story2094.xml

story2094.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-10

I had been unable to sleep well the night of September 10, 2001, and had awakened several times during the early morning hours of September 11th, in my apartment on Park Avenue, between 57th and 58th Streets, right in the middle of Manhattan. I finally got a few hours sleep at about 5 a.m. but was awakened at 8:30 by a phone call. It was a quick call...and a few minutes later I turned on The Today Show, as I do every weekday morning. A few minutes later, I was jolted out of bed when they cut into the show to broadcast live video from the WTC, announcing that a plane had crashed into one of the towers.My first thought was that some poor guy in a small private plane from Teterboro Airport had had a heart attack and crashed into the tower...but the visual looked nothing like the damage a small plane could do. I remained glued to my Tv set for 3 hours. Upon seeing the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower live, I remember muttering ot myself, "It's terorism, and it's Bin Laden." A few minutes later, my father, a decorated WWII submarine pilot during WWII called to ask if I had my TV on. I said I did and that it was terrorism and Bin Laden. He told me to calm down until the facts were in. I replied that I did not need to---it was obvious to me what had just happened.

Outside my apartment building, I began hearing planes buzzing overhead, and then the endless stream of sirens blaring, as fire trucks and ambulances tore downtown as fast as they could go. Those sounds remain etched in my mind.

I think my heart not only broke, but just stopped.....it was unimaginable. I felt helpless, like so many people. I listened to every detail, and after about two hours of the news on TV, the horrific visuals, seeing the towers implode, and hearing the sirens and planes, I went outside to get a newspaper at the Four Seasons Hotel which is next door to my building. I hoped, by some slim chance, that this was all a bad dream. It was not.

As I stepped onto Park Avenue, I saw something I had never seen before, though I have lived in Manhattan for 28 years now. Park Avenue resembled a moving sidewalk of people---moving north, as fast as they could, six to eight across each sidewalk on both sides of the avenue; some wheeling luggage behind them, others trying desparately to get their cell phones to work. It seemed like the southern part of Manhattan was being evacuated, which, I found out later, it was. This was very real.

I walked towards the back entrance of the hotel, and noticed two European men, with a porter, leaving the hotel with a lot of luggage, headed for a car and driver. I heard them tell the porter they were going to JFK airport---their accents were British. I interrupted them as politely and calmly as I could and told them they should go back into their hotel and get their room back....to turn on their television, as the airports had been shut down and probably would remain shut for days....that our WTC towers had been attacked by two jets and had imploded to the ground in a heap of dust. They appeared stunned but appreciative and turned right around and went back into the FourSeasons.

I walked over to 58th and Madison, looked downtown, and saw the heavy, dark smoke, all the way from the southern tip of the city. It was too unreal, still. I walked over to Lexington Avenue, and at one point, waited for about 5 minutes as ambulances and one firetruck after another came barreling into the city from other boroughs, sirens blaring, moving as fast as those trucks could. I broke down in tears as they went by me--these amazing men, throwing themselves into harms way to help any and all of us out of this tragedy. They were always my heroes....I was just witnessing their bravery firsthand now....as I never had before.

I crossed a few blocks and went to give blood, only to find the line lengthy....and after an hour wait, told they had enough, and that we shouldleave and come back the next day.

I returned to my apartment and sat glued in front of my Tv that day, night and the next day. The following night I headed to Westchester County to my parents home. The only bright spot was that my dog, a smart West Highland White Terrier, with tremendous intuition, sat beside me watching endless hours of news. At one point, without any provocation, a picture of Osama Bin Laden came up on the screen.....and, for the first time in seven years since I got Duffy as a puppy, he lept off the couch and barked violently at the image. Even he knew evil when he saw it. He returned to the couch beside me and comforted me for the next few days.Two nights after the tragic attacks, the wind must have changed, for the odor I had smelled in the air in NYC had moved north into westchester from ground zero.

A few days later, I returned to the city, numb, quiet...and noticed not a car honked. People looked down on the street, on the subway.....no one talked, and no one smiled. Somber was the word. The city was in mourning.

I volunteered to work at Nino's down on Canal Street, near Ground Zero, serving meals to the uniformed service men and women...for days and nights. They were awesome....tireless, selfless, hard working and appreciative of any little thing we did for them---serving them food, getting them coffee, taking their plate away.....I adored these people, and that was the one good thing to happen to me during that time. If they only knew how much I got back from volunteering down there.....and they tried to tip me all the time!!!They told me to keep my ID tag from down there---they called it my "Stay out of jail" card---for life!! I thank everyone who helped get us through those days, from our tireless Mayor, to the firemen and policemen and women, the rescue dogs and workers, the hospital workers, all the many wonderful volunteers I met down at Ground Zero, and all the many people throughout the country who shipped food to us to serve these workers. It was touching, heartbreaking and heart-warming.

Out of the worst of humanity came the best of humanity......
and my heart goes out to the families of all the brave victims.....and to all those who,like so many of us, just got up and went to work that morning, trying to earn an honest living, only to be cut down in the prime of their lives--innocently and needlessly. All of us realised how easily it could have been any of us in those buildings. May they rest in peace. They will never be forgotten.