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2002-02-21

Solidarity in a War Zone
By Robert W. Snyder

In the blasted bomb-scape outside the World Trade Center yesterday, it was the courage and kindness of ordinary people that saved lives. I know because a crew of McDonald's workers pulled me out of the choking smoke.

My day began as normally as a New York City day can. I voted in the primary, then caught the downtown Lex?headed for my usual stop at Fulton Street, right near the World Trade Center. I normally get off there to catch the PATH train that takes me to Newark and my job teaching journalism at Rutgers. The train was running slowly, and I thought it was just ordinary train trouble when it skipped Fulton and stopped at Wall Street. I walked up to the street, oriented myself, and headed north on Broadway.

Crowds were milling on the sidewalk. From a distance I assumed that it was something to do with the primary. I walked uptown, looked up, and saw the World Trade Center in flames.
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I thought out loud, "One of my best friends works up there." Then a huge explosion of gray smoke erupted from the building. Like everyone in the crowd, I turned and ran east, away from the World Trade Center. Some people screamed. A few fell. I wanted to help them, but I wanted to live more. I kept running as fast as I could. I wanted only to get home to my wife and children. Any second, I expected to be crushed by falling debris.

Then the smoke caught up with me. All went dark and silent. I felt all alone.
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> I could not see one inch in front of my face. I could barely breathe. The air was so thick with debris that my every breath felt like I was sucking in gravel,
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I heard someone say "Stay low". I bent over into a crouch, but I didn't want to
> go onto all fours. I was afraid of being trampled if the crowd started running again.
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> I could barely breathe. I started to wonder what it was like to suffocate. In the end, do you just fall asleep?
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> I took off my hat, held it over my face to filter the air, and took a few breaths. I looked around and saw nothing. Then I buried my face in my hat to take a few more breaths, and looked again. It was still deathly quiet and gray. I thought about my wife and children and how much I wanted to see them again.
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After a while the dust settled enough that I could make out streets and buildings. I started to head east, toward the East River. I figured that there were fewer tall buildings that might come down and the chance of better air to breathe.

I headed east, following the lay of the land. Lower Manhattan looked like Hiroshima after the atomic bomb: Gray, silent, smoky and sunless. People stumbled down streets and sidewalks.
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> I saw one dazed man as alone as I was. I locked arms with him, and said, "Come on, we're going to get out of here." I saw another and said, "Come on, we're going to get out of here alive." I figured with three of us supporting each other, we would have a better chance.
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> We were staggering east down a street that I did not recognize when the side door to a building opened. Some McDonalds workers pulled us inside. The air was cleaner in there. We could breath freely again. We spit the dust out of our throats, coughed, and rinsed out our eyes. A woman gave me a wet towel to wrap around my face and filter the air. They loaned me a telephone. I called my wife and told her I was okay. Then I called Rutgers to say that I wouldn't be in for work.
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> We made up some cups of water, carried them out onto the street on a tray, and gave them to people trudging by. When they were all gone, I started walking north towards home. I asked a police officer for advice, and he told me to get out of lower Manhattan. I did.
I?m a historian, and I?ve given many walking tours in lower Manhattan. It was strange to walk through streets I love and see them dense with dust and debris, to look toward South Street and see the masts and spars of the Peking through a haze of smoke.

As I passed the Brooklyn Bridge, I felt the ground shudder. Some people around me looked nervous. I joked that it was probably only the subway passing underneath. Looking back to see an apocalyptic scene of smoke and destruction, I knew I was probably wrong.

I walked north, feeling like I was part of a column of refugees. When I reached Chinatown, things started to look normal again. Outside a Roman Catholic Church, a work crew continued to lay down a sidewalk. A family that looked like it was dressed for a first communion stood next to them, smiling nervously. In Little Italy, I walked into a deli and asked to borrow the phone to call my mother in New Jersey. Everyone looked at me oddly: they were there to buy cold cuts. But the woman behind the counter dialed my mother?s number, our connection was made, and I reassured my mom.

Trudging up Second Avenue, covered in dust, I was angry and bewildered. I wanted a rifle and I wanted to get even.

I was also very thirsty. At the Pescatore Restaurant, I saw workers sitting inside looking at the passing procession. I knocked and asked for water. They told me they were closed and refused to open the door. I walked up a few doors to Jameson's pub and stepped up to the bar. Before I could hail the bartender, a customer slid his drink over to me and said "Take this, you need it." I know which establishment I will return to on my next night on the town.

At 54th Street, I hailed a cab and rode the rest of the way home to 81st Street. I hugged my wife, picked up my son at school and hugged him. Then I went to the park where my daughter was playing and hugged her.

Sitting at home, I startle when I hear airplanes flying overhead. The roar of the subway makes me nervous. I can still hear the screams of a woman who fell while we rushed away from the explosion. I can still feel the smoke that covered me in a deathly silence. And I think about the McDonalds workers who pulled me and two other men out of the dust so that we could breath again.

Terrorists tried to bomb the life out of New York City, but ordinary people saved each other. That is our strength, and that is what will preserve us.