With the start of the workweek, New Yorkers struggled to get back to business as usual. But little about Monday was usual or normal.
From displaced workers scrambling to settle into makeshift offices to commuters stuck in some of the city’s worst traffic jams in recent years, the day resembled the tumultuous trading session at the New York Stock Exchange, a rough experience that had to be endured in hopes that things will get better.
Meanwhile, as the search for survivors continued at the World Trade Center ruins, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani seemed to be preparing New Yorkers for a declaration in the next few days that rescuers no longer expect to find any survivors.
“We’re doing everything we can do to find any human beings who may still be alive,” said the mayor, whose highly regarded leadership since last Tuesday’s attack on the trade center towers is leading some to say he should remain as mayor after his term ends in December.
“But we want everyone to prepare for the reality that we’re not going to recover significant numbers of people. People should begin to think about that and start to absorb that.”
The city’s estimate of the missing rose to 5,422 people, with 201 confirmed dead. Only five survivors have been pulled from the wreckage, and none since Wednesday.
The mayor estimated that up to 80 percent of the normal workforce entered Manhattan on Monday. With heightened security at many points, the result was gridlock on several streets, especially on the West Side.
Crime plummeted last week
At entrances to the Lincoln Tunnel, all trucks were stopped for inspection and smaller vehicles were checked at random. The result was delays of up to two hours in traversing that key connection between New Jersey and midtown Manhattan.
Perhaps because of the increased security or a sense of solidarity among New Yorkers, police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said that crime last week had dropped 34 percent compared with the same week last year.
The return to work was particularly challenging for employees of companies that had offices in the trade center. A law firm that seems to have bounced back rapidly is the New York offices of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, headquartered in Chicago.
Until last week, many of Sidley’s 400 New York-based lawyers worked in One World Trade Center. All but one employee, switchboard operator Rosemary Smith, escaped before the building collapsed.
It quickly leased and furnished four floors in a midtown Manhattan building where it already had some offices.
“We’ve begged, borrowed and done everything short of stealing to be operational by today,” said Mike Prapuolenis, Sidley’s director of administration.
Although all paper files were lost in the terrorist attacks, backup electronic files were trucked last week to Chicago, where the firm maintains its computer server.
The law firm’s executives note that the terrorist attack is not the first catastrophe Sidley has endured. Founded in 1866, the practice survived the 1871 Chicago Fire.
Despite the speedy reopening, the emotional wounds will take longer to heal. On Monday, an employee who used to work at the trade center told his bosses he didn’t feel comfortable in his new office on the 25th floor of the midtown building. He was moved to the 11th floor but then asked to be moved to the 4th.
That’s not unusual, according to Gina Giallonardo, a volunteer at the city’s relocated family assistance center, which was moved from a cramped east side armory to a much larger building on a Hudson River pier.
Giallonardo served as a volunteer after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
Counselor sees prolonged job
“Six years later, we still have counselors in Oklahoma City,” she said. “Some people who remember [the bombing] don’t want to go into an office building anymore. We’ll be here for some time.”
Unlike the almost desperately hopeful scenes outside the armory last week, relatively few people distributed fliers with pictures of the missing at the pier.
Many entered with small bags holding toothbrushes, combs and other personal items that may yield DNA for identification of bodies. By the end of the day, officials had collected more than 1,000 DNA samples.
Having already called every hospital in the metro area, checked official injured lists and turned in DNA samples to no avail, Martin Morales’ brothers went to the pier Monday.
Morales, 22, has been missing since he went to work at Windows on the World restaurant, on top of one of the twin towers.
One brother, Gonzalo, said that “not knowing anything is the worst. Even if you have hope, the waiting kills you.”
The search effort at ground zero offered little comfort for the relatives of the missing.
Rescue crews penetrated the lowest underground level beneath the towers on Sunday, a New Jersey commuter train station 80 feet down. They found gaps in the debris but no survivors.
All in hospitals identified
“I saw a car with an interior light on, and I got really hopeful that it was a sign,” said volunteer James Monsini. “But the person was dead.”
Further reducing hope for the missing, city officials said that everyone being treated in a city hospital for injuries suffered in the World Trade Center attack had been identified.
As the city approached the one-week mark following the aerial attacks, fans of Giuliani’s performance during the crisis began searching for ways to extend his tenure.
Speculation centers on a quick repeal of the law that limits New York mayors to two consecutive terms or for an emergency measure that would allow him to stay in office for an additional six months to a year.
But candidates for the Democratic nomination have opposed the idea while being careful to praise Giuliani’s leadership.
Carrying on with the primary, rescheduled for Sept. 25, and the November general election is the best way to prove to terrorists that they have not succeeded in disrupting the city, said Democratic contender Peter Vallone.
Giuliani played down the possibility.
“I think what I should do is to continue to do the job until Dec. 31 [when his term ends] and prepare someone else, whoever the citizens select to do the job,” he said.
For the second consecutive day, thousands gathered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for a memorial service. Sunday’s service was for all who were killed in the attack or are missing.
On Monday afternoon, Cardinal Edward Egan officiated at a service for firefighters, police officers, paramedics and other public-safety workers injured or killed in the attacks or working on the rescue effort.
