The American architect Lebbeus Woods said: “In the fall, (…) not only the forms of designed space are changed, but also the nature of how, even why, we design”; moreover “[i]n the process we find that we, too, have been transformed, and will never see the world again in the same way” (qtd. in Virilio 2003, 155–156). This effect was also noted by Don DeLillo (2001): “For many people, the event has changed the grain of the most routine moment. We may find that the ruin of the towers is implicit in other things” for example in “the midtown skyscraper under construction, carrying the name of a major investment bank” – now “haunted in a way by what has happened, less assured in [its] authority, in the prerogatives [it] offer[s]” – of course, even more so after the credit crunch of 2007–2008.

Thus the fall causes not only literal, material disorder, but also a metaphorical and abstract mess in perception. Both have to be somehow dealt with. This dual need has been best expressed by Ulrich Baer in his introduction to 110 Stories: New York Writers After September 11. “A symbolic echo” to the “[d]evelopers, city planners, and construction crews wielding torches and cranes” and “continu[ing] to physically repair lower Manhattan,” was, as he pointed out, found in poems “postered on walls and fences” (2). This spontaneous poetry “responded to a need (…) for words (…). Sheets went up around the city like huge bandages soaking up grief, disbelief and rage” (ibid.).