story960.xml

story960.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-02

It must have been about 9:05am when the subway doors on the #2 opened at the Wall St stop. As soon as they opened, I knew something was wrong. A few people waiting on the platform anxiously pushed their way into the train before we were out, one of them saying something about a fire. I went upstairs to the lobby of my building and smelled smoke, an acrid, burning chemical smell.

I saw a ticker-tape parade of papers fluttering down into Chase Manhattan Plaza. Instead of the usual bustling of business people trying to get to work at that time, I saw groups of people congregating and talking. I saw a few office-mates, and first heard about the airplane or missile that hit one, no two, of the World Trade Center towers. We walked outside to see it, and then I walked even closer, to the corner of Broadway and Cedar at Liberty Park. From there, I had an unobstructed view of the two looming towers, ablaze, and smoking like enormous two road flares. Realizing that this crowd of thousands would not be the best place to be in a stampede, I went back to Chase Plaza, where I saw that the building's management was not allowing people upstairs. I took the escalator downstairs to the employee cafeteria, got some OJ and some change for a payphone (the cellphones didn't work that day). In the employee lounge, I called my wife, and saw the next events unfold on CNN: the President's speech, and the Pentagon crash. I thought it best at that point to calmly make my way home, avoiding crowds and panic as I did. I went to the ATM, took out $500.

I went upstairs to the lobby and saw that they were now letting people upstairs to their offices, so I thought I would take the elevator up to my office on the 58th floor to see what was going on and then quickly leave. I got to my desk, logged onto my computer, turned to CNN, and saw the North Tower fall. The few co-workers that were in the office immediately got up and left. I thought I would follow them down on my own. Stupid, I guess, but I really didn't want to get caught up in a crowd of fleeing, panicky people. I waited about 2 minutes, and was going to come down, but the building's fire safety warden came on the PA to advise us inside to stay put, because the air was bad in the lobby. We were assured that we were better off where we were than in the crowded, smoky lobby. I waited for about 2 more minutes, and decided to take the emergency stairs down anyway. I opened the emergency exit door and found thick smoke wafting up the fire staircase. I imagined myself choking on the fumes halfway down the 58 story descent, so I remained in my office.

Outside, more than 700 ft above street level, was a swirling, ink-black maelstrom of sooty smoke, papers slapping up against my floor-to-ceiling windows and disappearing into the whorl. I calculated the odds of a third jet crashing into my building, the next tallest in lower Manhattan. I decided that I was reasonably secure.

I waited, trying to remain calm, while I was assured repeatedly over the PA that I was safe. I was fine until about 10:45 the PA voice told us to lie on the floor if the air was bad. I thought that if the air was bad anywhere in the building, it would be way up top, where I was. So that's when I became nervous, wondering if I had made the right choice to stay put earlier.

At 11:00 am, they evacuated my floor. I took the now-operating elevator down, and walked miles north to Penn Station. I walked across Liberty St, where the smoke was still barrelling down the windy street. I trudged through inches-thick soot, coating my shoes and cuffs with the pulverized soot-snow as I did. I made it to Chinatown, my first stop northward, to buy a pack of cigarettes. I don't smoke cigarettes, but I did that day.

I hesitate to dramatize this personal account. I know that thousands of others suffered excrutiating moments of terror. For me, it was a case of "far away enough for safety, way too close for comfort."