It was only yesterday: Remembering Sept. 11, 2001, New York's darkest day

A generation of young adults has hazy understanding at best of Sept. 11, 2001. In the service of national memory, this is our attempt to set down what happened on that day and in its aftermath.

The murder and injury and destruction caused by a small band of fanatical terrorists dealt this, the nation's largest city, a stiff punch to the gut. It throttled our economy. It rattled our sense of safety. It bruised our very soul.

The United States too absorbed a body blow, the sudden recognition that people crazed by Islamic radicalism, by a cold and backward vision for the planet, marked this messy and pluralistic republic for death simply because of what we represent.

From throughout five boroughs and 50 states, heroes descended on the place, now called Ground Zero, where physical wreckage and human remains commingled.

On that smoldering pile, in that solemn resting place, those firefighters and police officers and iron workers and volunteers labored tirelessly, rescuing who they could, recovering what could be recovered.