Sounding Board -- Jennifer Glueck

MANHATTAN -- In 1997, I wrote a periodic column for the Daily Pilot as

I attended school in Jerusalem, a city that I and others deem a target

for terrorist violence. Ironically, however, there were no bus bombings

or tragedies during that year of relative peace.

Never did I imagine that I would see an attack of such massive scale

back home on American soil rather than in Israel. How naive and

idealistic this notion seems now.

Leaving the gym in midtown at 8:45 Tuesday morning, I heard the noise

and saw the smoke of the first collision emanating from lower Manhattan.

The rest of Tuesday’s tragedy has been well chronicled. It was an

incredibly eerie and sad day here in New York City.

After being glued to the TV and radio for countless hours Tuesday,

Wednesday I decided to walk the streets near my apartment in northern

Manhattan. The sky was a crystal blue, seemingly reflective of how this

tragedy has suddenly come into clear focus. I look at the diversity of

faces -- black, white, Latino, Asian -- and the solemn expressions are

the same. We quietly nod to each other as if to acknowledge that we are

all in this one together. We are all dismayed and changed by the

pervasiveness of this tragedy.

Thankfully, a resolve of unity seems apparent. I saw subdued parents

supervising their kids on the playground at Riverside Park, mothers with

strollers resting today’s paper on the handlebars as they ambled and

others catching the shade of a quiet park bench.

Once back on Broadway near Columbia University, I noticed many talking

to loved ones and friends on cell and pay phones. Firemen were coiling up

hoses, likely the same ones in emergency use just a few hours ago, and

security guards standing resolute at all campus entrances. Occasionally

overhead, I heard and saw F-16 military planes jetting through the skies

in a display of symbolic defense.

It’s hard to believe that such physical destruction and human loss

occurred at the epicenters of our nation on Tuesday. Even as I write,

there is the smell of an intense ashy smoke outside my window, which is

about five miles north of where the Twin Towers once stood. I have talked

to a few friends who work in the financial district, and most don’t have

any clear sense of when they will be able to return to work. It certainly

will not be this week.

It seems we must remember and mourn those who have been lost while, at

the same time, not give into terrorism and be immobilized or entirely

consumed by this disaster. It is a delicate balance to strike, I realize.

Perhaps the only temporary relief is that our level of security will be

heightened -- although permanently altered as a result.

On a human level, I am relieved that the best aspects of our nation,

our beliefs, values, determination and diversity, have not been shaken in

the least by this incomprehensible and cowardly act.

* JENNIFER GLUECK is originally from Newport Beach and is agraduate

student at Columbia University in New York City. For the Daily Pilot, she

has also written the “Jerusalem Journal,” which chronicled her year of

study at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.