signs of moving beyond that horrific day. They haven’t forgotten – and they never will – but they have settled into a semblance of normalcy, while at the same time, embracing the realities of a frightening new age.
The shadow of terrorism has become a part of daily life. At the same time, Americans are preoccupied with nagging worries over the economy, rising gasoline prices and health care. The patriotic fervor that bonded the country in the immediate aftermath of the disaster has hardened and cooled.
“The country still remains very patriotic,” says Carroll Doherty of the Pew Research Center in Washington. “But the idea of rallying around the president and national institutions the way people did in the fall of 2001, that’s faded.”
After watching U.S. troops go into combat in two theaters – Afghanistan and Iraq – Americans appear to be reordering their priorities. Several national polls have tracked a significant rise in the percentage of people who say that it is now more important for Bush to focus on the economy and jobs than on terrorism.
The shift in public mood is also illustrated by intense questioning of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, which raced through Congress just after 9/11 to give the Justice Department more powers to combat terrorists. It is now described by some as a threat to civil liberties, and even some Republican members of Congress are working to eliminate a provision that lets the government secretly search a suspect’s residence.
As Americans move further away from “the horrific events of 9/11,” says Laura W. Murphy, a Washington lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, they feel more comfortable about asking: “Did we go too far, too fast in the aftermath?”
Murphy’s ACLU is leading the challenge to the Patriot Act. “In my 25 years of being around Washington,” she said, “I have never seen such a shift in public sentiment on a law.”
At the same time, Americans have been permanently reprogrammed to hold the fear of terrorism just below the surface, waiting for a trigger.
National security has come to define life in many ways.
Travelers routinely, if not begrudgingly, take off their shoes and flash ID cards for the 49,000 screeners posted at the nation’s airports. Every American has become accustomed to life in a world of color-coded terror alerts, monitored by a 7-month-old bureaucracy created solely to fend off terrorism: the 170,000-employee Homeland Security Department.
“If anything, we feel a little more exposed,” said Sal Espino, 35, a Fort Worth, Texas, attorney who now routinely scans crowds for anyone suspicious. “I’m always looking for something unusual. You might say I’m a little bit paranoid.”
Those directly affected by the tragedy, the thousands who were injured or who lost loved ones, have followed divergent paths since the tragedy. Some have found new direction in volunteer work; others are struggling to cope and are unable to contain their emotions as they prepare for the second anniversary.
Nikki Stern, a New Yorker whose executive husband was on the 94th floor of the north tower, concedes that most Americans are putting 9/11 behind them, sometimes to the point of showing impatience with those who still grieve. But for many whose lives were scarred by the tragedy, she says, the pain is still fresh.
“It’s like yesterday. You never forget it,” she said. “It gets smaller, but it takes a long time to get smaller. I could fall in love with someone tomorrow, and I will always feel the pain of losing someone dear to me.”
In some ways, America’s emergence from the disaster is like a series of concentric circles. Predictably, those furthest away have been able to distance themselves, but at the points of impact – New York, Pennsylvania, the Pentagon – feelings still run deep.
“Life hasn’t resumed to a new normalcy for them,” said Douglas A. MacMillan, founder and chief executive officer of the Todd A. Beamer Foundation, named for the passenger who led a revolt against the hijackers over Pennsylvania. “For those who were directly affected by 9/11, it’s still a big hurdle.”
Plaques and memorials dot the cityscape across Manhattan, where nearly 2,800 died in the attacks on the World Trade Center.
At Ground Zero, the sounds of jackhammers and buzz saws mingle with other urban noises as workers toil in the excavation site that extends six stories below ground.
The wire-enclosed site, bedecked with flags, flowers and placards bearing the victims’ names, draws throngs of tourists each day, though in fewer numbers than during the months immediately after 9/11.
A few miles away, hundreds of fading “missing” posters still adorn the brick wall of St. Vincent Hospital, held up by weathered, peeling tape. “Have you seen my daddy,” pleads one.
The groundswell of unity that brought New Yorkers together has tapered off, supplanted by the grittiness of everyday life in the nation’s biggest city.
Firefighters, who with police and paramedics were hailed as the heroes of 9/11, are angered by budget cuts that have forced the closure of six fire stations, eliminated jobs and nudged nearly 1,000 department veterans into retirement.
“Morale is very low, probably at an all-time low,” said Stephen Cassidy, president of New York City’s Uniformed Firefighters Association. “It’s devastating.”
Firehouses openly display their anger at city hall with posters showing a fire hose tied in a noose, declaring, “Budget cuts are suicide.”
Seemingly every company throughout Manhattan displays a memorial to fallen comrades. “Our brothers will never be forgotten,” proclaims a plaque at Manhattan’s Ladder Co. 5, which lost 11 members. Every few days, women in the neighborhood bring fresh flowers to place underneath the memorial.
Capt. Frank Coughlin, a 24-year veteran who plans to retire soon, said that the station house has moved beyond 9/11 but that the anguish hasn’t disappeared. “It’s just dropped down a few levels,” he said, “but it’s there in everybody’s soul.

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