New York City, September 11, 2001, 11:30a.m.-- From my open windows I can see what is once again the tallest building in the city: The Empire State Building. As I write this, I keep checking that the landmark is still there.

If I look down from my second-storey apartment, I see a quiet street. Pedestrians have been passing by, as usual; there isn't much traffic, although there's the sound of an occasional siren; the leaves on the trees barely move in the slight wind. From what I can tell, the children at school across the street have not left their classrooms, although just about now they would ordinarily be crowding out for their lunch break.

So had I not turned on my television or had phone calls from concerned friends, I might have not made this out to be anything more than just another day. Well, not entirely typical, since the Democratic primary election got underway.

But, of course, today isn't a typical day. It's a day that has changed the world, and I'm sitting at home wondering what I can do. It's frustrating not to know at the moment. It's horrifying to contemplate what has taken place about a mile and a half south of where I am. The television cameras are recording terrifying events. The very idea that people were jumping out of WTC windows before both building collapsed is stupefying. And this is not to mention what's going on in Washington, DC.

I do know that as a New Yorker and an American, I am furious. I only realized how furious when a buddy called from Long Island and suggested I pack my bags and come out to stay with him for the time being.

Before he brought the subject up, I had had a few thoughts about my own wellbeing and even felt a momentary chill when the possibility that this was also a biological attack crossed my mind.

But what I knew an instant later was that without absolutely being able to predict my behavior I wasn't about to leave the city I love for some presumed safety elsewhere. In the aftermath of this global calamity, there will very likely be work every New York City dweller can do if nothing more than hunker down and refuse to give in to terrorism by fleeing.

As someone born just before the United States entered World War II in an unexpected siege not unlike today's, I have been acutely aware throughout my life that neither New York City nor the rest of the country ever experienced the immediately destruction of war.

That's no longer the case.

The world's population, of course, has been inundated for at least the past 100 years to innumerable images of carnage and resulting courageous activity Since I was born in 1940, however, I instantly flashed on newsreel footage of the British going about their business throughout the Blitz.

I would like to think I will continue to keep my upper lip stiff through the next days, weeks, months and years.

Also by David Finkle:
Coffee house blues
The Zen of jay-walking
Changing places