“Business took a back seat to heartache yesterday as a subdued Wall Street found public and private ways to observe the anniversary of events that tore into the heart of the nation’s financial community a year ago,” writes Diana Henriques in today’s New York Times.

” ‘I was really hesitant about coming in,’ said Rob Verderese, a stock trader at the Knight Trading Group who had watched the attacks on the World Trade Center from his trading desk in a high-rise building on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. ‘But when I got here, I realized we needed everybody to come in — to remember exactly what happened, to be where we were when it happened.’ ”

“Financial services companies suffered dreadful casualties in the terrorist attacks that killed more than 2,800 people in Lower Manhattan, and most people who came to work on Wall Street yesterday counted many friends and former colleagues among those whose names were read during the morning’s public memorial service at ground zero.”

“But the rituals of remembrance in the financial district stretched beyond those somber televised events, ranging from formal ceremonies at the hardest-hit firms to quiet but equally heartfelt gatherings on street corners or in nearby apartments.”

“The most prominent ceremony for those who work on Wall Street was at the New York Stock Exchange, which was shuttered for days after Sept. 11. The Big Board delayed its trading yesterday until almost an hour after the close of the official memorial service. After two minutes of silence and the singing of the national anthem, a host of dignitaries stood on the balcony over the exchange floor. At 12:01 p.m., Gov. George E. Pataki wove his hands together with those of Rudolph W. Giuliani and Michael R. Bloomberg, the former and the current mayor of New York, to jointly ring the bell that opened the abbreviated and emotional trading day.”

” ‘Now we go to work,’ said a floor broker who had brought a friend to the exchange for the opening.”

“Theodore P. Weisberg, the president of Seaport Securities and an exchange member, echoed, ‘The country has to get back to business.’ “