In NYC, new starts after 9/11

NEW YORK -- Three years after her husband, a firefighter, was killed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Charlene Fiore has begun to build a new life. Last month, she married another firefighter, one who had helped recover bodies from the rubble of the twin towers.

"We are starting over. It's something different, said Fiore, 48, who lives on Staten Island. "It's not easy to move on, but we have to."

Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that took 2,976 lives in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, and by now, most residents of the city struck the hardest, like Fiore, have decided to put that day behind them and move on with their lives.

The former trade center site, where a memorial service will be held tomorrow, has become a popular stop for somber tourists and a bustling construction zone for the Freedom Towers, a mammoth glass structure designed to recapture the title of the tallest building in the world. The weekend ceremonies are expected to draw many widowed husbands and wives, but there will also be new spouses.

"I think we are moving on, but we will never forget," said Betsy Gotbaum, the city's public advocate, an elected official who acts as ombudsman for citizen complaints about government services.

Even so, New Yorkers have had to slow down to deal with life under the constant threat of terrorism. Bomb threats, police checks on public buses, and machine-toting security officers in Penn and Grand Central stations have become as common as subway peddlers. The cacophony of honking horns and emergency sirens in Midtown are never ending, and tourists have returned by the thousands to Times Square -- though fewer have foreign accents these days.

"There are always these reminders," Gotbaum said. "The fact that we are always on orange alert can be irritating. New Yorkers like to look at a problem and solve it and move on, but given that we are always on orange alert, we don't know what to do about it. It makes you anxious."

In Lower Manhattan, where the attacks occurred, the massive rebuilding effort has begun. Each day, hundreds of visitors and about a dozen vendors hawking photographs of the two planes crashing into the towers mill around the former World Trade Center site. But each day there is less of the remnants of the disaster to see. On July 4th, the cornerstone of Freedom Towers was laid.

Construction workers also are busy finishing 7 World Trade Center, the last building to fall from the attacks, but the first to rise again. The new PATH station for trains from northern New Jersey has been open for months, and dozens of high-rise buildings are being developed nearby.

"There is a lot going on. The rebuilding effort is moving from planning to implementation," said Joanna Rose, spokeswoman for Lower Manhattan Development Corp. "We have the Freedom Towers cornerstone already in place, and the PATH station has opened, which is literally bringing life back to the site."

Public attitudes toward the heroes in the attacks, including police and firefighters, also have shifted.

Some families of those killed in the attacks, for instance, have complained that only police and firefighters have received public attention.

Fiore and her husband, Bobby, Nola met months after the attacks and had a relatively smooth courtship because he was divorced. But other relationships between Sept. 11 widows and firefighters have resulted in a painful drama played out in the city's tabloids.

The Fire Department has had a long-standing practice of assigning a firefighter to help a grieving widow. But, some observers say, up to a dozen such firefighters have abandoned their wives for the widows. One spurned wife vowed in a local newspaper to work to change the department's practice.

Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was lionized after the attacks, has come under criticism for the city's handling of the crisis. During a 9/11 commission hearing in New York this summer, relatives of World Trade Center victims hissed at the man once honored as "America's mayor."

"My son was murdered because of your incompetence," Sally Regenhard shouted during the hearing. Other relatives blurted out, "talk about the radios," a reference to problems with the communications equipment of emergency personnel the morning of the attacks.

Lingering anger among some families is not unusual, said specialists who have studied New Yorkers' handling of the tragedy.

"There are many different ways people deal with memory, and certainly anger is one of them. Public institutions are going to be attacked. . . .Some of the response is misdirected," said Dr. Sandro Galea, associate director of the Center for Urban Epidemiological Studies at New York Academy of Medicine.

Galea and his colleagues have been studying the effects of the attacks on 6,000 residents in the metropolitan area, including northern New Jersey and southern Connecticut. In the months immediately after the attacks, New Yorkers said they were depressed and consumed more alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes than usual. The academy's researchers will use the study to train specialists around the country on how to quickly design mental health programs after a terrorist attack.

"Overall, the vast majority of New Yorkers are doing well," said Galea, an epidemiologist. "There remains a small percentage, maybe 2 percent or 3 percent, who are not doing well, which is not so surprising. But in a place like New York 2 percent is a lot of people. . .which suggests there are going to be people in the health system suffering from the effects of Sept. 11 for a long time."

One source of contention has been payouts from the $7 billion fund that the federal government established to compensate victims and their families. While most relatives have received compensation, the money has caused rifts in some families because some members felt that accepting the money prevented them from getting answers about why the attacks occurred. Those who have accepted compensation agreed not to file lawsuits against the government or the airline industry.

Charles Wolf, a Greenwich Village resident, lost his wife Katherine, who worked in the World Trade Center. He recently received his compensation, but declined to disclose how much. Wolf said he will invest it and plans to refocus his attention on his direct mail business. Wolf, 50, still lives in the same tiny apartment he shared with his wife.

"I think everybody's definition of rich is different," he said. "One million gets you about $40,000 of income a year. I am not saying I got $ 1 million, but it's just not a lot of money, and you can't fritter it away."

His biggest challenge, Wolf said, has nothing to do with money. He has a new relationship with a woman who lives across the street from him.

"It changed my life more than victim's compensation," Wolf said. "If you don't have your mental health and someone to love, someone who is looking forward to seeing you everyday, well that's heck of a lot more than money."