Time Is Slow Healer for Downtowners

By April Koral

Yaffa Faro is in a good position to measure the mood of Tribecans. From her barstool perch at Yaffa’s, her restaurant at the corner of Greenwich and Harrison streets, she has heard it all. Tales of unrequited love, political intrigue, money made or squandered. Good stories, but all soon forgotten.

Not so the memories of Sept. 11.

"People have told me the same story twenty times, of what they saw and what happened to them," she said. "It’s like a feeling is sitting on them and they can’t get rid of it. The pictures are still in their heads and the minute they relax a little, it comes up."

Although the whiffs of acrid smoke are long gone, the utility lines tucked back underground, and the outdoor cafés brimming with customers again, some Downtowners say they still think about the disaster and its aftermath every day. Others say that after struggling with their memories of that terrible day and those that followed, they have returned to emotional equilibrium—and even made important life changes. Like most New Yorkers, Regina Wierbowski, who lives with her husband on Broadway south of Chambers Street, is feeling better. She doesn’t cry when she looks towards the site. She can concentrate on her work as a real estate broker. But she’s hardly the same woman she was before Sept. 11th. "It’s exhausting to have it in your face all the time," says Wierbowski. "Unless you wear blinders, you can’t walk outside without being reminded of what happened."

Paul Sipos, a Duane Street resident, told the Trib in November that he didn’t like looking out his southern window because "it’s like a graveyard." He still finds the view disturbing.

"Every day I think about what I witnessed, standing on the roof and seeing those people die," he says. "It’s hard to see a cloud or a bird or an airplane fly through where the buildings were. People say, let’s get back to normal. I want to. I’m not obsessed, but it’s only eight months ago."

Indeed, for the nearly 20 Independence Plaza residents who attended a recent support group related to Sept. 11, eight months ago might as well be yesterday. Many railed at "uptowners" who, they say, don’t understand or no longer want to talk about the disaster.

"People uptown say you have to get on with your life," Estelle Woldin said. "They say, go to the theater."
Barbara Wolver agreed that there was too much of a rush to "get things back to normal." "The Film Festival irritated me terribly," she said. "It was too early for a film festival. It’s a marvelous idea—for next year."
Others around the room nodded in agreement.

But Sharon Kofman, a psychologist with the William Alanson White Institute and one of the meeting’s leaders, warned the group about seeing people outside the neighborhood as somehow less sensitive.

"The problem with the Downtown head is that it’s me versus them," she said. "That adds more to the sense of helplessness and anxiety. It takes a lot of time to accept that life is unpredictable, that we’re frail and unprotected, that we must live with uncertainty."

That wasn’t easy for Tribecan Drew Harris. For weeks after the attack, he slept in his clothes, ready to flee another assault. He cried easily. The sirens he heard were only in his imagination. "I knew it was time to seek professional help," he said.

Harris saw a psychotherapist for several months. He reread all his favorite self-help books. He invited volunteers from the Red Cross to visit him, and their kindness, he says, reminded him "that the whole world isn’t an incredibly warlike place."

"I’ve lived in Tribeca for 25 years," he said, "and I always thought of it as the safest neighborhood in New York, and then that world was turned upside down. I didn’t realize how important that was to me until it was taken away."

When the recent threat of new attacks hit the news, Harris was surprised by his equanimity. "I knew I had two choices: not to let it affect me or go back to cowering in a constant state of dread." So two days later, he did what many Downtowners do on a nice day. "I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was spectacularly beautiful. I felt I had to, because this is where I live and this is my Brooklyn Bridge."

If healing is truly in the doing, then Michelle Arnold, a psychologist who has been counseling her fellow Tribecans since the disaster, has it right.

In addition to encouraging her patients to live right ("eat healthy, don’t drink too much, be with people who are positive, exercise, do fun things and laugh,") she also tells them to look outside themselves for comfort and strength. "One of the best ways for people to heal is to help others, to contribute to their community and reach out to neighbors," she said.

That’s what Celia Hartmann, who lives near Chambers street, has decided to do.

"The temporariness of things has been clarified for me and my perspective has changed a great deal," she said. "I’ve been giving more time to volunteering and not putting off doing important things. I also feel a stronger connection to neighborhood people and institutions. I went to a recital at Church Street School of Music and it was poignant to see that school facing big challenges and thriving."

Other life changes have come by way of epiphany.

"When I picked up my son from school that morning," Yaffa Faro recalled, "I said to him, ‘We’re going to live every day like it’s our last day. No more fighting, no more fuss.’" She says she has tried to stick to that resolve.

Regina Wierbowski is also determined to reclaim her happiness. "I realized that I could be victimized by this for the rest of my life, and there goes the rest of my life," she said. "The site is ready to be rebuilt and so am I. We’re part of the process."