You Could Do Your Best Work on the Worst of All Days

● Corky Siemaszko, journalist: On 9/11, I walked in around five o’clock, sweaty from the drive in, which was a real adventure— sneaking past police cars, taking side streets because Manhattan was pretty much blocked off. The Daily News was on 33rd Street then, in this building that I always said looked like a traffic cone that somebody had vomited on. The ugliest building in New York. That afternoon, the desks were crowded: Sports guys were making calls to hospitals, the features people were sitting where the street reporters usually were. A lot of people just looked ashen. By the hour, the death toll got worse and worse.

Usually, in the newsroom, you have people getting angry and stuff, barking out orders: “Go here! Go there!” This time, everybody was on their best behavior. “Could you go here? Would you mind doing that?” It was very non–Daily News–like. I sat down, and the No. 2 guy at the paper, he walks over and says, “Cork, we want you to do something we’re calling ‘the violin.’” What’s that? “It’s kind of this lyrical introduction to the coverage. You soaked up the day’s events, just get us something, 13 inches or something.” I’d never written poetry on deadline, but I guess I had no choice. There was a cup of coffee in front of me that had gone cold, and I just started writing. I think the lede was “The morning coffee was still cooling when our greatest illusion was shattered.” Ed Kosner changed greatest to grandest, and I was off to the races. I knocked out my first violin in 20 minutes or so. Other than a subdued “Yeah, baby” from the city editor every now and then—that’s what he ordinarily said whenever copy came in, like Austin Powers—it was weirdly composed.