While each terrorism event evokes shock, horror and the sickening realization that it’s happened again, each has its own particular stamp of sadness. Yesterday’s was familiarity — I’ve walked that path often — and the pedestrianism of it all.

While terror has struck crowds of pedestrians before, they’ve never been at places I know so well. This happened on a late autumn afternoon, the perfect time to hop on a bike or stroll a walkway with a splendid view of the harbor and the Hudson. If last month’s incident was an assault on the concert-goer (an all too familiar theme), yesterday’s was an attack on walking itself, on the pedestrian.

Not just pedestrians but the pedestrian: “lacking inspiration or excitement, dull.” And of course that’s the point, isn’t it? To make even the most quotidian of tasks an opportunity for mayhem. The retort is pedestrian, too. We will keep riding, keep walking, keep being ourselves.  It’s pedestrian, but what else can we do?