story985.xml

story985.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-07

I live a few blocks from my office, which is on 57th Street, and had my 85 year old mother visiting me. So, I was planning to leave for work about 9:00 am. I was getting dressed and watching the Today Show. The program was interrupted for a live feed showing the WTC burning and instantly I knew the building had been attacked by terrorists. My cousin worked in the building when it was bombed in 1993 and I knew this was no plane accident. I was horrified and completely in shock as my two family friends worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in the North Tower. I began screaming and calling my family members who also work in the City...telling them what was going on and insisting they leave their various office buildings immediately. I was panicked that their buildings would also be targets. I called everyone at my office, which is directly next to the General Motors building and told them to evacuate the building. By this time the second tower had been hit. My brother kept calling and calling our friend Joe Sacerdote at Cantor Fitzgerald. But there was no answer on his phone. The unreality of the situation was beyond comprehension. No one I called could believe me when I screamed that the building just came down and disintegrated. (When they later saw the tape on TV, then they understood). About 15 people, friends and family, came to my apartment and spent the day...some on into the night as they could not get home. Everyone had cell phones and they rang continuously. All three of my television sets were on, with groups of people fixed and staring, without speaking, in front of them. About 9:00 pm some of the group wanted to try to get to Penn Station to make their way home. I took my car from my garage and drove down Fifth Avenue to get them as close as I could to 34th Street. I was stopped at 42nd & Fifth by the police. My friends got out to walk, and I made my way back to 63rd St. The silence in the Streets was eerie. It gave me goosebumps; barely any traffic in the streets, hardly any people outside. A police officer stopped my car on 42nd and Third and asked me to take a group of people as far uptown as I could get. They worked at the United Nations. They were so appreciative. I bought bottled water and some staples as everyone was panicked and we thought no food delivery trucks would be allowed into NYC. We also got word that no one probably made it out of the Towers alive as another of our friends, a police office, was down at Ground Zero working on the recovery effort. We went to the Promenade on 63rd St & the East River and saw the smoke and kleig lights down at the site. My windows became covered with soot. I stayed awake all night looking at television and answering the phone, that rang and rang with bad news about our friends at the WTC. My mom said it was worse than Pearl Habour.