Feature: Wall Street at crossroads

EW YORK, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Tuesday, Sept. 16. It was meant to be a desperate day, especially for some people on Wall Street.

Wall Street, in geographical meaning, is a long narrow street in the downtown Manhattan. At the intersection between Broadway and Wall Street stands the Trinity Church, with a green tomb yard spreading beside it.

Around 10:30 a.m.. Pine Street, which is back to back with Wall Street in New York financial district. A dozen journalists have already gathered in front of a gray business building.

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Cold early autumn breeze gained strength when passing between skyscrapers lining along the street, making the only noise. Scratching on the notepad, clicking on the shutter or setting up video camera, everyone's got their lips locked while their eyes fixed on the entrance of the building. Inside the drop-dead silent building is the world's top insurer American International Group (AIG), which was struggling to stay alive.

After the fourth largest investment bank Lehman Brothers went into bankruptcy protection, and the third biggest securities firm Merrill Lynch was sold, AIG was virtually put on the fast track to become the next sacrifice of the unfolding financial crisis.

"They've got only one day left. Really not many choices," a Bloomberg reporter told Xinhua. "My colleague for Bloomberg TV got here 6 in the morning."

"We're kind of watching it dying," someone uttered.

Since the fall of Bear Sterns, it has been unsurprising to see an ex-banker standing on Wall Street, wearing pajamas with a cardboard hanging in front of chest reading "Seek Job." Surveys showed that unemployment number on Wall Street before Lehman bankruptcy has exceeded 40,000. If AIG finally followed Lehman's steps, the jobless toll would top 70,000.

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On Sunday evening, as the news broke that the two most serious buyers Barclays and Bank of America had withdrew from talks to buy Lehman, which left Lehman no other choice but bankruptcy, Lehman staff at its New York headquarters started packing and leaving. Down, but dignified.

"After what we've been through at September 11, nothing can beat me down," a man working for Lehman for over a decade said calmly to the TV camera outside the Lehman building. "We've got to deal with it and move on."

Take a casual 10-minute walk from Wall Street to the northwest and you will see the site of the destroyed World Trade Center, Ground Zero. Seven years ago, Lehman responded promptly after its then headquarters vanished in the terrorism attacks and restarted operation in just 48 hours. Seven years later, lying surrounded by skyscrapers, Ground Zero still looks like a huge open scar but the busy cranes are telling world "we are rising again."

Lehman survived two bankruptcies in the past over one and half centuries. Will this once Wall Street giant rise again this time?

Facing the entrance to the Wall Street, the Trinity Church tomb yard lies peacefully in the soft autumn sunlight. Time seems to have frozen here. But in the New York Stock Exchange across the street, where life or death is often decided in the split second of time, busy still.