THE dream came first, scattering its seeds across the cobbled quays of the growing port. And the seeds were the people from many lands, separated by their gods, their costumes and their languages. But they were bonded as one in their desire to cast off the old ways and to reach together in faith for a new beginning, free from fear and hunger and persecution. Yes, it was a dream, the biggest the world had ever known. And it has given the great Atlantic cities of Liverpool and New York a common heritage, which matured into a culture of history, humour and song that can never be broken. Both were havens for the dispossessed. Both gave those dispossessed people a place in the world and a sense of belonging. And the people from the two ports, who had seen so much, became tough, proud, quick-tongued, at once cynical and On the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, David Charters pays tribute to the two great cities of the Atlantic, New York and Liverpool, linked forever by history, music, fine buildings and the promise of tomorrow sentimental. This set them aside from the mainstream of their countries, making them entertaining, a little arrogant maybe, defiant, wary of authority; and always conscious of what went before, those memories left in the lands of their ancestors. To be a New Yorker or to be a Liverpudlian is to be different. Perhaps their citizens have more in common with each other than they do with their fellow countrymen. So today, when the world remembers those who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center, emotions distilled in an ancestral understanding, as well as natural affection and sympathy, will cross 3,500 miles of turbulent ocean from Liverpool to New York. Since that deed of evil, the links have been even stronger. Our firefighters have joined their brothers in New York at the site of Ground Zero, linking arms over the place where it happened and where nothing is left, except the spirit of the people. The mood of our tourists, going to see the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Buildings, Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center, is a little more sombre these days, respecting the feelings of a people who have demonstrated an almost British resilience in the face of adversity. And when they come here, contemplating their past, to see the cathedrals, the haunts of the Beatles and the grand old buildings, they know they are being greeted by friends. These are the people whose ancestors knew the smell of the fruit in crates on the waterfront, whose hands were burned by the same ropes secured to the stages at either end of the great voyage. Now these ties established in friendship are to be made official. Mike Storey, leader of Liverpool City Council, said yesterday that arrangements are being made for the cities to be formally twinned. All 8m New Yorkers are also to be given the freedom of Liverpool. A date for the ceremony is to be announced. In the telephone directory, the names of people from distant lands are listed in alphabetical order - Isaacs, Jones, Karpinski, McNair, Mohamed, Offerman, O'Reilly, Rodriguez, Rossi, Weinberg, Woo. Their forebears came to Liverpool and New York with hope in an ideal. Many settled in our city, moving from the cellars and lodging houses on the Mersey waterfront. Others awaited a Yankee clipper, or in later years a steam ship, to carry them to the promised land. It is estimated that, in the 100 years from 1840, more than 9m people left Liverpool for New York, making homes in the five boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. Manhattan Island had been bought in 1626 from the native Americans by the Dutch West India Company, which founded New Amsterdam. Thirty eight years later, the British took the colony, renaming it New York. So began the modern history of a city, inextricably linked to Liverpool. It took about six weeks for a sailing craft to cross the ocean, if the weather permitted. The advent of steam changed that. Cunard's first ship, the paddle steamer Britannia, made her maiden voyage on July 4, 1840. With a service speed of nine knots, she carried 115 passengers to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 12 days. She took another 46 hours to reach Boston. By the end of the decade, Cunard was making regular trips to New York. Many on board were fleeing disasters and persecution - the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, the pogroms which swept Russia and Poland in the 1880s, crop failures and war. To mark the USA's centenary in 1876, France gave them the Statue of Liberty. To the Jewish poet Emma Lazarus, this great copper woman with the torch, standing 300 ft over New York harbour, was the Mother of Exiles. In 1883, she wrote The New Colossus, which was inscribed on the statue: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send those, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door. Ellis Island acted as the main US immigration centre from 1892 to 1943, at its height processing 1m people annually. During the last century, sailors returned to Liverpool with stories of New York's irrepressible drive, its invention, its charm, its crazy cosmopolitan nature. This was the city of Scott Fitzgerald and his Jazz Age flappers, Lorenz Hart, George and Ira Gershwin and Damon Runyon, whose characters brought glamour and humour to the underworld. Among those growing up in this atmosphere were Ida and Israel Bernstein, who had left Lukshivka, a village near Kiev. They adopted Sid Bernstein. Now he is the revered impresario and writer from East 72nd Street and one of Liverpool's cultural ambassadors. As the man who introduced the Beatles to New York in 1964, he crosses the ocean regularly, loving both cities in equal measure. To him, both are home. Sid had been brought up with the sounds from the big shows and then the Brill Building in Broadway, home of Tin Pan Alley. There, in tiny cubicles, Carole King, Neil Sedaka, ..TEXT: Leiber and Stoller, Doc Pomus and others, composed the songs sung by a generation. But New York's golden age of pop, epitomised by the extraordinary har-monies of the Four Seasons, quailed before the British invasion led by the Beatles. In February, 1964, thousands of girls greeted them at the John F. Kennedy International Airport. The cities were joined in celebration of a common culture. Today, they are united in sorrow. The people of Liverpool, who suffered terrible losses in the bombing of war, reach to the New Yorkers, who suffered their grievous loss in a time of peace. Mike Storey said: "There is a blood link, a link of life between the two cities. And September 11 has brought us closer. The thoughts of our people go to those of New York." Chris Leahey, an accountant, his wife, Margaret, and their three young children, are friends of the Storeys. They moved to New York from Liverpool two years ago. Their new city was selected by the terrorists as a symbol of Western capitalism and greed. But, to the Leaheys, it has become a warm and friendly home, quite different from its popular image on TV. As in the history of all things, there is joy and there is tragedy. On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot dead by Mark Chapman outside the Dakota Building, where he lived with Yoko and their son, Sean. To his memory, the Strawberry Fields garden was opened in Central Park, New York. Visitors from both cities, and the rest of the world, lay flowers by the oak tree planted there. But Sid Bernstein, 84, always pronounced Bernsteen in Liverpool and New York, has happier memories of the former Beatle. "You see he lived on West 72nd Street, where the Dakota is, and I live on East 72nd Street, just across the park," said Sid. "So we would meet once in a while just by accident on Columbus Avenue. We would always say a very warm hello. In fact, there was one occasion when he introduced me to Yoko. She said, 'John, how many times are you going to introduce me to Sid?'. "Sometimes we would meet when he was with his little boy. He liked New York, John Lennon. But I like Liverpool. There is a spirit and love there which I am very attached to." To some, the defiance of the New Yorkers has been an inspiring example. David Balmer and John Cash, both Wallasey firefighters, policemen Andrew Davies and Alan Landrun, security guard Graham Farrell and the former New York firefighter Ron Schancke, were treated like heroes when they went to the USA to raise money for relatives of the 343 brothers in the New York Fire Department who lost their lives. They walked the 286 miles from the Pentagon in Washington DC to Ground Zero, raising £26,000 for the fund. Ron, who left the USA nine years ago, is now a Merseyside ambulance technician. A cross fashioned from the final girder removed from Ground Zero is being collected by Frank Proctor, the 52-year-old boss of the Many Happy Returns Travel agency in Ainsdale. The 12-inch stretch of iron belonged to Stephen Vendola, an employee of the New York Port Authority which owned the World Trade Center. He rented a holiday villa in Orlando, Florida, owned by Frank's brother, Kevin. Kevin, 38, a BT manager in Liverpool, said: "I would have conversations with Stephen and his family after September 11, telling them that the people over here were thinking about the people of New York." As a result, Stephen, a father of four, had the cross delivered to the villa, where it is being collected by Frank. "The final girder was like an icon in America, symbolising September 11," said Kevin. "Stephen and some of his colleagues were given parts of the girder. He had his welded into the cross. " The brothers' cousin, Father Gerry Proctor, of St Margaret Mary's church, is going to bless it. Today our cities, for centuries washed by the same waters, will be as one in a spirit of remembrance. | 
News RSS Feed