I just watched the film In Memoriam: New York City. The film is a very compelling depiction of the events that took place four years ago this Sunday.
Some of the footage is surreal, and seeing the street names from which atrocious footage was shot brought home to me just how close we now live to the tragic events of that day. The West Side Highway, Chambers Street, North End Avenue, Park Place, Greenwich Street, Murray Street, West Broadway, Church Street were all scenes of horror, yet they're all streets that I now frequent. Seeing footage of the second tower collapsing viewed from the junction of Chambers Street and the West Side Highway was incredible.
People have said that New York is a city that coped well with the adversity, and having lived here for over a year now, I agree. There are few cities big enough to cope with such a disaster, but I think New York and London are two such cities. And I feel that two contrasting characteristics of the two cities probably equip them well for this sort of thing: optimism and stoicism respectively.
