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In 1993, when James R. Paul decided to move to New York after two decades in Chicago, he was walking around Gramercy Park one day with a real estate broker when a building caught his eye. Built in 1883, it appealed to Mr. Paul's taste for the old and beautiful. ''I wish we could find a place there,'' he told the broker, pointing to the red-brownish brick facade. They did.

Then, two years ago, Mr. Paul and his wife, Pat, decided to begin looking for what one day would be their retirement home. The two got in a car and drove south, hugging the Atlantic coast. They found their place in a condominium in Savannah, Ga., where Mr. Paul could play golf and his wife could enjoy the city's architecture and cultural life.

That is how Mr. Paul, 58, lived his life: with one foot on the gas pedal and the other on the brakes, making plans, but also letting his impulses guide him. He drove too fast, skied even faster, and loved being on top of the world, on the 92nd floor of 1 World Trade Center, where he was an executive vice president of Carr Futures. He called his wife, an accountant, ''the bean counter.''

''He was working very hard, six days a week, to make enough money to retire early,'' Mrs. Paul said. ''He wanted to have enough years and energy in him to play golf.''


Game Day, Every Day

Peter Siracuse lived for competition. As a child he jockeyed for attention with his three older brothers. As a young adult, he took his aggression out on the gridiron and in lacrosse. He also played football in college.

So when Mr. Siracuse, 29, became a teacher and a coach at Bethpage High School on Long Island right after college, his family thought he was a natural, since he also loved children.

A little over a year ago, he married his high school sweetheart, Alana, and had a child of his own, Ryan Joseph, now 9 months.

''He was just so excited that he had a son and a child,'' said Matthew Siracuse, one of Mr. Siracuse's brothers. ''That was probably the biggest thing in his life at this time.''

Four years ago, Mr. Siracuse left the blackboard for the brokerage house. He quickly developed an affinity for his new job as a bond broker at Cantor Fitzgerald.

''He loved it; it was like game day every day,'' said George Siracuse, another of his brothers. ''He loved the whole camaraderie of his co-workers. He loved the competition. He thrived on it.''


The Call of the City



Even after he left Cantor Fitzgerald, moved to Michigan in 1998 to live near his wife's parents and started his own real estate investment business, he dreamed of concrete, skyscrapers, Central Park, the trading floor.

''He missed the pace of Wall Street; he missed the camaraderie of being around the guys all the time,'' said his wife, Erin. ''He was a true city kid. All the things that made people crazy about New York, he liked.''


Mrs. Richards, who is spending time with her parents in Michigan, said she will also return to New York. But the city, she said, will be empty without her husband. ''He had New York's cocky charisma about him,'' she said. ''He was cool.''


A Guy Just Like Him

Jan Maciejewski had a knack for being in the right place in the right time.

In 1990, when Mr. Maciejewski was still living in Poland, a friend got a visa to study in the United States. The friend could not go, but Mr. Maciejewski could, so he postponed his plans to be a soccer coach and immigrated to the land of his dreams.

In 1995, a young woman named Mary DeFranco was at a restaurant in Midtown where her bartender friend wanted to introduce her to a man named Chuck.

''I said, 'I don't want to meet a guy named Chuck,' '' she recalled. '' 'I want to meet a guy with an odd name and an accent. Like him.' '' She pointed at a good-looking waiter with brown-green eyes and a distinctly European air. It was Mr. Maciejewski's twin brother. He was already married, so Ms. DeFranco was introduced to Jan Maciejewski instead. They married the next year.

Mr. Maciejewski, 37, an avid soccer and tennis player, was always running. He would run from his main job as a waiter at Windows on the World to catch the subway to his other job as a computer consultant. He would run back to the subway to get home to his wife in Astoria, Queens. When she looks through the pockets of his pants, she often finds the Band-Aids he wore on his well-traveled feet.

A colleague at Windows on the World had asked Mr. Maciejewski to fill in for him on the breakfast shift on Sept. 11. Sure, Mr. Maciejewski had said, and gone off to work.


Life With Lauren