City reflects with sense of resilience

In the days following the attack on the World Trade Center, Boston mayor Thomas Menino said, “In the coming days, I believe that the images of horror will fade, and the stories of human kindness, strength, and compassion will echo in our hearts from coast to coast, and from generation to generation … We will never forget these heroes.”

A year after the fateful day when two jetliners crashed into the Twin Towers, Bostonians are remembering and reflecting on the changes the year has brought to the city from which those two planes originated.

In the face of tragedy, fear, grief, uncertainty and even embarrassment, members of the Boston community agreed “resiliency” was the universal mood of the past year.

Boston is a city with a thriving business community, an enormous network of colleges and universities, a successful tourism industry and unparalleled medical institutions. Each integral part of the historical city was affected September 11, and each was forced to cope during the months that followed.

In the past year, Boston businesses have been forced to prioritize security, according to Erin Murphy, communications and policy manager for the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.

“Security is a higher priority in buildings and in offices and it’s even becoming more of a significant part of the cost structure for companies who never thought of building a security metric into their budget,” Murphy said.

Murphy said business travel was also a major issue for many companies that had concerns about airline security, though those concerns have diminished recently.

Whole industries were impacted and have changed over the past year as a result of the attacks, Murphy said. While plummeting airline stocks have resulted in bankruptcy filings for many airlines, the need for new security measures like facial recognition has created a boom for the budding biotechnology industry.

“Airlines have filed for bankruptcy and they’re forging unprecedented partnerships with each other; the airline industry has really come under a lot of pressure,” Murphy said. “Also you see the emergence of the biotechnology industry who are focusing on facial recognition technology and finger-printing technology that the airline industry and the federal government are looking closely at more now than ever before.”

The Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism announced last week the effects of Sept. 11, which at one point crippled national and international travel, are “having less of an impact on the travel industry over time, although hotel room rates and occupancy rates are still down slightly compared to last year.”

Summer travel exceeded office expectations after the success of an effort to promote car travel to the state, which has long been a popular year-round vacation spot, according to Paul J. Sacco, executive director of MOTT. Tourism is Massachusetts’ third largest industry, welcoming 28.1 million visitors who spend more than $13 billion annually.

Charities have been affected in a number of ways, according to the Boston Better Business Bureau, which oversees the financial practices and processes as well as complaints of local charities. The bureau has participated in efforts spearheaded by the New York Better Business Bureau to gather information on the hundreds of charities raising money in the name of Sept. 11.

“As we approach the one-year anniversary of the tragedy, donors want to understand how much money was raised, which organizations received donations and how much money has been used to help victims to date,” said Ronna Brown, president of the Metro New York BBB Foundation.

Four hundred seventy charities have accepted donations relating to Sept. 11, 90 of which were new groups formed just after the tragedy. A survey of the charities conducted by the BBB showed $2.4 billion was raised in the past year. The bulk of these funds have gone to the American Red Cross, New York Community Trust, the United Way of New York City and the Twin Towers Fund.

Speaking at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Breakfast last January, Menino highlighted the donation efforts of Boston citizens.

“I was at the Umana Barnes School in East Boston last week and do you know what the students there did? On their own initiative, they had a penny drive that raised nearly $3,000. They sent that money to kids who lost parents in the World Trade Center,” he described. “It didn’t grab headlines, but it said more to me than any study or statistic could. It said that we have so many good kids in our schools. And so much good will in our city.”

Boston University spokesman Colin Riley said the college student community, which represents a large part of Boston, is “very resilient” but noted an event like Sept. 11 “does not leave you untouched.”

Student safety and the risk of future attacks is still a concern for University administrators at BU one year later, Riley said, particularly on the anniversary of last year’s attacks.

“We want people to keep their wits about them and to be aware of things that are unusual or suspicious,” Riley said, a warning the University continually reemphasized throughout last year’s fall and spring semesters. “In regard to [the students’] everyday safety, [they shouldn’t] get complacent.”

Over the past year, Riley said the University has made a special effort to be available to international students, particularly Muslim and Middle-Eastern students, and said there was no significant drop in the number of BU’s international students enrolled in the University nor was there a problem with discrimination or threats against those students.

Riley added, however, some students who chose to leave have had problems renewing their visas in order to resume studies at BU, which has one of the largest international student populations of any school in the country.

The city will commemorate the anniversary of the attacks with memorial services around the city, including ones at the Statehouse and Faneuil Hall, as well as area colleges and churches.