story9525.xml

story9525.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-09-09

Manhattan is still my spiritual home even after 10 years of living in California,so i was thrilled to be working there in September, always one of the best times to be walking around the city. I was scheduled to be there a few days then fly to Lebanon for a conference. Because i was staying in a tacky, old hotel with vintage wiring (on 14th street), while getting dressed that morning i was almost afraid to plug in the hair drier and turn on the tv at the same time. The phone rang at 9am and my housemate from Berkeley screamed at me, "You aren't flying anywhere--some plane just went into the World Trade Center." Knowing it was 6am for her and that she was prone to getting her information from talk radio,i thought about the King Kong film and said something about a bi-plane and over-reactions. But i did as told and turned on Peter Jennings who i thought had an odd startled look about him. By that time, the fires were evident in the first tower and then the tv screen showed another explosion in the second tower. i can't remember exactly what the newscasters were saying but i remember thinking since when does ABC get its information from people in the street interviews. All of a sudden i felt an urgency to get out of the hotel and get to my office on Broadway and 21st where there were people i knew--some peculiar definition of safety?
Walking east on 16th or 17th street, i noticed something very strange for New Yorkers--we were walking more warily instead of pellmell forward and looking each other in the eye. (Normally, New Yorkers won't lock eyes with a stranger as it invites contact which might slow the pace!)Something was very different...and ominous. At 5th avenue i noticed a clot of people, maybe 50-70 standing still and staring south. Noticing a nearby news van with a blaring commentary, i figured here i would get some information and joined them. We watched, some yelling or cursing and some silently, as a huge black cloud buried one of the towers and when it cleared, we could see it wasn't there anymore. At that point, i felt cold fear and headed off again for the office, trying not to be paranoid about the fact that would bring me nearer to the now tallest building in New York, the Empire State Building.
Finally reached our small office of four people,where we all compared notes. It was hard to decide whether to scatter to respective homes or stay together where our friends and families could reach us. We opted to stay until the situation became more clear and we had concrete information about what was going on. In addition to the hard information from the radio,internet and Spanish tv (other stations were out from that part of Manhattan)about the plane hitting the Pentagon, the closing of the NYC bridges and tunnels and the national air space, we also heard lots of rumors from the surrounding offices, such as that NYU had been bombed and the Brooklyn Bridge would be next and that the city would be evacuated. We heard there were still 4 planes unaccounted for and no one wanted to go anywhere until we knew where those planes were. However, by 11am or maybe noon, we started hearing regular bulletins from the hero of the day,Mayor Guliani. Nobody knew where Bush was, but we all could see Rudy was in charge and had decided to tell us whatever truths he knew, hour by hour. Finally by day's end, my office workers had heard from their relatives who worked in the World Trade area and we had talked to colleagues who worked in the Pentagon. My Pennsylvania relatives were still bewildered by the plane that had gone down outside Pittsburgh...all of us unable to to put that piece of the puzzle together with the New York and DC events.
It was time to disperse and half went to find trains or buses running to Long Island, while my boss and i walked downtown to give blood at St. Vincents. We were still under the illusion there would be huge numbers of injured survivors. The hospital was cordoned off with tons of emergency vehicles, police cars and lots of uniformed people, but we were politely told there were hundreds ahead of us to give blood and it wasn't needed at the moment. We noticed the first of what would soon be dozens of spontaneous gathering spots where people were posting "missing" signs of spouses, relatives and friends.
New Yorkers were not panicking, not the ones i saw that day, anyway. They were helping each other onto buses, talking, comparing notes, walking miles home, sharing cell phones if they worked. Witnessing that spirit and knowing Rudy was more than rising to the occasion were the only positive aspects of that day from hell.
Back at my funky little hotel, i watched one tv network after another, trying to piece together the day's chronology as it was all mixed up in my mind. On the phone, it was hard for me to curtail comments while my California friends agonized about whether or not to use the Bay or Golden Gate bridges to get home--hadn't they figured out yet they weren't part of this particular scenario? (One of them insisted, "But the planes were originally coming here, that must mean something." yeah, more fuel, fool)
Later, after od'ing on the television's repetitive images around midnight, i heard and felt some huge rumblings below me. My California nerves said "earthquake,run" but my New York legs took me to the window. There,lining up for some macabre assignment i didn't even want to imagine, was a maginot line of supersized dump trucks, backed up on 14th street. They were about to embark for what we would soon call "Ground Zero."
That was my September 11. For the first time in 25 years of international travel, i did not have the guts to get on a plane, particularly one headed for the Middle East, so never did take that trip to Lebanon. Ultimately, i was glad though to be in and with my city in what seems to have been its darkest day.