World Trade Center, 9/11

The Day the Sky Fell

By Daniel Greenfield
Thursday, September 9, 2010

Tuesday. Another morning in downtown Manhattan. The canyons of the financial district swell with men and women in business suits, briefcases confidently swinging, a cup of coffee or a pastry dangling from one hand. Few of them were bothering to look up at the sky. They owned the sky. Despite the bombing of the World Trade Center that had come in the winter of 1993, or the much earlier, and now ancient bombing by left-wing anarchists on September 16, 1920, confidence was in the air. There had been a Dot Com bubble, but the worst was over.

By subway entrances, hawkers in aprons shilled copies of the Daily News or the New York Post, more rarely Newsday. The news was simple enough. The New York Giants felt unappreciated. Mayor Giuliani vowed to overhaul the city’s school system. New York City Opera was beginning its season with a production of The Flying Dutchman. Tom Clancy topped the New York Times paperback bestseller list with The Bear and the Dragon, a novel about the danger from Russia and China. The world as they knew it was coming to an end, but they had no idea. Just a shadow passing high above the sunlit towers. Just a shadow swooping down out of the sky.

Shortly thereafter amid the howling of sirens and crowds streaming across the Brooklyn Bridge and uptown to safety, amid the rain of falling ash and the unbelievable sight behind us—came the simple revelation. The skies no longer belonged to us.

Our Soil, Our Sky, Our Blood
Subliminally we had known the day would come. We had acted out such spectacles countless times in movies, to dull the edge of the horror and make it palatable, adding happy endings to keep things simpler and cleaner. But we had denied it, just as we had denied history and destiny. We had treated any warnings as “Chicken Littlesâ€