Cities divided by sea - but forever linked by history.

Byline: David Charters

THEY say, when the men and women are pulled from the rubble, that the names on the cards and letters left in their breast-pockets and handbags will reach to the countries of the world.

They will tell of ancestors who fled pogroms, religious intolerance, hunger, or those who simply followed a dream across the sea.

These are the descendents of the people who came to America with faith in a promise.

Many settled where they arrived, in New York.

Others took part in one of humanity's great adventures, the opening of the continent.

Before that, they visited the cellars and lodging-houses of Liverpool, where they awaited a Yankee clipper, or in later years a steam ship, to carry them to the promised land.

It is estimated that in the 100 years from 1840, more than 9m people left Liverpool for New York. The cities, divided by 3,500 miles of ocean, reach out to one another through history. Those feet, which felt the first roll of the waves in Liverpool Bay, would tread the gangway to Ellis Island in New York harbour. Many reasons were given for them coming. .

Native Liverpudlians saw the people in their rags or rich costumes, carrying jewels or just a pittance, arriving at the docks. They heard the babble of different tongues.

Weather conditions determined the time of crossings in sailing craft, though about six weeks was usual. This led to long waits in the port.

The exorbitant charges demanded by some lodge-house keepers meant that poorer families often had to stay in Liverpool, being unable to pay for a crossing The advent of steam changed that. Cunard's first ship, the paddle steamer Britannia, made her maiden voyage on July 4, Independence Day, 1840. With a service speed of nine knots, she carried 115 passengers to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 12 days. She took another 46 hours to dock to reach Boston.

By the end of the decade, Cunard was making regular trips to New York.

Liverpool played a central part in the story.

The city's sailors returned with stories of New York's irrepressible spirit, its invention, its charm, its crazy, cosmopolitan nature. This was the city of Scott Fitzgerald and his Jazz Age flappers, Lorenz Hart, George and Ira Gershwin, and Damon Runyon, whose characters brought glamour and humour to the underworld.

Thousands of Merseysiders, perhaps lured by the Big Apple's charms, have followed the millions to settle in America.

There is an immense affection between the two cities, characterised by the messages of sympathy and support sent by Liverpool's political and spiritual leaders.

As the emergency workers, with their faces masked by dust, continued to search for the living amid the crushed masonry of the World Trade Centre, families were passing messages across the Atlantic. The people in Liverpool sense the sorrow and the anger of the people in New York.

It arises from a history of common experience. Both have offered sanctuary to the poor and oppressed and neither is sentimental about it. Both, however, react with fury when attacked from outside.

In more recent times the cities have been bonded by rock 'n' roll. T New York's golden age of pop, which for many was epitomised by the extraordinary harmonies of the Four Seasons, ran from 1960/64.

Despite that, it wilted before the British invasion led by the Beatles.

In February, , 1964, thousands of screaming girls greeted them at the John F Kennedy International Airport. The cities had been joined in celebration.

Perhaps John Lennon came to symbolise the spirit of these cities, washed by a great sea.

When walking in Central Park, near his final home in the Dakota Building, he was reminded of his young days in Liverpool; the cellars near the waterfront, the smell of fruit from the barrow and the tall buildings.