In the weeks immediately following the attacks on the World Trade Center, we tried to capture the city's conflicted state of mind - fearful, defiant, optimistic and grief-stricken - checking in with people we knew and people we'd never met before. Their voices have stayed with us. Six months later, we take the city's pulse again, revisiting those who shared with us before to see how they're doing today. Introduction: Six Months Later
In the weeks immediately following the attacks on the World Trade Center, we tried to capture the city's conflicted state of mind - fearful, defiant, optimistic and grief-stricken - checking in with people we knew and people we'd never met before. Their voices have stayed with us. Six months later, we take the city's pulse again, revisiting those who shared with us before to see how they're doing today.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Late one night last September, Labib Salama, owner of an Egyptian coffee shop in Astoria, Queens, stood by as four angry boys in need of a scapegoat smashed up his cafe. Remarkably, a few hours later the boys returned to make peace. Unfortunately, things have gotten more complicated since then, as Judith Sloan discovers when she goes back to visit Labib and his customers. Together with Warren Lehrer, Judith is the creator of "Crossing the Boulevard," an oral history project in Queens.

Another Day in the Neighborhood
We go back to the people in Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, a website where New York residents post stories about life in the city. After September 11th, the site was flooded with a new kind of story. We spoke to two contributors then, and speak with them again now - Charles Waters, a musician who held a day job in the second tower, and Dorothy Spears, downtown mother of two wise boys.

The Brooklyn Bridge Used to Be Church
Six months ago, then-Next Big Thing producer Jule Gardner left her life in the city and moved back to Erie, Pennsylvania. In its devastation, New York, a place she loved, had lost its magic for her. Now she covers the night shift at a local newspaper, and in the daytime tries to make sense of where she is and what she now knows.

Gas Masks or Suburbia?
Writers Meg Wolitzer and Richard Panek seriously considered moving their family to western Massachusetts when anxieties about anthrax and further terrorist acts were at their highest. Meg and Richard are still here - still debating, but mostly staying.

Public Private Poetry
Who would have imagined that a poetry reading in the Great Hall at Cooper Union would sell out, a line of eager entrants wrapping round the block to get in? It happened in October. A standing-room only audience sat hushed as poets and writers read poems that they found comforting in the midst of crisis. Here, we listen to Susan Sontag read Polish poet Adam Zagajewski's "Try to Praise The Mutilated World," translated by Clare Cavanagh. And we speak with Poet Laureate Billy Collins about poetry's ability to make itself heard in such language-saturated times.

On Rats and Enemies
An excerpt from Wallace Shawn's play, "The Designated Mourner," written several years ago but disconcertingly relevant today. The play was produced by Next Big Thing's Curtis Fox, and can be heard in its entirety by clicking HERE.

Back to The Little Place
The Little Place, a Mexican lunch counter just a few blocks north of the World Trade Center, was the first restaurant in the neighborhood to officially re-open after the terrorist attacks. Business has been slow - many regulars were relocated uptown, or are simply missing - but owner Alberto Martinez believes he has reason to be optimistic... which is good news to Next Big Thing producer Catherine Fenollosa, a regular herself.

What's Changed?
Some people say the city "will never be the same." Others say things are getting "back to normal." Has it changed so much? And would it be so bad if it changed a little more? Next Big Thing host Dean Olsher wonders.

What's on Your Mind?
As we did six months ago, this week we went out on the street to find out what was on people's minds. As it turns out, you get very different answers depending how you ask the question.

WNYC archives id: 12579