London calling
By Laura Young

Television’s constant replay of the tragedy provided no escape from sleeplessness after the World Trade Center towers fell. It was 2:38 a.m. Hoping for distraction, I turned to the Internet, where thousands of radio programs were broadcasting live from around the world. I tuned in to XFM, one of the stations I used to listen to during my five-month stay in London, earlier this year.

I should have guessed: Christian, the morning deejay, was commenting on the crisis. He was describing a full-page picture of the smoke clouds from Tower 2, which The Mirror said contained what appeared to be the face of Osama bin Laden. Christian found the story disgusting and vile and urged his listeners to write the newspaper in protest.

It appalled me, too. I dashed off an e-mail, expressing my disappointment in the British press and asking Christian to play Coldplay’s "Everything’s Not Lost" for the comfort it might afford. Twenty minutes later, he played the song and read my message on the air. He also sent me an e-mail. If you’d like to chat about the crisis, he asked, would you give me your telephone number? I wrote back with my number and urged him to call.

His questions came fast. Where were you when it happened? How close do you live to the site? How is your family? What’s the sentiment on the street? I stammered as I grappled for answers, growing strangely fatigued. Why had I agreed to speak with this guy?, I wondered.

I had wanted to proclaim the glory of New York City; I had wanted to let everyone know that the city stood united, that we weren’t going to let anyone take us down. Instead, I was talking about wreckage, ambulances and people covered with soot.

I felt exploited. I felt like a fool. I wanted to hang up.

Since my move to the city two years ago, I have taken my share of abuse for claiming New York as my hometown. I could do it with impunity out of state or out of the country, but daring to declare it within the Five Boroughs inevitably invited verbal assault. It was only a few weeks ago that I stood outside the Ed Sullivan Theater on 54th Street with a friend from California, waiting for the Icelandic singer Bjork to make her way out of the studio. We started chatting with Terry, a security guard for the Letterman show, and a woman who was standing next to us. Talk turned to the differences between West Coast and East. My California friend kept quiet, sensing herself to be outnumbered and overruled. After we New Yorkers agreed that we were the toughest people in the country, perhaps even in the world, Terry turned to the woman alongside me and asked, "Hey, where are you from?"

"Brooklyn," she shot back. "What about you?"

"The Bronx," Terry replied. There was a pause. All eyes shifted to me.

"I’m from Syosset."

Blank looks.

"It’s on Long Island," I mumbled.

Terry laughed. "Awww, man, you’re not even from New York!"

I crawled back into my hole.

The Tuesday the Towers fell, no one cared about zip codes. I walked up and down lower Manhattan and looked people straight in the eye as I passed. I saw uncertainty, anguish and confusion-but not despair. People stopped strangers on the street to ask if they were all right. Local businesses handed out free water. Fire trucks barreling down New York’s streets were met with cheers from pedestrians. There was community; a commonality. Gone was the jaded, isolationist, you’re-not-one-of-us city of just a few days before.

The world had been reborn and, like infants, all of us were groping, trying to find our bearings and figure it all out. The entire country had just had its rebirth in New York-and now we were all New Yorkers, whether home was Manhattan or San Jose.

Christian did ask one question I didn’t mind answering, however. "Will the people of the city be able to survive something like this?"

"Yeah," I replied. "We’re New Yorkers. We can make it through anything."

Laura Young is a senior at New York University, majoring in journalism.