THE WRECK.(The Talk of the Town)(ferry crashes into terminal in New York, New York)

Many in the first wave of nine-to-five commuters returning to Staten Island last Wednesday learned of the day's calamity only when they'd reached the waterfront. At the South Ferry terminal, down by the Battery, where the wind was blowing fifty m.p.h.--street signs rattling, hats flying off--Department of Transportation personnel distributed handwritten flyers that began, "All ferry service has been suspended." Would-be passengers were steered onto shuttle buses for the much less direct land route: Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, B.Q.E., Verrazano Bridge.

On the bus, the cell phones came out, and confused travellers gradually learned the ghastly news from their friends watching television: At 3:20 p.m., the Andrew J. Barberi, one of nine ferries in the fleet, had careered off course and slammed into a concrete pier on Staten Island. At least ten people were dead and dozens were badly injured; as though in a war zone, severed limbs had been found in the debris. The phones on the bus kept ringing.

"Hello, Uncle Louie? I'm fine. We're all fine. No, I was at work at the time."

"Yeah, I'm all right, I'm just stuck in traffic--that's the worst that's happened to me."

"What scares me the most is that's where I always sit, on the lower level by the window. Supposedly, it split the side of the boat--pfffft--like a can opener."

The shuttle reached St. George as darkness settled in, the ninety-minute crawl a reminder of the superiority of the water route. It was a short, cold walk down to the terminal. The mangled ferry was cordoned off with yellow police tape, and the scene had been cleared of the dead and wounded.

Up on Bay Street, at the Cargo Cafe, Scott LoBaido, the self-proclaimed "unofficial mayor of the middle-class workingman," was buying drinks for his friends while watching the Cubs game on TV. LoBaido, who is thirty-eight, and a fourth-generation Staten Islander, has achieved local renown for his political activism--recently, he stormed City Hall in a Superman suit to protest Mayor Bloomberg's smoking ban--and for his art work, much of which hangs on the walls at the Cargo Cafe. (Above the bar: "The NY Giants," depicting a firefighter, a cop, and Rudy Giuliani on horseback, slaying a dragon.)