story1220.xml
Title
story1220.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-08-19
911DA Story: Story
The Morning:
I woke up Tuesday morning, vowing that it would be just another normal day of my newly established life and routine in Manhattan.
In the six month period of December 2000 through May 2001, I endured retinal detachment surgery, a cancer scare, the stress of a rapidly deteriorating workplace in Buffalo, two relocations, a new position in NYC and the end of my marriage.
9/11/2001 would've been my eighth wedding anniversary.
Pre-occupied with this backdrop, I was determined to operate in my "plan for the worst but work toward the best" mode. I walked out of my apartment building on East 29th, grabbed a cab on the corner of Madison and headed to the office. Traffic was terrible... Gridlock. We made it about ten blocks up Madison. I asked the driver to pull over so I could walk the last nine blocks to my mid-town office. I got out of the cab somewhere between 8:30-8:40 AM.
Manhattan is loud. Especially at rush hour... The horns, trucks, construction, helicopters and subways... You get used to it very quickly. As I got out of the cab and started walking, I heard a louder than normal noise from above, like an really low airplane. I looked up and saw nothing. Other people were looking up also. I didn't see anything, but from the street level of midtown all you can see is what's directly above you because the buildings are so tall. I shrugged it off and made my way to work.
I pushed my way through the crowd of co-workers huddling around televisions in the office lobby watching CNN's live coverage. The weird thing was I asked a co-worker why CNN was showing old file footage of the 1993 WTC car bomb incident. He said "No, no... It's live... They think an airplane hit the North Tower." I went numb. That loud sound I just heard on the street now made horrific sense.
Just after the South Tower was struck, a girl from our finance group who sat across from me walked in a few minutes late for work. She took one look at the images on TV, dropped everything, screamed something and ran to her desk. A few of us follwed her. Her father was in one of the towers... In the 70's... She wanted to go down to the site. It took quite a few people to convince her to stay put. We told her that she'd be safer and more accessible to family by staying at our office so she could answer her phone and email. It wasn't until that afternoon tht she learned her father was alive. He got out, despite instructions over the public address that is was OK to return to his office, and then ran to the restaurant his brother owned in Chinatown.
No amount of planning could've prepared anyone for the shock of what happened.
As miserable as I thought my life was, my problems were suddenly inconsequential to the new reality.
I was alive... I didn't loose anyone.
I was lucky.
The 9/11 letters:
Transportation and telephone communications in and out of the city were non-existent. Email and online chat were the only vehicles to get the word out. I decided that sending an email was my best shot at updating the most people about my status.
What i didn't realize was that these letters would take on a life of their own. I sent them to everyone in my address book. Many of these people forwarded them to others, who then in turn sent them to their contacts and so on, like a pyramid scheme.
Very soon I started receiving emails from strangers... Friend of a friend of a friend thing. People printed these letters, saved them, shared them and put them in scrap books. a museum director used them in an installation about the 9/11 tragedy. teachers in schools around the country read them to students in their classes.
I was flooded with messages from well wishers. For all of your thoughts and prayers i will always be profoundly grateful...
Thank you.
I've posted the letters here and on my personal website as i still get asked about them. I'm amazed (and perhaps in denial) by the whole thing. I don't get it... I'm not a hero, I have no survivors tale to tell. Maybe they struck a nerve in some way by documenting the moment from the perspective of an Average Joe from Buffalo who's real happy he didn't take that downtown apartment downtown on John Street.
Post 9/11:
I've heard that 300,000 people have left NYC post 9/11 for whatever reason. To put it in perspective, that's the population of a medium sized city like my hometown of Buffalo, NY. And now I am one of those people, but not by choice. In the post 9/11, Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia era many people have fallen on hard times. Those of us in advertising/marketing/interactive arenas took a big hit. When the economy gets bad, the first thing companies do is lay off people and cut the marketing budget. The CEO of my firm sold the company, lost clients, and laid off people, including me. Ouch, now I'm a statistic.
Manhattan became my savior, muse and lover. The experience has enriched me beyond words.. My priorities have changed and I now realize that the greatest thing God ever created is a new day.
I woke up Tuesday morning, vowing that it would be just another normal day of my newly established life and routine in Manhattan.
In the six month period of December 2000 through May 2001, I endured retinal detachment surgery, a cancer scare, the stress of a rapidly deteriorating workplace in Buffalo, two relocations, a new position in NYC and the end of my marriage.
9/11/2001 would've been my eighth wedding anniversary.
Pre-occupied with this backdrop, I was determined to operate in my "plan for the worst but work toward the best" mode. I walked out of my apartment building on East 29th, grabbed a cab on the corner of Madison and headed to the office. Traffic was terrible... Gridlock. We made it about ten blocks up Madison. I asked the driver to pull over so I could walk the last nine blocks to my mid-town office. I got out of the cab somewhere between 8:30-8:40 AM.
Manhattan is loud. Especially at rush hour... The horns, trucks, construction, helicopters and subways... You get used to it very quickly. As I got out of the cab and started walking, I heard a louder than normal noise from above, like an really low airplane. I looked up and saw nothing. Other people were looking up also. I didn't see anything, but from the street level of midtown all you can see is what's directly above you because the buildings are so tall. I shrugged it off and made my way to work.
I pushed my way through the crowd of co-workers huddling around televisions in the office lobby watching CNN's live coverage. The weird thing was I asked a co-worker why CNN was showing old file footage of the 1993 WTC car bomb incident. He said "No, no... It's live... They think an airplane hit the North Tower." I went numb. That loud sound I just heard on the street now made horrific sense.
Just after the South Tower was struck, a girl from our finance group who sat across from me walked in a few minutes late for work. She took one look at the images on TV, dropped everything, screamed something and ran to her desk. A few of us follwed her. Her father was in one of the towers... In the 70's... She wanted to go down to the site. It took quite a few people to convince her to stay put. We told her that she'd be safer and more accessible to family by staying at our office so she could answer her phone and email. It wasn't until that afternoon tht she learned her father was alive. He got out, despite instructions over the public address that is was OK to return to his office, and then ran to the restaurant his brother owned in Chinatown.
No amount of planning could've prepared anyone for the shock of what happened.
As miserable as I thought my life was, my problems were suddenly inconsequential to the new reality.
I was alive... I didn't loose anyone.
I was lucky.
The 9/11 letters:
Transportation and telephone communications in and out of the city were non-existent. Email and online chat were the only vehicles to get the word out. I decided that sending an email was my best shot at updating the most people about my status.
What i didn't realize was that these letters would take on a life of their own. I sent them to everyone in my address book. Many of these people forwarded them to others, who then in turn sent them to their contacts and so on, like a pyramid scheme.
Very soon I started receiving emails from strangers... Friend of a friend of a friend thing. People printed these letters, saved them, shared them and put them in scrap books. a museum director used them in an installation about the 9/11 tragedy. teachers in schools around the country read them to students in their classes.
I was flooded with messages from well wishers. For all of your thoughts and prayers i will always be profoundly grateful...
Thank you.
I've posted the letters here and on my personal website as i still get asked about them. I'm amazed (and perhaps in denial) by the whole thing. I don't get it... I'm not a hero, I have no survivors tale to tell. Maybe they struck a nerve in some way by documenting the moment from the perspective of an Average Joe from Buffalo who's real happy he didn't take that downtown apartment downtown on John Street.
Post 9/11:
I've heard that 300,000 people have left NYC post 9/11 for whatever reason. To put it in perspective, that's the population of a medium sized city like my hometown of Buffalo, NY. And now I am one of those people, but not by choice. In the post 9/11, Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia era many people have fallen on hard times. Those of us in advertising/marketing/interactive arenas took a big hit. When the economy gets bad, the first thing companies do is lay off people and cut the marketing budget. The CEO of my firm sold the company, lost clients, and laid off people, including me. Ouch, now I'm a statistic.
Manhattan became my savior, muse and lover. The experience has enriched me beyond words.. My priorities have changed and I now realize that the greatest thing God ever created is a new day.
Collection
Citation
“story1220.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 18, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/14025.