Nearly 25 years after Sept. 11, there are images New York will never forget: a skyline forever changed; families waiting for loved ones who would never come home; and firefighters, police officers, paramedics and other first responders running toward danger because strangers needed them. Many later died from illnesses connected to their service. We owe them a debt neither time nor words can repay.

Yet amid the smoke, fear and devastation, New Yorkers reached for one another. They did not first ask where someone came from, how they prayed or what language they spoke. They saw another human being in need and helped.

That is the New York I believe in.

But what followed also revealed how quickly fear can become something darker. Muslim, Arab, Sikh and South Asian New Yorkers were blamed for atrocities they did not commit. Grief became suspicion, suspicion became collective blame, and neighbors became strangers in their own city.

Those........

© NY Daily News