Opposition to Mamdani’s 9/11 remembrance was painful to witness | Francine Prose

A petition against the mayor's presence reeked of Islamophobia - and ran counter to the sense of togetherness that followed the attacks

Everyone who was in New York on 11 September 2001 has their 9/11 story. My husband and I were at JFK, boarding a plane to San Francisco. Our two sons were home in lower Manhattan, a block away from my 85-year-old mother. They watched the towers fall from our corner. The weather was radiantly beautiful.

For a long time, the faces of the missing were everywhere. Their eyes seemed to follow us from the makeshift shrine outside St Vincent's Hospital to the window of our local bodega. We cried at random moments. We slept badly.