Nine days before the sky fell

OP-ED | Joan Wickersham

September 02, 2011|By Joan Wickersham, Globe Columnist

“SEPT. 11, 2001, changed everything.’’ As the tenth anniversary approaches, a lot of experts will weigh in on that statement. But to see how an event transformed us, we need to remember where we were just beforehand. So I went to the library and looked at The Boston Globe and The New York Times of Sept. 2, 2001. What were we thinking about 10 years ago today?

It was a slow news day, the Sunday of that Labor Day weekend. International coverage in both papers was light. There was only one international story on the front page of the Times, an article about missile buildup in China. There was a photograph of men battling wildfires in California, and a story about unsound engineering at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater - straightforward topics (firefighters and structural engineering) that, only days later, would come to be loaded with new and tragic meaning. So would the front-page Globe story about airlines taking “an increasingly hard line on rambunctious sky travelers.’’

One recurring theme was the humdrum quality of everyday life. In Massachusetts, legislative leaders warned about a “day of reckoning’’ over budget shortfalls. In New York, mayoral candidates prepared for a Democratic primary that had failed to engage voters’ interest. (Using imagery which seems unfortunate only in hindsight, the reporter described this dull campaign as a “low-flying contest that will help determine what the city will look like.’’) The vote was scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 11.

There were pieces about New Yorkers and their fears - nine days before unforeseeable events would change the the meaning of the word “fear’’ in New York. People were afraid of a mysterious sinkhole on the corner of Chrystle and Delancey (“Sky Isn’t Falling, Earth Is Sinking, And Residents Are Worried’’). Parents fretted about sending their children off on the bus for the first day of school. Aspiring tour guides were nervous about passing a New York City history-and-trivia exam scheduled for Sept. 10. In Boston, too, fears were personal and local: an Internet stalker in Billerica, ways to allay kids’ anxiety during a move to a new home. A Globe editorial exhorted readers to enjoy the end of summer “for they can easily be overwhelmed by a sense of doom.’’