story9514.xml
Title
story9514.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2003-09-09
911DA Story: Story
My father and I were British tourists staying in the Pennsylvania Hotel 34th/7th.
We walked out of hotel and saw a blacked out police car (looking a little like K.I.T.T from Knight Rider) driving down 7th through the traffic. It was 09:15ish.
We walked across and in to Penn Station where we were promptly told over the tanoy to make our exit in an orderly fashion - Being British we were used to bomb scares and thought little of it. Out in to the sunshine to awaiting reporters.
Confusion and no explanation as to what was going on. We walked as far as 14th street (we had been planning to go to the Statue of Liberty) when we started to meet people walking back and noticed the smoke (although my father felt it looked like a cloud - he'd seen on the news that a storm was heading up the coast).
People were crowded round shops with TV's and we started to pick up on news that there was a fire in the WTC - We had been up tower 2 on the 9th.
We walked back to the hotel and waiting in the queue to phone home. We gave up because we could get through.
We spent the rest of the day up town - most of it outside the Lincoln Centre. Watching fire engines stream past and wondering whether anyone back home knew what was going on.
We eventually got back to Heathrow on September 19th - we had been due back on the 13th.
We both feel immensely attached to NY.
We walked out of hotel and saw a blacked out police car (looking a little like K.I.T.T from Knight Rider) driving down 7th through the traffic. It was 09:15ish.
We walked across and in to Penn Station where we were promptly told over the tanoy to make our exit in an orderly fashion - Being British we were used to bomb scares and thought little of it. Out in to the sunshine to awaiting reporters.
Confusion and no explanation as to what was going on. We walked as far as 14th street (we had been planning to go to the Statue of Liberty) when we started to meet people walking back and noticed the smoke (although my father felt it looked like a cloud - he'd seen on the news that a storm was heading up the coast).
People were crowded round shops with TV's and we started to pick up on news that there was a fire in the WTC - We had been up tower 2 on the 9th.
We walked back to the hotel and waiting in the queue to phone home. We gave up because we could get through.
We spent the rest of the day up town - most of it outside the Lincoln Centre. Watching fire engines stream past and wondering whether anyone back home knew what was going on.
We eventually got back to Heathrow on September 19th - we had been due back on the 13th.
We both feel immensely attached to NY.
Collection
Citation
“story9514.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 6, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/18519.