OPINION: Where terror struck, New Yorkers modeled resilience amid diversity
The stretch of pedestrian paths, bikeways and newly landscaped parks that extend along the Hudson River on Manhattan’s west side is a place where local residents, students and visitors from around the world have mixed together to experience the sights and sounds of New York City.
That experience famously includes New York’s mosaic of cultures — the languages, clothing styles and cuisines that define its famously cosmopolitan cityscapes. High-paid bankers, women wearing hijab and fashion-conscious students often mingle here to a degree rivaled in few cities throughout the world.
So, when a man sped through a riverside bike path with a rented pickup truck on Tuesday afternoon, killing eight and injuring 11 in the deadliest terror attack in New York since 9/11, authorities say, it was in many ways an assault on the particular energies that have long drawn people here, both to visit and to live.