Moving On
Entering a new reality.

September 21, 2001 1:20 p.m.

ayor Giuliani's trip to Washington yesterday to brief President Bush, and Bush's address to the nation together closed the first phase of the Terror War. The situation in the city is sufficiently in hand that the mayor could leave his post, and Bush laid out a preliminary outline of America's response.

The need for a daily diary ceases. City workers collected the mementos in Union Square Park, and removed the other items. Rain would have doused the candles in any case.

Kurt Masur conducted the German Requiem at Lincoln Center. A friend of mine who went said it was a stirring evening; there was no clapping when the piece finished. "I don't even like the German Requiem," he added, "but it was the occasion, wasn't it?"

As the potheads in my college singing group used to say, "It's been real." Get ready for all the reality to come.