The streets around
Ground Zero are not usually a site for scenes of celebration. Nor is remembering the events of 9/11 generally a cause of smiles, fist-pumping and loud cheers.
But after the death of
Osama bin Laden, the hallowed ground of
New York's tragedy, devastated by the attacks he masterminded, temporarily resembled a post-game sporting victory party.
From a few lamp-posts ribbons of toilet paper fluttered in the wind, remnants of celebrations the night before. The din of construction work at the site mingled with shouts and cheers from a mix of tourists and locals who thronged the area , flanked by police who erected metal barriers to try to control the crowd.
A few people had pressed flowers into the railings that surround the building site, while candles still flickered at makeshift memorials placed beside buildings and at street corners. One cardboard sign hastily scrawled in black ink and propped up outside the official memorial office read: "Dedicated to all those who fought, suffered and died to bring us this moment." Another placed nearby read simply: "The end of an era!"
For many the mood was sheer patriotic triumphalism. Thomas Cox, a construction worker, had rushed to a printing shop and created dozens of Photoshoped pictures of the Statue of Liberty clutching Bin Laden's severed and bloody head.
"It's payback! I am hoping that the fish and the crabs are having a good meal on his eyeballs," Cox said. He dished out the posters until he had none left.
Approving onlookers eagerly took them up. "We should have mounted his head on a spike!" said one man. "Today is a good day," replied Cox, before heading down the street to print off some more. Nearby some people posed for photos in front of the construction site. They held up the cover of the New York Daily News and pointed at its blaring headline: "Rot in hell".
Such an eager and bloody response to the news is perhaps not surprising in lower Manhattan. The mass murder of that grim day in 2001 left a psychological scar across the city's collective consciousness far deeper than the physical one left by the toppled twin towers. While many in the media hailed the day as some sort of closure for the nation – almost a decade after the attacks – those closest to the horrific events of the terror strike were less convinced that killing Bin Laden would somehow help.
One sceptic was John Cartier, a 43-year-old electrician from Queens. His younger brother, James Cartier, had been high up in the second World Trade Centre tower, working on the 105th Floor. The 23-year-old had been assigned to the job two weeks before the planes hit the building where he died along with hundreds of others. Now John Cartier had felt the urge to come to the site of his sibling's death clutching a picture of him. He could not accept the idea that the moment represented closure. "Perhaps it is a transition; a transition to a different way of thinking," he said.
"But I am walking with a picture of a brother who is dead. It is not a happy day." At least he was able to take grim satisfaction in Bin Laden's fate, while not accepting President Barack Obama's insistence that the terror chief had been brought to justice.
"Justice is just a politician's word. It is all about revenge for me. Anybody who has their hands dirty in this should end up the same way," Cartier said.
Others were more hopeful that Bin Laden's death would be an end point.
Grey-bearded Vietnam veteran Bill Steyert struck a peaceful note. He held up a home-made poster featuring the names of all the victims of 9/11, reproduced in tiny print, and said that he hoped the so-called war on terror would start to come to an end now.
"We need a lot of healing in this world," he said, and pointed out that many Muslim Americans had felt unfairly victimised in the decade since the attacks. Steyert, who wore a little badge that said "Grandpas for peace", said he supported the building of the so-called Ground Zero mosque in the neighbourhood that caused such controversy last year. That sentiment flew in the face of others gathered there, including construction workers who sported badges with a picture of a mosque with a thick red line drawn through it.
"We need peace in the world," Steyert protested, but he too admitted to a feeling of joy at Bin Laden's violent demise. "My first thought was: 'Thank God.' Just relief. Finally the families of the victims will have some closure," he said. Then he flashed a victory sign and shouted: "We got him!".
The news had broken as most New York inhabitants prepared for bed or watched TV. But a few late-night drinkers caught the first news flashes on TV screens in bars and suddenly the Big Apple's famed bar scene erupted in a spontaneous party.
"Everybody in the bar cheered when the news came on," said student Brian Chan, 23, who had been drinking at the V Bar in the East Village neighbourhood. "The music stopped and everyone started watching the TV."
For the V Bar's ex-model barman, Jack Barley, 32, it prompted thoughts of a close friend who had given up his job in finance after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and ended up as a Green Beret in the US special forces posted to Iraq. "After 10 years it feels we have been waiting for this moment," Barley said.
Certainly one of his customers had, who burst into tears at the news and then fled the bar. The man's friends explained that he had lost several people close to him in the terror attack. "I can't imagine what he felt. They said he had lost about 10 friends that day and had been waiting all these years for this moment," said Barley.
Elsewhere in the city crowds of people flocked to Ground Zero in the early hours of the morning. Many of them carried flags, chanted "USA! USA!" and sang the American national anthem and God Bless America. Crowds of people also flocked to Times Square where news of the death was carried on some of the giant neon screens that line nearby buildings. They too waved flags and sang and cheered and took photographs of the scene in an area that a few days earlier had hosted a party for the royal wedding.
But not everyone in the city was caught up in the moment. Chan confessed that he was a Canadian and that, while he welcomed Bin Laden's death, he was not as moved by the event as the Americans around him.
"The significance has been lost on me. I know it is a big deal and everyone here is really into it, but I don't think it will have that big an impact in the end," he said.
Others agreed. "I imagine al-Qaida will use it to recruit people and I imagine we will say that it's a great victory and then in the end it will all stay the same," said Barley.
By Cynthia Rubio
