Rudy's

Moment
Every day he pulls on the same
boots--a pair of ash-caked black
galoshes for the walk down to
Ground Zero. But the hats
change. When he showed
President Bush the wreckage,
he wore an FDNY cap, in
recognition of his ravaged fire
department. The day Attorney
General John Ashcroft came
through, the mayor went with a
cap from the cops. He
sometimes carries a purple gas
mask for when the soot or
stench becomes unbearable. But
just about the only time he used
it was on Sept. 11, when the
mountain of smoke turned day
to night on Church Street in
lower Manhattan.

location on Manhattan's West

Side, is a highly functional
dysfunctional family, with aides
screaming at each other before
tearfully embracing, then
screaming again.

just dive out of a window like

he was diving into a pool. He
came down the full hundred
[stories] and then his fall was
broken by the plaza. I think that
was the first time that I realized
"They fight with each other, and that this was beyond anything
I probably provoke that a little," we had ever faced before,"
Giuliani remembers. "I try to
Giuliani says, chuckling.
tell people, 'The only thing you
Probably? Here the mayor
can do is talk about it. You can't
opens the window a crack on
keep it inside. You gotta get it
his style: "At a meeting they
out'."
said it would take 10 days to
clean up one of the buildings. I Giuliani gestures up at the
said, 'It took God seven days to nonexistent towers and
create the Earth, so we can do
describes how they fell, which
better than that, don't you
other buildings the half-million
think?' " It opened in five.
tons of steel hit on the way
down and where the wind blew
At least once a day the mayor
sets out for hell on earth. Going the plumes of debris. He
in, the mood is often strangely explains how two or three large
fires are still burning below,
upbeat. Emergency workers
reignited each time the workers
smile and shout "Hey, Rudy!"
remove more wreckage and let
or "President Giuliani's here!"
oxygen in.
as we enter the restricted "red

"Every time you take someone

here, they walk around with
their mouths open," Giuliani
tells me as we pick our way out
of the damaged American
He points to St. Paul's Church, Express building and enter
where George Washington went Ground Zero. "And the impact
is even greater from the air.
to pray after being sworn in
When you get out over the city,
nearby as the first president in
1789. The church is closed but it looks like the remnants of a
still in one piece. Giuliani wants nuclear war." The mayor
to make sure that visitors learn estimates it will take six months
some of the good news from the to clear the area, and he plans to
continue to take foreign heads
day of infamy.
of state on this gruesome
"The thing I don't think people walking tour. "You can't come
have focused on is that they
here and be neutral," he says.
saved 25,000 people in there,"
As soon as he heard the news at
he tells Ashcroft and FBI
8:45 a.m. on Sept. 11, Giuliani
Before the cameras, he counsels Director Robert Mueller, both
rushed to the scene. After
looking a little shellshocked.
against fear; behind closed
visiting a fire command post
doors, he still inspires it, laying "There were people on the
later crushed in the collapse, he
down the law like the Rudy of 104th floor who walked all the and his top lieutenants formed a
old. "It's perform--or else," says way down, if they were lucky
makeshift communications
one official. The mayoral staff, enough to find the stairs."
center in an office at 75 Barclay
coordinating the efforts of 100 Many weren't: "When I was
Street. Giuliani got through to
agencies at a semisecret
looking up, I could see a man
the White House and confirmed
No matter what happens now,
Rudy Giuliani's legend is in
place. He's our Winston
Churchill, walking the rubble,
calming and inspiring his
heartbroken but defiant people.
His performance in the weeks
After Tuesday is setting a new
global standard for crisis
leadership: strong, sensitive,
straightforward and seriously
well informed about every
meaningful detail of the
calamity. The mayor is
unmistakably in command, and
every New Yorker--even those
who still dislike him--is
gratefully in his debt.

zone." "God bless you," he tells

the workers softly, often
hugging acquaintances with a
real warmth that many have
never seen in him before.

that the Pentagon had been hit.

He worried that the United
Nations or the Empire State
Building could be next and, to
his own amazement, requested
air cover for New York City.

attack he kept the commitment,

driving home the need for some
normalcy. This is his big
message now. Fresh from a
brief appearance at a sold-out
Metropolitan Opera benefit for
Then the first tower collapsed, the families of the fallen,
destroying the building across a Giuliani exults over the unified
spirit of New Yorkers,
narrow street. "If the building
had fallen in a slightly different conquering their fear and
returning to crowded places:
way, you can't escape the
thought that there would be no "The most beautiful and
mayor, no police commissioner, inspirational thing is that there
fire commissioner, three of the are 3,000 people listening
outside."
four deputy mayors, two or
three deputy police
His prostate cancer in
commissioners..." His voice
remission, Giuliani pursues a
trails off.
punishing schedule, from earlymorning briefings from his
Giuliani knows dozens of
commissioners to late-night
people under the rubble,
visits to the wreckage. He is
including many of the 343
supposed to follow a strict diet
firefighters who perished and
of fruits and vegetables but slips
the husband of his executive
occasionally. "I caught him
assistant. "You gotta cry," the
mayor says. "That Friday when eating a really disgusting
the president was here and we sandwich," says Sunny Mindel,
his director of communications.
met with the families. People
"One of those with oily cheese
coming up with the
and meats that sweat." Giuliani
photographs. There's no way
admits he sleeps only three or
you could stand in that room
and not cry." As the recovery of four hours a night and is jumpy.
"This morning I woke up very
remains proceeds, hegoes to
funerals and wakes every day. early and was going to go down
there at, like, 4 o'clock in the
And the occasional wedding.
morning [before] I realized that
The mayor had promised to
was not a good idea."
give away the sister of a
firefighter who was killed in a Like Churchill, Giuliani thrives
blaze earlier this year. After the in crisis and suffers in
tranquillity. After helping to

slash the crime rate in New

York City (homicide is down 68
percent since he was elected in
1993), Giuliani lacked a clear
mission. Prevented from
seeking re-election by term
limits, he hoped to run against
Hillary Clinton for the Senate.
But personal problems
interfered. A surpassingly messy
divorce played out day after day
on the front page. Then cancer
forced him from the Senate
race.
Now that's all ancient history.
But even as he ponders the
resurrection of his political
career, Giuliani knows that his
future will always be bound up
in the events of Sept. 11. He
wants broad discussion of what
to do with the site, but has his
own ideas. "I think we should
not be setting up a challenge
that you have to put up the two
buildings exactly as they were.
It's not realistic," he says. The
new World Trade Center, Rudy
Giuliani concludes, should
contain some combination of
office space and "an uplifting,
inspiring memorial for the
benefit of the families and the
country." Until then, the
families and the country will
continue to benefit from
something else--a mayor who
has met the moment.