My mother phoned me one Sunday afternoon, the day the Department of Homeland Security raised the terror alert to orange. Intel chatter indicated that five targets loomed as possible threats for Monday, August 2, all major institutions connected to commerce on the eastern seaboard: The New York Stock Exchange in New York City, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in D.C., and the Prudential Bank in Newark, N.J. Purportedly, the chatter was so suspicious, local police forces instantly took measures to barricade and patrol vulnerable sites.

“Just be aware. And report anything suspicious,” urged my dear mother as I sat on the steps of the opera house at Lincoln Center in Manhattan.

Suspicious, hmmm? Let me think.

Living in NYC, I’ve learned one pearl of wisdom: nothing can really be deemed as suspicious, everything is almost always as it should be.

The day of August 2, I had a meeting with an editor on, go figure, Wall St. The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council was hosting a dance performance at the steps of the Federal Memorial Hall at 26 Wall St., the building just cattycorner to The New York Stock Exchange. We met to chat and watch the performance; the dance performance, that is.

Because I rarely make it to Wall Street and I often get confused by the tortuous streets of downtown Manhattan, I arrived early. I followed the din of the news cameras, the tourists, the prattle of the trading floor. I sat and watched as photojournalists vied for the same shot of a burly police officer strapped to an M-16 standing ominously in front of the NYSE. I watched tourists compete for shots of the photojournalists.

When the dance show began, Manhattanites on lunch breaks turned their attention away from the media spectacle and towards the dancers on the giant staircase of the Federal Hall. Dressed in scarlet, these women marvelously juxtaposed the NYPD Blue and surrounding gray of the monolithic Greek Revival buildings. Initially, Fox News, CNN, et al, set up shop near the Federal Hall but they were forced to relocate by eager onlookers.

They were obstructing our view of the show.