Thoughts from New York

By Paul Upham: The Morning After….
It was eerily quiet in the streets of New York on Wednesday morning the day after the terrorist attack. I went for a jog around the streets of New York as I had done 24 hours earlier. The difference between the two days is amazing.
There were no cars on 7th Avenue this morning outside Madison Square Garden, where usually it was bumper to bumper. There were some people on the street, but the police and military have got the city shut down for traffic. There are trains running in the city today, but the government has asked for people only to come to the Manhattan Island if they absolutely have to. Most people are staying at home.
There are police and military on the streets and air force jets fly over the top of the city on patrol. A US Navy aircraft carrier has been stationed off the city, another is on the way.
The city is still on a state of alert as they attempt to find survivors in the wreckage. The FAA will meet today at midday to decide whether to open the airports in the USA which all are closed to international and domestic flights.
Even if the airports are opened, it will take a day or so to get everything organised again as when the tragedies struck on Tuesday, they grounded all aircraft at the nearest airport. It will take a while for the airlines to be organised again and people to their destinations.
There is no decision on Saturday’s fight. Baseball has been called off across the country for two days and the NFL will decide on Thursday if Sunday’s games go ahead. Promoter Don King is stranded in Cleveland and will not be able to get the New York in his Lear jet until probably late on Wednesday. Today’s press conference has been postponed, it’s hard to say what will happen.
My first full day in New York is one that I will never forget. I was at 33rd Street near Madison Square Garden when the first plane hit yesterday. Like most people, I thought the building was on fire. It was only when the second plane hit that everyone realised the city was under attack. The two towers were about 47 blocks south of where I was at the time. I was headed north at the time to visit some people. For a split second, I thought about turning around and heading south to see what was happening. I then thought it wiser to get the hell out of there…..
At about that time, reports came through that the Pentagon had been hit by another plane. You could see the realisation on the faces of people that the city was under attack.
It was then that people started trying to flee the city and I do not overstate what happened when I say “flee”. The only problem was that people were running to the northern end of the city, but couldn’t get out as they had closed all of the bridges and the trains. People were stuck in the city until about 3pm when they opened up one of the bridges and people had to walk out of the Island.
I made my way up north and visited the Showtime offices. I then went up further to near Central Park and stayed in Cedric Kushner’s office for about two hours where we watched the events unfold on the TV.
I walked back to 33rd Street later and took photos of the people evacuating the city and waiting for the trains. All of the famous landmarks were roped off.
Today, every business below 14th Street is closed and the Empire State Building is still closed off. The trains are running OK, but there are not many people here.

It was rather warm and clear yesterday afternoon at about 29-31 degrees. This morning there is a cooler breeze blowing on clear skies, except for the smoke that continues to billow from the former tower site.