9/11/2001

I was in MN. I had just gotten out of the shower and was getting ready for a job interview later in the day. I came downstairs and my roommate had the news on the TV. We sat there for a couple hours, watching in disbelief.

Here's to hoping that the coming generations don't have a defining "where were you when .....?" tragedy.

I was working in downtown Brooklyn. I got to work and my secretary told me that a plane had just hit the WTC. I remember thinking, what a crazy accident, I mean, how could you fly right into the WTC? Then the second plane hit and everyone in my office went into the conference room to watch the news. At this point I was thinking, What a freakish coincidence, that two planes would hit the WTC on the same day, how bizarre. Someone in the room said, "This is terrorism," and I literally could not understand at first what she meant. It seems amazing to me now that I was so clueless, but my mind was in a whole different place then.

Actually, almost everyone at work was in this bizarre kind of denial; most people really couldn't grasp how big this was even though we were watching it on TV. People started speculating about whether we were going to be allowed to leave early. :roll: (As it turned out, those of us who didn't come to work on 9/12 were required to submit a written explanation for our absence. :roll: :roll: :roll: )

Around mid-morning, I left work and walked down Court Street to get my kids from their school in Carroll Gardens. The cars on the streets in Carroll Gardens were covered with ashes. Again, my brain was not really functioning and it took me several minutes to figure out why the cars were white, like, did it snow here? I found my kids at school and my daughter said, "Mommy, I knew you'd come!" which was pretty much the most gratifying moment in my whole life as a parent. She was in the schoolyard at recess when little bits of paper started falling from the sky. The teachers took them inside but they could see the towers burning from their classroom windows.

Then we walked back from Carroll Gardens to Park Slope through the toxic cloud. This was a really bad decision in retrospect, since we breathed in all that crap. We started out with wet papers towels over our mouths and noses, but those were good for about five minutes. Again my brain was not functioning properly and I was thinking we'd take the bus, but there were no buses, so we walked.

kosherdave wrote: [quote=Rose](As it turned out, those of us who didn't come to work on 9/12 were required to submit a written explanation for our absence. :roll: :roll: :roll: )

Um, wouldn't why the fuck do you think I didn't come to work, have sufficed? That or, our country just had a massive terrorist attack?

Well, that, and the subways weren't running.

I wrote something about feeling sick over the fact that New York City was attacked by terrorists. I think they gave me the day as a sick day. :roll:

Rose wrote: I was working in downtown Brooklyn. I got to work and my secretary told me that a plane had just hit the WTC. I remember thinking, what a crazy accident, I mean, how could you fly right into the WTC? Then the second plane hit and everyone in my office went into the conference room to watch the news. At this point I was thinking, What a freakish coincidence, that two planes would hit the WTC on the same day, how bizarre. Someone in the room said, "This is terrorism," and I literally could not understand at first what she meant. It seems amazing to me now that I was so clueless, but my mind was in a whole different place then.

You're not the only one. I was working at home, watching the first tower burn on NBC, and because of the camera angle (from the north) you couldn't see the second plane hit, just the fireball. My first thought was, "How could the fire have jumped from the first tower to the second tower like that? And why would it explode?"

I went to vote early that morning then returned home to get dressed for work. As I was ironing my clothes I saw the first report on Fox5. I remember thinking that I needed to rush to the trains to get to my job on Wall Street before they shut down all of the subways. At the time the footage they were showing had a hole in the tower, and I thought that perhaps a small Cesna had flown into the building. I worked for this real pill of a woman at the time and I knew that she would have my head on a platter if I wasn't at my desk by 9:30. So I hustled into my clothes and flew out of the door.

Ran to the A train, one was pulling in just as I got into the station. No one on the train seemed to know anything was going on. We pulled into Jay Street when the announcement came that the subways into Manhattan were being shut down. I walked outside intending to walk over the bridge into the city. When I got to the foot of the bridge I was met by a patrolman who told me that the bridge, including the walkway was closed and that I should head home. While I was standing there talking to him a high-ranking guy in the NYPD walked up and said that they had confirmed that we were under attack and there was a simultaneous bombing of the Pentagon. I remember thinking that I needed to get back to the ghetto as fast as I could, because no matter what drama was going on in Manhattan no terrorists were coming near Nostrand. By the time I walked home, it had turned into a beautiful day. Kids were out in the street, riding their bikes and playing. Neighbors were clustered around gates sharing stories and trying to track down people who hadn't been heard from yet.

I walked out of the downtown co-op that my wife and I shared, and heard what I later understood to be the first plane overhead -- "damn," I said to my wife, "they're letting planes fly low over Manhattan these days."

We were on our way to vote in the Primary. Doing our civic duty, mind. It was a man in line behind us who told us there was trouble at the World Trade Center. After finishing we walked out, and could only get an unobstructed look downtown by walking over to University Place, where we could seen Tower One's upper reaches billowing black smoke.

What was it? A plane? Rumor on Unversity was first a Cesna had hit (OK, too small, sure) or a fighter jet had hit. This is before Tower Two was hit. As an architect, my thought was, "that's going to be really hard to fix."

Strangely enough my wife also had the civic duty called jury duty that morning. Now jury duty is a pain, but it is a duty, and it really stinks if you start it but don't finish it, because (as you all must know) you don't get credit for partial service (and that's the way it should be, of course). My wife had one day left and, naturally, wanted to go downtown to finish it. I told her, "I don't think you're going to have it today." She convinced me that she didn't want to take a chance on missing it, so I said I'd head down with her.

We got on a downtown train -- at some point while we were underground the other plane struck. The train announcer cut in after we boarded and said "This train is going express! We're going express to Brooklyn! No downtown service!" -- this got everyone on the train grumbling. Some folks clearly hadn't heard anything yet -- they'd boarded before 8.46 am and it was just another messed up commute for them. One guy turns to me exasperated when I explained there was some kind of trouble at WTC. He retorted, without missing a beat, "There's always something fucking wrong with those buildings." I told him, no, you don't understand, it's on fire. "Oh."

He was surprised, and it's rare you surprise some of the hardened types in this city. And furthermore: no one, not anyone I was with or spoke to, ever imagined these buildings might fall. We were not watching TV or getting color commentary or speculation from "experts," we we're just living our lives out on the street.

Before the train could head out over the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn we got out and walked down to the Federal Courts. It was eerie: we were walking downtown against a flow of people and traffic uniformly moving uptown. Traffic itself was subdued, the sidewalks were jammed with people. When we finally got to the courts a heavily armed policeman (I think the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York has its own police) took his finger momentarily off of his M-16 and curtly announced, "No jury duty today. Come back tomorrow."

OK, let's get out of here. And, I don't know what it was...some feeling, a hunch? While walking north on Lafayette, just at the southeastern corner of Spring Street, I just looked over my left shoulder. There Tower Two hulked over this part of Little Italy, like it always had in my time in New York. I saw the aluminum exterior cladding of the tower's vertical cage supports catch sunlight and sparkle as they popped off -- as the structural columns behind buckled. Traffic came to a halt; people walking with us cried out. I then saw the top eighteen or so stories shift en masse, tilt, and finally start that long pancake down.

We didn't stay to see more -- a friend worked in Tower Two, and the rest of the day became about finding her, and heading home seemed like a good base camp from which to start our search. There, the answering machine just had a few calls (strangely, my Finnish cousins were able to get through and were leaving messages asking "what is going on!"), but the phone service was dead by the time we got home.

I don't know how, but we did find our friend later -- she'd been late for work that morning. Many of her co-workers died. We all went to donate blood, but as you all know they never found as many survivors as we had all hoped there would be. I remember seeing the doctors and nurses waited paitently for people to save, but the wounded were few compared to the dead.

I worked across the street of the WTC on Church. I was in my office when the first plane hit. It sounded like a truck going over a metal plate in the road, but much louder. A co-worker came over to me and told me a prop-plane had hit the North Tower. I looked out the window and knew right away that a little prop plane would never cause that much damage. My first thought was that they were never going to get that fire out and those poor people.

Remarkably, I went back to my desk and worked for a few minutes until I stopped. I was talking with co-worker when I heard what sounded like a bomb. The co-worker that had thought it was a prop-plane was running to the elevator screaming that we were under attack. I went again to the window and looked down onto Church Street. A crew of firefighters was getting ready to enter into the building. I think I knew then that they were not going to be able to do much. I do not think I realized at the time that they were probably going to die. I hope they did not, but that is not likely.

I moved to a different window where I watched people jump out of the north tower. It took me a few minutes to realize what I was looking at.

We were evacuated and I took the subway to Brooklyn Heights. I started to walk to the Promenade when people came running and crying towards me. The north tower had just collapsed. I turned around and walked home to Park Slope.

The thing I remember most about that day is just not grasping the magnitude of it all. I clearly knew it was a tremendous event, but I remember wondering if my plans in the city would be cancelled that evening. Why would they, they were uptown? I felt like an idiot a little later. I stayed up all night watching the news coverage. I lined up to give blood the next day. I still think about the "jumpers" and those couple of firefighters I saw on Church Street.

Thanks for letting me put my thoughts on "paper." I will never forget that day. One little thing that came out of it is that I realized how much I love this city. It is far from perfect, but it truly is a great place with so many great people. I could not imagine living anywhere else.

I was doing computer work for the state of CT in Hartford CT. I was at someone's desk when I heard about the first plane. I remember thinking "wow some idiot flew a Cessna into a building. The FAA should really get on top of this." So I went to abcnews.com for details. No response. cnn.com - no response. msnbc.com - no response. And suddenly I realized and that it must be big if the sites were getting hammered that bad.

We went downstairs to get coffee and the cafeteria manager invited a couple of us back top watch his TV. We watched the second one fall.

Yes, the lights really are beautiful.

I work - and worked, at the time - about a quarter mile from The World Trade Center as the crow flies. I guess at this time it's been pretty well hammered home how beautiful the morning was that day, but it was; just that slight crispness of early September. Uneventful day, I'd gotten to work at about 7:30 and had done all my pre-open crap, so I was just goofing around with other people in the office and somebody - and I don't remember what they said - brought our attention to CNBC when they started showing the first tower smoking/ablaze. It was weird because they said a plane had hit the tower, but we hadn't heard a thing. If we did, it was probably dismissed as another demolition/construction sound and ignored. I called my wife (home with the baby at that time) right away - thankfully - and told her there was something on the news she should see, not to worry, and I would take care of myself.

Anyhow, the news people were talking accident, which was nonsense, but I think some wanted to believe it. Not me. My friend in SF was telling me his friend at Cantor (SF) was on the hoot with guys in New York who were screaming and couldn't get out of the place. My boss thoughtfully told everbody to stay away from the windows, as if there was a sniper out there or something. Just a lot of crap going on, confusion, and when you add the Wall Street rumor mill, forget it. Me and a few other guys went up to the roof (7th floor) as we hadn't been officially dismissed and we had been told to stay off the street. It was calm. Pages (something to do with insurance) floated down. Then we heard the second plane coming in low. I don't know if the other guys realized how low the plane was, but I've seen a B-52 flying so low it looked like you could almost touch it. It was deafening - how did we not hear it before? And then the explosion. Loudest thing I've ever heard -CRACK, ROAR. How did we not hear it the first time? I don't know.

Eventually, we were told to make our way home. By that point the towers had collapsed and it had been dark as night for awhile. Interestingly, while we watched the towers collapse on the tube - no more roof for me, thanks - we didn't hear it. We just saw the effects. I couldn't contact my wife. I left Manhattan, I don't want to talk about that. It was a mess. Walked across the bridge, and hell yeah I was nervous - most people were dusty, some were bloody, and it was a loooong walk across that target, but I finally made it to Brooklyn. I was relatively mellow for awhile until I hit the brownstone/residential area (I went up flatbush to 5th then up President to 7th). It was obvious that a lot of people were waiting for loved ones who hadn't arrived yet. Many people were waiting quietly and a few were not quiet at all. I only hope that their worst fears went unrealized.

I got to my sister's place. Reported in. Had a big drink. Went on home where apparently my wife had called my Mother-in-Law to join her for moral support. So the MIL anserwed the door.
Hadn't this day been enough of a trial? But I was home. Had another couple drinks and watched that smoking hole in the ground on the news for a few days. Wished I could go to work instead of hang around...

I was rushing to my office to finish a document that had to be to Court - when I exited the subway at Wall and Broadway there was debris raining down and I thought - a parade? But it took me only a moment to realize something was very wrong. I ran into my office building and could see the WTC clearly from the window. My heart sank - the plane had hit where my nephew worked and I tried his cell phone and work phone but it went to voice mail so I thought ok maybe he is alright. Then as I am on the phone dialing my friends I see the second plane hit. Words cannot describe the sights I saw after that and even after years of therapy I still cannot talk about it. Some of our windows shattered and my co-workers and I started to walk down from the 22nd Floor. Once we made it downstairs the 1st tower collapsed and we were in the dustcloud. Police men would not let us out of the building even though it was filling up with dust. ESU personnel gave us some masks and we waiting until some of the dust cleared. When we finally were able to leave my heart was thinking only of those I knew in the WTC. As soon as we walked to Broadway the second tower collapsed and so did my heart. We were frozen in the cloud unable to see - I just know that the person in front of me grabbed my hand and I grabbed the person behind and we walked until we hit the Bridge. I made it home over the Brooklyn Bridge and remember being in a daze. I dont know how I made it home nor the streets I took to get there but the dusty clothes I came home with are still in a plastic bag to this day.

While I cannot dwell on that day without feeling a pain in my heart it made me really appreciate everything. I wake up every day and am just thankful I did. I tell my family at every opportunity how much I love them and how much they mean to me. I go to the Memorial Service every year because no matter how much they clean up and what they built it is still where I lost so many people and a piece of them is there. Many of my friends made it out alive but a part of them still died that day. I will never get them back nor will I get back my nephew and my friends. It is important that we never forget the lives that were lost, the stories we have of those lost and to keep their memory alive forever. So live but play hard and love strong if not for yourself do it for those we lost - like Jason Sekzer, Michael and Christine Egan, Jack Eichler, and Jeffrey Stark.

Subject: Teaching

I was teaching at John Jay on 7th Avenue. It was awful. Kids who had parents who were working in the building started to rebel. We had no idea what was really going on. Was on the West side of the building when it happened teaching a class from 9-10:30. French teacher came in crying saying the towers were gone. Didn't believe her, asked her if she was okay. Gone, gone, she said and took over the class. Already the paper was flying onto the street, all the way over on 7th Ave. Car radios blaring news. No one talking, just blank faces. The kids afraid. Adults blank. Absolutely dumbstruck and dying to get home.