European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 12, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Friday March 12, 1993 a commentary the stars and stripes Page 15 Are Ite to each other Mary Mcgrory lets leave aside for a moment the crushing problems caused by first time Manhattan terrorism the bomb at the world Trade Center the More than thousand wounded the shattered nerves and lives the cleanup. Everyone behaved magnificently. Once again new yorkers Are exposed they Are Nice people. Why were new yorkers Able to Cope to evacuate the twin towers without panic and hysteria without the Tram pling of Rock con Cert and soccer stadium catastrophes new yorkers Are so accustomed to adversity congestion Ana impossible conditions that they were equal to an unparalleled disaster. Every Day in their Gritty lives they Are so elbowed jostled and crammed that it is almost second nature to them. Add in Clouds of acrid Black smoke and jammed unlit stairwells a these Are differences of detail not kind. Everyone from new York gov. Mario m. Cuomo to the kindergarteners trapped in an elevator Between the 36th and 35th floors behaved like trousers. One group of 14 children who took seven hours to come Down went andante Cantabile singing Quot i love you you love  we All have a new Standard to live by. We must ask ourselves could it we struggle Down 100 floors in the pitch dark being suffocated by smoke not knowing what the next step would bring with no one in charge and no guiding voice to Tell us what to do probably not. New yorkers look after their own. A pregnant woman was passed Down the Steps. A paraplegic was carried by a relay of colleagues. A woman in a wheelchair was picked up and handed Down. The brokers and lawyers came through along with the police officers firefighters mechanics and engineers. As new yorkers they had always expected the worst. New Yorkus big secret is that new yorkers Are Nice to each other. They done to think a great Deal of out of town  is the contempt of the Marine for the sunday Soldier. Only new yorkers can keep the Pace stand the Gaff push ahead. They Tiave Little to say to foreigners because when you come right Down to it what do they know they can to Cope with the crazies the line jumpers the subway crush but watch them among themselves and you will see kindness solicitude even tenderness. Observe the tired worker easing into a seat at a counter where he eats every night. The waitress who has just barked at three pallid foreigners for one reason or another or maybe because she just Felt like it will approach the toilet and lean Over All sympathy Quot Tough Day Quot or Quot Mother better a and Quot we have Apple tonight. I saved you a  the Edge is for the others the people who come to town and done to walk fast enough or talk fast enough to be any Good to anybody. New yorkers walk around with a Chip on the shoulder exuding Quot survival of the fittest sternness. Except As a bomb blast proved they done to mean it. Politeness campaigns Are periodically launched in new York by embarrassed officialdom. They done to often work because your real new. Yorker equates polite with weak. Taking time to say Quot Good morning a Quot excuse me or Quot thank you a will slow you Down and it could mean you a lose your place on the sidewalk backing up pedestrian traffic for 50 blocks. You could lose your train bus or taxi. Mario Cuomo understands his City. He made a speech that was pure new York bristling with Defiance. The terrorist or terrorists whoever they May be chose the wrong City for their Date with terror. Did they Down new Yor no Way. The governor world Trade Center and can to wait to get Back in them. Do the maniacs think that bombs will frighten the City out of existence Quot done to bother a says the governor with the approved brusque Ness. When san Francisco had its earthquake in 1989, there were tales of Rescue and kindness and sacrifice. Nobody was surprised this is the land of the Street pantomime the astrological sign the self esteem commissions. But new York this explosion of kindness this automatic heroism yes it happened. Nothing new York can do about it. We have their number now. Maybe bombs and All we wont be so afraid to go there again. C univ a Al prow Syndicate let Hoover s name stand As memorial to perfidy believe me this is not an easy column to write. The second most sacred Rule among Washington Post columnists is never to take Issue with a colleague. Rule one of course is never to disagree with the paper s editorial policy whatever it May of that Day but the other Day my longtime Friend and colleague Richard Cohen for whom 1 have limitless admiration wrote what he says was his fifth column in As Many years calling for the renaming of the j. Edgar Hoover building the Home of the Fri. 1 would have guessed the number was 15, but no matter the Point is he is wrong. And knowing that i cannot shirk my responsibility to Stop him before he writes again. Cohen has his reasons for feeling the Way he does. Basically his argument is that a Guy who is portrayed by his recent biographers As a Cross dressing bigot who persecuted other homosexuals while concealing his own deviant behaviour a Man who blackmailed presidents and other politicians while turning his Back on the mafia types who let him Welch on his Racetrack bets a Man who called americans greatest civil rights Leader a communist sympathizer is not the Ideal person perhaps to be memorialized on the Avenue of the presidents and have his building stand Between the Home of the declaration of Independence and the department of Justice. Well sure. There is i have to concede a certain surface plausibility to that Point of View. Most of the Public buildings in Washington that Bear someone a name Honor the memories of people whose careers done to make you Blush. Too often its the building that Dis honors the name not the other Way around. The late speaker of the House Sam Rayburn a Man of great simplicity and dignity is forever linked to one of Washington a worst Mussolini style architectural disasters., if Richard Cohen were to take up the cause of Rede Foj -. Building i would applaud him. But his crusade against the j. Edgar Hoover building ignores the great cautionary value in having a few vivid reminders around this too often arrogant capital of How egregiously Power can be abused a and now far some officials reputations can Rise above their accomplishments or character. There is hardly a department of the Federal government that has not spawned a huge scandal at some moment in its history. So maybe the South building of the department of agriculture should be named the Billie sol Estes building for the Texas swindler who made All that Money in fake fertilizer storage tanks. The Interior department could Bear the name of Albert b. Fall the Secretary of the Interior who was bribed in the Teapot dome scandal. Hie Justice department could be designated either for Harry m. Daugherty the attorney general no figured in another Harding administration mess or for Jonn n. Mitchell Nixon s attorney general. I would lean to Mitchell because of the enduring importance of his admonition to watch what David s. Broder signing or re designating the Rayburn House office that we cannot usefully be reminded of How the mighty we do not what we  i think a healthy cautionary note would be struck in the breast of every political appointee entering the department of housing and Urban development if they saw the picture of Quot silent Sam Quot Pierce on the Wall As they came to work each Day just As we at the Post might be Well served if we saw a photo not just of the founder but of Janet Cooke our one time pulitzer prize fraud perpetrator in the lobby of our building. None of us is so free from smugness or arrogance a can fall when they break the rules. If it were left to me. Id put photos of Sherman Adams and . Quot bobs Haldeman in the foyer of the White House chief of staffs office a just a Little hint to the people who work in that building that they serve the citizens of the United states not themselves or a particular president. But nowhere is this kind of reminder More needed than in those agencies like the Fri where staff members routinely have Access to information about All sorts of private matters where secrecy Shields them from outside scrutiny and where the perfidy of the Crooks and creeps they Are investigating tempts them constantly to ignore the restraints of Law. It would not be a bad thing if the very name of the building prompted today Sana tomorrow s Fri officials to end some discussions with the line Quot no 1 wont sign off on that. That a something a Edgar Hoover would have  so i have an alternative crusade for my Friend Richard to pursue. Instead of erasing j. Edgar hoovers name from the Fri building How about urging that the Cia building now cloaked in. Anonymity be dedicated to William p. Casey the zealotry that led Casey to see such a threat in the sandinista that he approved the secret mining of the nicaraguan harbours and encouraged All those schemes to Aid the contras should serve As a constant reminder to future spooks of the danger of going off the deep end. I give you the idea Richard in Hopes of making amends. C the Washin Jion Post. Thi opinion apr a in the column and cartoon on thl pm Rop int Tunoa of the author and a in no Way to to con Cdr a a up a Antong that a pith Star and strip or la United Slat government