New York, New York
A weekly commentary by CBS News Correspondent Andy Rooney:
The rest of our country has been great to New York since the attack. New Yorkers are being consoled, felt sorry for, sympathized with - even loved. It's a strange experience because they are unaccustomed to being cared for and fussed over. They hardly know what to make of it.
The biggest change in New York since the terrorist attack is in the attitude of those people who inhabit it. They are nicer to each other. They are saying "Good morning" to neighbors to whom they had not previously nodded. Strangers not so strange. The shared sense of loss and bereavement has brought them together.
The best of what has always been is still here unchanged. Culture is rampant and signs of the best of civilization are still everywhere apparent.
New Yorkers still go more places, do more things. The pace is faster driving, walking, or on small wheels. Out-of-towners, amused at how fast the city moves, often fail to notice that it gets there first.
There are more people doing more things than in any place on Earth. There are more good restaurants than in Paris, more concert halls than Vienna, more museums than London.
If business is bad in the business pages of the newspaper, it isn't apparent on New York City streets where everyone carries a recent purchase.
A woman willing to pay $1200 for a simple dress does not have to go to Saks Fifth Avenue to buy it. Madison Avenue is filled with small shops with big prices.
Central Park, three miles taken out of the heart of the City, is as busy as ever. New Yorkers use it like a backyard. They run in it, play in it, attend concerts in it. Every morning of its life, the park is awakened by the footsteps of the young and the old, the involved people of the City.
New York is not the official capital of anything. Those who live here call it simply The City, as if there were no other.
They have not fixed on the hole left where 3,273 people died and it is visitors, not New Yorkers, who go to view the remains of the World Trade Center as though it were an open casket.
In Dayton or Austin or Atlanta, a visitor is asked "How do you like Dayton, Austin, Atlanta?"
New Yorkers are indifferent to praise or criticism of their city. They are themselves ambivalent or indifferent to their city's size, excellence or importance at the top of the international rank of cities. They use their city, seldom standing back to admire it.
A New Yorker, passing St. Patrick's Cathedral on his way to work, does not look up from his thoughts to admire it. You wouldn't guess but he's probably been touched by your attention.
There is something just a little off this year about saying to anyone in New York "Have a Merry Christmas." Perhaps "Have a Christmas" might be a more appropriate greeting and New Yorkers, you'll be pleased to know, seem to be having one.
Written By Andy Rooney ©MMI, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved