Three days before 9/11, I hosted an out-of-town friend who wanted to take in the view of New York from above. I suggested a drink at Windows on the World, in the north tower of the World Trade Center. We arrived a minute too late to catch the last elevator to the 107th floor.

"Next time," I remember telling her. Of course there wouldn't be one.

Many years of living in a city creates a kind of archaeology of private memory. A street corner, a bar, an office building, a playground, a spot where a favorite restaurant or bookshop used to be--each recalls a buried layer of life, and each has its own circumstances, its web of relationships, its emotional color.

In 1998, I got a job with The Wall Street Journal, which at the time had its offices across the street from the trade center. My subway stop was at Cortlandt Street; my gym was on the top floor of the Marriott that stood between the towers. That summer I overnighted a hard copy of my master's thesis to London from the courier service in the sunlit lobby of the south tower and said to myself, "School's over forever."

Now and then the thought of........

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