email655.xml

email655.xml

born-digital

email

unknown

yes

2002-09-05

Thanks for the check in. I was thinking of you a few
weeks ago when I visited Florida for the first time
since I left in 1995. Only caight the Fox newscast,
didn't recognize anybody. Clematis St has tripled its
size and there's this outragouges shopping plaza where
there used to be shacks. Always been curious to your whereabouts and if
the dot com collpase hasn't hit you
too hard. Anyway...

It was fucking unbelievable. As I got up in the
morning all I heard was sirens-I live in Gramercy Park
which is like 50 blocks from the WTC. That I'm used
to because I live across from a Police Station. I
turned on the TV just when the second plane hit. I
was stunned. I didn't know what to do so I walked
uptown to go to work. Yes, it was horrible, but after
the bombing of the Trade Center in '93 I assumed that
nothing to could destroy them. My path led me to a
spectacular view of the wreckage on 23rd and 5th.
Both towers were up in smoke. A camera crew asked to
bother my headsets which I forgot were on my head.
They couldn't get the mike to work and they wanted to
check audio. That was when the first one collapsed.
People starting screaming. It was truly stunning
because it didn't seem real. "You sure it fell?" It
seemed to just vanish, as if it was standing then
decided to take a seat. People were screaming,
crying. Even though I saw it, the only way I knew it
truly happened was that you could hear the radio
reports from all the cars that stopped. It was truly
a hopeless feeling. People were crying all around me.

I took out a couple hundred dollars, got some people
out of work-these are "industry" people-so they think
there indestrutable. I told them I was heading back
home and that Gramercy Park was a whole lot safer than
Times Square(which is where I work lgging in tapes for
a few cable networks-truly a sucky job). The long
walk home with a few people that followed me was
surreal. The scarriest thing was seeing this guy,
totally covered in dust, just walking down the street
like a zombie. Everyone was scarred. No one's phone
was working. We kept hearing that there was more
planes headed to New York. Everyone time you heard a
plane you prayed for the best. Luckily they were
always military jets.

I fortunately know no one personally who's been
affected and I hope you're in the same boat. We do
have this couple staying with us now who lived down
there, but they're okay, it's mainly that the city is
shut down from below 14th street.

Well, the look of New York City is forever changed.
This is worse than Pearl Harbor-being that was a
military installation and that there was an easily
discernable enemy. What scares me most was those who
were on those hijacked planes and what will stop it
from happening again.

It was hard sleeping. Everytime I woke up I would
hear sirens. The emotion of it all hits me in waves.
Now, I'm seeing if there's anywhere around I can
donate blood but the problem is that they really don't
need it. The injured have slow down to a trickle.
The only thing that's next is to start counting the
dead and hopefully the few remaining survivors.



--- William Winter wrote:
> Scott,
>
> Wondering if you are in NYC and okay.
> Drop me a line or call if you still check this email
> address.
>
> William
> 650-xxx-xxxx

Wednesday, September 12, 2001 3:48 PM

Re: You okay?