by: E

Wall Street, in many ways, is it's own little country. We have our own leaders (heads of the exalted financial and law firms), our own laws ("Thou shalt have real-time wireless stock access and a Blackberry", "Ye shall covet your competitor's clients"), and even our own National Dress (despite some renegade Salomon Smith Barney asedabbi "business casual" attire), it's Barney's for the bankers, Cerruti for stockbrokers who really wanted to be models, Kiton for the lawyers, Burberry's for the new good old boys, Corneliani for the newly corner-officed, Gucci for the truly tasteless, and anything Polo for entry-level and middle management.)

The firm you worked for strictly defined your identity.

There are protocols on Wall Street innate to its citizens… the right condescension for east siders and "boutique money firms"; the rightful deference for Grammercy Park and the pubescent senior vice presidents of renowned Wall Street stalwarts; the measured tolerance for tourists and Skadden Arps; and the unfeigned intolerance of those who can't fold the Journal the right way, those who don't know the shortcut to the Heliport, and all dot-commers.

On Tuesday, September 11 Wall Street, the legend, and all of us, it's faithful denizens, indelibly changed.

It doesn't snow in New York in September, but if you didn't look too carefully that Tuesday from Nassau Street, you'd think downtown was hit by a freak blizzard. But when you looked carefully, you saw the snow was really soft soot, covering The Street, the buildings, the cars… and the bodies.

Wall Street is quiet only at 3:00 a.m. just before brokers come trickling in at 4 to catch the early hours of the FTSE and CAC-40. Wall Street is never quiet at 9:45 in the morning. Except on that Tuesday, when before our very eyes, we saw Earth shatter.

I made my way to John Street… past the street entrance of the WFC….I kept thinking about the people who were, at 8:43 a.m., peacefully staring at the shattered computer screens on Vesey Street… the penholder from someone's desk on Chambers Street.

Thursday… at the Armory. I've been to St. Vincent's a million times to see if my friends were brought in. They sent me to the Armory to fill out profiles. A Hispanic woman, seeing a press pass a friend had gotten me, stopped me and shoved a picture of her grandson in my face… "Tu lo has visto?"

I had not.

An elderly West Indian woman carrying a black and gold frame with a picture of a young girl in a pink dress kept pacing in circles. Occasionally she'd stop and speak in a heavy West Indian accent to other people holding pictures of the same young woman… "Dey say dey fa'aw'nd fire pe-pole. Dey gonna find more." And then she'd resume her pacing.

Near 14th and Broadway an Asian couple try to speak in broken English to a New York City cop. He kept telling them that they could not go south of 14th. "No. No mas…Finito."' The woman gives the cop bottled water. He says "Thank you" slowly and loudly, and bows, Japanese style. They smile. He smiles.

September 11 was Ethiopian New Year. I wanted to tell someone at the Armory that. But the sight of four Ethiopians handing out fliers of a lost family member distracted me. They would know it was Ethiopian New Year. I walked up to them and took a flier.

It was Ethiopian New Year in America. I've been so busy connecting to the Ethiopian identity that I nearly forgot that America had given me shelter when no one else would.

Wall Street lost its identity. At least to me.

Back at the Armory… Someone hands me an American flag. I take it and head back to Ground Zero trying to remember the words to the American National Anthem, somewhat not feeling I was the last woman standing.