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It's difficult to put into words what the city of New York feels like now, the day after the largest act of terrorism in the world, much less in America. The streets are devoid of non-emergency vehicles and people gather around cars with their radios tuned to news stations and business that have moved their televisions out onto chairs on the sidewalks to listen to the latest. People who don't have anything in common and who two days ago wouldn't have even looked each other on the streets are now supporting one another, sometimes physically.

From the roof of my apartment building, one of my friends and I would sit atop it and gaze at the awesome sight of the twin towers that rose, as most of the country now knows, one-hundred and ten floors into the sky. When the sun would set, the steel and glass of their construction would reflect a warm red light upon the rest of the city. Now all I see is smoke rising slowly above the island of Manhattan. Before I moved here, I visited the World Trade Center and stood upon its roof gazing back at the city that I would move to a little more than a month later. Buildings are buildings though, no matter what they may be – the real loss is human.

When I was awaken by the explosion and turned on NPR, I couldn't believe my ears. I ran to my roof and saw something that not even Hollywood would be able to create. With a quick shower, I was down on the street with my camera to capture what I could. What I saw made me cry. In minutes, businesses set up tables and chairs on their sidewalks outside serving water, orange juice, and comfort to those in need. People covered in soot wandered out of the dust clouds caring firemen and police who could not walk them selves. A city that is known for being brusque and cold had suddenly become the warmest friendliest place in the world.

People streamed across the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges en mass, some dusty from having been in the thick of it. Most walked aimlessly, not sure what to do, still shell shocked from what they had seen. At one plumbing van parked at the beginning of Bowery, where over fifty people stood listening to the news, women leaned against anyone who would hold them and cried into their shirts. Men were equally as shaken and some hid their eyes from the rest though all felt the same.

A police officer on the East Side of Chinatown told me not more than a half hour after the second building collapsed that over two-hundred and fifty police, firemen, and EMT's died when the first building fell. He wouldn't guess on the number of people killed trying to flee down the dark stairwells or stranded in the PATH station below ground. He didn't want to think about it. "It's too much," he said. "I can't think about it."

At a bar that I went to after giving blood at a mobile donation center parked on Bowery near the Salvation Army, people sat in silence watching the horror unfold on the television sets above them. The bartender was swamped and I volunteered to wash dishes and sling beers until help came later. She accepted and the two of us worked until seven – pouring nearly a hundred drafts and hour – when I finally had to leave to go call my parents and friends and let them know that I was okay.

While watching movies filmed in New York I like to try and pick out the places that I know and guess where things were shot that I did not. With the scenes shown on CNN, I couldn't believe that what I saw was my city. It looked more like footage from the Middle East. I saw the plaza between the twin towers that held a fountain at which I sat many times before covered in dust and wreckage. A Burger King across the street had no windows and I could see the sign – covered in dust like everything else – lying in the street almost a block down. Century 21 – a clothing store that sold suits at discount prices – looked like it would soon collapse like the buildings around it. It was more like a war zone than the most cosmopolitan city in the world.

I've always liked the Mayor of New York, Rudolph Guliani, but I fear that he is overzealous when he says he believes the city to be back to normal in a few weeks. I can't imagine that people will be able to recover from this blow to our hearts in any small amount of time. I do believe however he is right about one thing, this city will emerge stronger.