story6596.xml
Title
story6596.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-09-12
911DA Story: Story
Polly's Notes re 9/11
My name is Polly Fischer. In June of 2001 my husband Martin and I bought a time-share apartment in midtown Manhattan because we no longer wished to
make the drive back to Philadelphia on late evenings after a long day in New York, and by 9/11 we had spent many happy days in New York museums, theaters
and restaurants, and had met some friends and relatives there.
After 9/11, I mentioned to my husband that I already felt like a citizen of Manhattan and I felt an obligation to go there to pay my respects to those who had died and those who were working at ground zero. Since we were leaving for Europe shortly we went the following week, and immediately went downtown.
My first shock was the realization that we could no longer take the subway all the way down and that we had to walk pretty far, and many emergency vehicles of various kinds kept passing us headed toward ground zero. As we walked, the air got "thicker" and I had to put my scarf over my nose and mouth to keep out the "dust." But as we got closer, I really saw the heartbreak and sorrow expressed on all the hand-made signs everywhere...a photo of a smiling young woman with long dark hair holding a toddler and wearing a pretty summer dress, labelled, "have you seen my wife? Please call ! ...another, a professional portrait of a middle-aged fellow dressed in a business suit..."have you seen my Dad?",..dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds of them posted close together, side by side and one above the other, as we came nearer to the site. Some people were handing out fliers advertising for their lost families, some just stood there
holding their pictures face out for us to see.
And as we got closer we saw one after another, stores with everything inside coated in a thick layer of a grey substance so you had to strain to identify the things underneath, dead places, like Pompei. And in the open doorways of many
Of the stores sat silent melancholy looking people, perhaps the owners waiting for insurance companies to come help. It seemed to me that the most pitiful store of all was what had obviously once been an elegant beauty salon all coated in this thick gray stuff, hair-driers, perfume bottles, chairs, tables, vials
and cans and tubes of cosmetics and lotions, and even the floor. How strange.
When we finally arrived at the "end," as close as we could go, there stood a crowd of people, all ages, all colors, all classes, all styles, and all seemingly struck dumb, standing there absolutely silent, staring at whatever we could see of the workers and the work (they were dismantling a huge piece of the steel of one of the two towers) and the tiny church almost next door (said to be the oldest church in New York, St. Paul's, I think. When I could no longer stand, Martin and I walked silently away and the crowd parted silently to let us through. A few blocks away a young Frenchman with a bicycle rigged rickshaw picked us up and took us to the nearest subway entrance.
My name is Polly Fischer. In June of 2001 my husband Martin and I bought a time-share apartment in midtown Manhattan because we no longer wished to
make the drive back to Philadelphia on late evenings after a long day in New York, and by 9/11 we had spent many happy days in New York museums, theaters
and restaurants, and had met some friends and relatives there.
After 9/11, I mentioned to my husband that I already felt like a citizen of Manhattan and I felt an obligation to go there to pay my respects to those who had died and those who were working at ground zero. Since we were leaving for Europe shortly we went the following week, and immediately went downtown.
My first shock was the realization that we could no longer take the subway all the way down and that we had to walk pretty far, and many emergency vehicles of various kinds kept passing us headed toward ground zero. As we walked, the air got "thicker" and I had to put my scarf over my nose and mouth to keep out the "dust." But as we got closer, I really saw the heartbreak and sorrow expressed on all the hand-made signs everywhere...a photo of a smiling young woman with long dark hair holding a toddler and wearing a pretty summer dress, labelled, "have you seen my wife? Please call ! ...another, a professional portrait of a middle-aged fellow dressed in a business suit..."have you seen my Dad?",..dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds of them posted close together, side by side and one above the other, as we came nearer to the site. Some people were handing out fliers advertising for their lost families, some just stood there
holding their pictures face out for us to see.
And as we got closer we saw one after another, stores with everything inside coated in a thick layer of a grey substance so you had to strain to identify the things underneath, dead places, like Pompei. And in the open doorways of many
Of the stores sat silent melancholy looking people, perhaps the owners waiting for insurance companies to come help. It seemed to me that the most pitiful store of all was what had obviously once been an elegant beauty salon all coated in this thick gray stuff, hair-driers, perfume bottles, chairs, tables, vials
and cans and tubes of cosmetics and lotions, and even the floor. How strange.
When we finally arrived at the "end," as close as we could go, there stood a crowd of people, all ages, all colors, all classes, all styles, and all seemingly struck dumb, standing there absolutely silent, staring at whatever we could see of the workers and the work (they were dismantling a huge piece of the steel of one of the two towers) and the tiny church almost next door (said to be the oldest church in New York, St. Paul's, I think. When I could no longer stand, Martin and I walked silently away and the crowd parted silently to let us through. A few blocks away a young Frenchman with a bicycle rigged rickshaw picked us up and took us to the nearest subway entrance.
Collection
Citation
“story6596.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 21, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/10730.