Month Two: October

Lower Manhattan, with Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty in the distance

	Street level
	No knives
	No dirigibles

I spend the month as a tourist, visiting some of the clichéd places in the city I hadn’t seen before. The Statue of Liberty is still closed, so I spend a lot of time in Midtown.

Safety mesh

The last time I was on top of the Empire State Building, I must have been 10 years old.

Chrysler Building

No kidding

Skylines $19.99

USS Intrepid

Truck inspection
I know I speak

Liberty in line

Bridges and tunnels reopen, with increased security.

The NYSE bull

	HSBC flag in Times Square
	Overcome fireman
	Keep back

Gas mask and hardhat

Gas masks for sale in Chinatown, American flags advertising foreign banks, flowers before every fire house, memorial statues parked in the street. It’s a different city now.

Engine 14

Engine 7

Protesting the protest
Rebuild

Never forget

Gradually, photographs of the missing come down, and new posters go up alongside all the flags.

	Subway service as of 9/17
	Don’t litter

Best sandwiches in NYC

Too many

Lake Michigan

	Disgraceland

The flags are also up in Chicago, though at least one seems unintentionally out of place.

	Sears Tower

John Hancock Tower

Sharpest building in Chicago

Contrails in the distance

Heading back to New York, I can’t shake the thought that it still seems strange to fly.