story10926.xml

story10926.xml

born-digital

story

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2004-09-11

Fact#1) I am, and was at the time, a Rutgers student.
Fact #2) I was involved in a traffic circle accident months before 9/11.

The accident happened at a busy traffic circle, and it was a fender bender with another young driver. He ran into me and dented the car. We both called other folks; the cops came and gave me a summons for the tenth of September, 2001, in some municipal court, and thus we called a lawyer who advised that I get the charge (of running a stop sign, or something) off my record by some means or other. So the lawyer and I duly went to court on the evening of the tenth and the charge was removed. I felt like celebrating this the next morning as I lay in bed, even though I knew there was an appointment with the Dean of Students that day.
This Dean was also the Dean of Students with Disabilities, Clarence Shive, and as I have a hearing loss, there were routine appointments with him. Well, I knew I had time before the appointments, so I leisurely turned on the computer, which automatically turned on AOL Instant Messenger. At the time, the IM service used a "ticker" or "crawl" with clickable headlines for folks who wanted to read news stories. So the first headline on the ticker was "World Trade Center under attack". This made my heart leap up and I immediately rushed to turn on the TV set, and there was one WTC tower visible, with a hole in it, smoking angrily, and suspicions came over the telly that the other skyscraper had collapsed. Well, as I was watching, the remaining tower - the one with the antenna - gave way. In the meantime, my dad came up to campus from home (which is nearby) for the appointment (which was cancelled due to the attacks, along with Rutgers classes). I asked him about my uncle Robbie, whether he was okay or not. (He worked in Downtown Manhattan, and eventually lost a pal in the Staten Island ferry wreck.) My dad replied, "I don't Know!" in a worried tone of voice. I wondered if there were biological agents in the crashes.
Then came word of the Pentagon, and the Shanksville crash. "Oh my gosh, a red-letter day (for the news)", came the thought through my mind. I also was slightly worried that some disease was gonna come and kill us. Meanwhile, I went up to the top floor of Hardenbergh Hall (it's a very tall dorm) and saw the smoke on the horizon. I took a picture, but that came to naught when I lost the camera (possibly to a thief) a month or two later, along with the rolls.
Around that day, King Neptune Night was to occur in the Rutgers dining halls. I don't recall whether or not it occurred on the 11th or some other date that year, but it's the one day in the year that lobster and other expensive seafood get lavished on the Rutgers students. I'm sure that, when it occurred, there might have been a slightly subdued mood, but folks still enjoyed the lobsters.
That evening, I went over to a neighbor's house to watch the news with them. In order to do so, I had to cross the campus and walk by St. Peter's Hospital. I saw a few folks manning the entrances, waiting for "fallout" from the WTC disaster that probably never came. While said neighbor offered to let me sleep over, I declined and headed back to my dorm.
Later, students (particularly Elora Mukhurjee) organized memorial and relief efforts, and I recall having printed my hand onto the American-flag handprint mural that she helped commission. There were blood drives of all sorts, and my parents warned me to stay out of "the city" (read: NYC) for several weeks (?) afterwards. I followed to some extent, but I believe I am one of the few family members willing to look at Ground Zero. Indeed, I got a summer job in 2002 covering territory near the Ground, and I saw how much the scenery around the Pit was changing from month to month. The restriction zone had shrunk by that time, but a new staircase and viewing area emerged, and a PATH station was either under construction or about to be built, while scaffolding covered the front entrances of the buildings on the south side of the Ground. A walkway opened along the north side. While frosted glass covered windows facing Ground Zero at the time, those panels have often been supplemented or replaced by clear glass windows (especially after the WFC and Winter Garden reopened). A Beaux Arts building on the south side, heavily damaged, used to have a mural hiding it from view, with some heart-shaped item on it. Now, the building is visible again, but the damage is still being repaired. I could smell the charbroiled odor of the Duetsche Bank building when walking next to it.
Another few memories. Before 9/11, I often stood with my family in line for Broadway tickets at the WTC lobby, and I could see the long line of tourists circling around the green-carpeted marble lobby waiting for the skydeck. I also walked around the underground mall, and saw the PATH station, and made plans to visit the Vista hotel - err, Marriott. 9/11 canceled that last plan.
A few days before the disaster, Rutgers suffered a crash into a tower of another sort. Academy Bus Company had taken over the Rutgers bus system from Suburban Transit, and this resulted in inexperienced drivers hauling buses where they'd never been before. One of those places was the bend leading into the Busch Campus Center. An articulated bus, going a tad too fast for the tight curve, lept the curb, plowed over grass and a couple of trees, and banged into the McCormick dormitory, thus knocking some students around and prompting the song, "I don't wanna be in the McCormick when the H comes crashing in" (sung to the tune of "When The Saints Come Marching In"). I recall taking a bus over to the site of the accident and taking pictures, with the front of the bus denting the brick wall of the dorm.