EDITOR’S VIEWPOINT/They hit New York because it is us

They hit New York because they thought, by hitting New York, they would bring the country to its knees. They didn’t know the country, and they most certainly under-estimated New York.

At once, the city that everyone envies and derides, New York is nothing if not America in microcosm. Bossy, arrogant, abrasive and convinced of its own importance. At the same time, efficient, tolerant, energetic and bold.

Despite the fact that it is a relative baby on the historical scene — hundreds of years younger than Paris and London, thousands of years younger than Beijing and Rome — New York is, quite simply, the world’s most important city. Maybe because of that — or maybe just because — it fascinates us as does no other city.

It is everyone’s big sister. We in the family can mock it, criticize it, call it a big fat dorkface. But woe to those outside the family who dare attack it.

It is a beacon — the first skyline that many people seeking better lives in America see. A skyline now horribly changed.

In its most tragic hour, New York has shown what it normally manages to hide behind its brusque, blustery face — its class. Rudy Giuliani, blasted in the past for creating an overzealous law enforcement system, as well as for the tackiness of his marital problems, has become America’s mayor. He has shown a courage and a dignity that most people never find under the best of circumstances, let alone in their darkest hours. Giuliani is term-limited out, yet New Yorkers, who created the concept of here-today-gone-tomorrow culture, want him back.

Still, Giuliani is only the most visible example of the indomitability that all New Yorkers share. We hear the stories of people who, an hour earlier, may have been elbowing their way onto a subway, carrying the disabled down inumerable flights of stairs. We see the bee-striped uniforms of the firefighters, and our eyes process FDNY even as our minds read HERO.

There are no strangers in New York now. There is no Bronx, no TriBeCa, no SoHo, no Brooklyn. The city — five boroughs, countless neighborhoods — is defining community.

And the effect is not limited. For now, there are no Philadelphians, no Los Angelenos, no Atlantans, no Peorians. For now, we are all New Yorkers.

To some extent, that has always been true. Whether we admit it or not, as Americans, New York is our pride and our joy. It is the capital of our culture, our economy, our cuisine — the essence of this polyglot nation.

They hit New York because, more than any city, it is us. They hit New York. And we are all diminished.