email293.xml

email293.xml

born-digital

email

unknown

yes

2002-08-19

Dear Susan- I don't think Raman would mind if I shared this
story of his odyssey on Tuesday with you and Scott.Love, Maggie

-------- Original Message --------
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 17:30:06 -0400
From: niloufer moochhala <nymrp@bellatlantic.net>
To: maggie-swanson@home.com

some hastily typed (unedited) notes from yesterday (no gore)

-raman

===============================================

~9:20
I'm standing on the East Broadway subway platform waiting for a
train to work. Above me is Chinatown where I just volunteered to
help in an exit poll of asian american voters. When the first boom!
came i stood in the vestibule of an elementary school helping a woman
fill out a survey while trying to dodge hundreds of children
streaming inside.

After the children vanished inside and the voters slowed to a
trickle, I joined a bunch of poll workers who were standing at the
corner looking up toward the side of the school. I looked for a kid
dangling from the 3 story school window. Then I shifted my gaze and
saw the top of the tower on fire, pieces of the building pried open.
Smoke billowed and papers fluttered out.

I watched for several minutes, called Nilou, and headed around the
block for the subway. As I walked out of view of the tower, the
second crash came. I joined dozens of people gathered close to the
subway entrance. A woman, who had stopped her car, began yelling.
she had quit working at the WTC a month earlier. she thought her
friends were in there. "they start working at 7, at 7am! that
building's full! we don't need this! we have so many race problems
and everything else and now this! why do this?!" Both towers flamed
away. i called nilou again. People had begun to group on every
street corner.

I headed into the subway tunnel. the day before i read half of
"Underground", a book containing narratives from survivors of the
Tokyo nerve gas (sarin) attack. on the subway, i started talking to
a guy who said a plane, a Boeing had slammed into the towers. i had
heard about a plane on the street but i didn't believe it was
something that big. thinking about the plane, standing in the crowed
subway, and the Tokyo sarin attack book in my bag un-nerved me. I
headed above ground at the next stop--West 4th st. i was on 6th
avenue, the avenue of americas. ~100 people stood on each corner
staring at the burning towers. Wanting to see someone familiar i
began heading uptown towards work--seemingly the only one walking in
that direction. a delivery truck had stopped, the driver sat with
his leg hanging out the door and the radio on full volume. people
crowded around to hear the news. As the announcer confirmed the
plane crashes, we watched the towers. I kept walking. on every
block, a car or truck had stopped and people crowded around to hear
the radio.

reports kept coming: ". . . the pentagon was on fire . . ."

" . . . another high jacked plane is up in the air . . . "

I had left home at 6:30 for the exit polling. my wallet was empty.
i went to the atm machine
and then grabbed a water at a deli. everyone with a cell phone or a
camera was using it. a man sat perched high on a moving fan, filming
away. the van's driver stood on the sidewalk, arms folded over his
chest.

i kept stopping for radio updates: " . . . america under attack . . ."

". . . the latest report, here from the WTC---" the announcers
voice went dead. static. all of us gathered around that car radio
looked at each other and then looked up. we couldn't see the tower
anymore.

a messy-haired, red-eyed guy in a van had stopped. No one had
gathered around his blaring news radio. his tongue was hanging out of
his mouth and he smiled like a madman. "it's burning! it's burning!
Haha!! ha ha! tower's gone! tower's gone! HA! HA!." With a final
cry, he drove away.

usually vehicles and pedstrians crossing the morning streets in
synchronized haste. the last line of cars always speed through the
traffic lights after they turn red. pedestrians rush across as the
Don't Walk sign stops blinking and the lights turn green. pants legs
get brushed by cars, people yell. no one gets hurt but tension's
high. this morning people paused, let others pass, acting civilly.

towards work, near times square, everyone on the sidewalk was looking
up toward the west (the WTC was south). they stared in half-shock.
i followed their gaze but only saw a giant movie billboard. what was
it? what was coming out of the sky? i sighed, it was only the news
tickertape going by. I walked faster.

i wanted to see some people from work and then get home. As I
entered the building, people were coming down in groups. i headed
up. about a dozen people were in the office. i called nilou again
and headed to a room where people gathered around the tv in disbelief.

As we watched the collapse for the second time, one co-worker kept
saying "It fell down! It fell down! All those people! Those
people!"

I stopped in the loo to splash some water on my face and waited for
the elevator back down. When I left I heard the co-worker still
talking to someone: "It fell down! It fell down!" I headed down
with another co-worker, we all to get out of the building. On the
street, my co-worker headed to a friend's apartment. by now, it
seemed that everyone in the city who had come to work was out in the
street.

subways had stopped. where before everyone was paused and staring,
now everyone decided they had to get home immediately. i thought it
might be a good idea to stop at the library or another building until
the crowds cleared up. by then the library on 42nd street had a big
closed sign. i decided to walk back to brooklyn. this was far from
ground-zero and far from Hester street in chinatown where i'd started
my morning. at the time, everyone with a cell phone was trying to
call and public pay phones were three deep with people waiting. most
people were on the move uptown or across toward grand central. i
walked to get home but also to shake off fatigue/numbness/disbelief.
i didn't want to freeze up so i kept moving. the following notes,
taken on the way back do not come together in a coherent way, but
neither did the day.

~10:45am, 45th and 5th Ave, near the new york public library, heading downtown

- two guys in suits, early thirties who made up part of the human
mass heading towards grand central: "I can't believe they just don't
clear out all the people. streets. They should declare martial law
so only emergency vehicles can get through. They should force
everyone inside . . ."

- Two shoe-shiners, perhaps in their early 40s, sitting on their high
seats just watching with dismay. One mumbles "Don't know how I gonna
get home tonight . . "

- Many people sit on the sunny steps outside of the library, watching
the foot traffic going by.

- A woman holding a radio to her ear, yelling the news to a crowd on
the corner. "Up to five planes have been highjacked! Three are down
and two are just floating around!" Some people looked up nervously
to the west, at the Empire State Building a few blocks away.

- "EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME!" Woman shoving her way through a crowded corner.

- "I'M STUCK IN THIS GOD FORSAKEN CITY!" sounded like an older woman
but was a teenager mimicking someone he'd just heard.

- Sirens continuously pierce the streets as ambulances shuttle back
and forth from hospitals to the downtown. the grids in the EMS
control rooms lighting up.

- a couple stops at a postcard rack on the street and picks over
pictures of the WTC.

11am+, heading down madison ave.

- walking downtown as everyone walks up. earlier walking up as
everyone walked down. reverse commute on bombing day.

- church bell on madison and 35th tolls and tolls and tolls . . .

- 33rd st, man in suit, covered in gray soot, haunted eyes staring
straight ahead, heading uptown. first person seen from the area.

- it's the city, you know there's some calculating real estate guy
in his office with his mind churning. hope they make the site into
a memorial.

- 28th st, Group of police on corner. Ask him about walking over
the brooklyn bridge. "Everything's locked up tight. All subways.
All bridges. There's no way to get in or out of Manhattan." Another
officer, slightly exasperated, answers a woman's train to westchester
question for the third time, "Ma'am, if I had a crystal ball. . ."
One policeman says to another that he's heard reports of people
jumping, jumping out of the World Trade Center.

- car going by, hear a snatch of radio broadcast " . . . large plane
crashed in Western PA . . ."

- stop for a while in Madison Square Park to eat breakfast which
forgot I had in my backpack. See awoman, not the first, with tears
streaming and make-up running. It's quiet. Not much traffic except
distant sirens. People from nearby bank trying to decided whether to
head uptown. Squirrels running around. They don't seem to care.

- a red ribbon is tied across a subway entrance. an MTA employee,
post at this entrance, combs his slicked back hair.

- after cop saying everything's locked up, decide to go to union
square, maybe stay at the barnes and noble for a few hours. it's
closed.

- four middle-aged, white sneakered tourists make their way up
Manhattan on rental bikes.

- someone says "Bush will get his missile shield, whatever he wants . . ."

- a man raises his voice: "This is war!"

- gates closed at the union square subway entrance. woman says, "how
am I going to walk home?" Her friend dares a joke: "You know how to
walk to the Bronx?"

- a policeman tells me that the Brooklyn bridge is open to
pedestrians. i buy a second bottle of water

- everyone on the street, everyone part of the city's fabric.

- walking down Lafayette. Seeing more people covered in ash, more
people wearing paper masks. Two traders, coats dusty, arguing. One
saying, "Will you have some sympathy." The other smirks.

- maybe its time to buy some defense industry stock. maybe there's
some old woman in Brooklyn heights happy for the clearer view.

- getting closer to the ash. during last phone call to nilou she
spoke to a friend who works in a the building next door. the friend
saw hands and limbs flying by.

- the fire station on Lafayette has piles of used coats on the floor.
about 40 men line up. all hands on deck.

- pass Spring St. an expensive bistro has a table, complete with
tablecloth set up outside. they are pouring water for the tired
people heading uptown.

- a man complains to his friend as his cell phone fails. "There's no
frequencies!" "That's because of this sh--- [you fool]"

- an exhausted, ash covered man holding a Fox 5 camera walks slowly
uptown, vacant eyes.

- Grand Street. "The smoke is getting thicker and thicker."

- More and more people walking up, over half wear masks.

- 12:21pm, reach Hester St, not far from where the day began at the
elementary school.

- Canal St (which runs across the width of Manhattan) is closed.
Police direct thousands of people toward the left, westward. The
streets are usually filled with vendors from fish to electronics.
everything's shut.

- people spread across the manhattan bridge, heading to brooklyn by
foot, a mass exodus. unmarked cars, sirens blazing on the dash board
continuously head toward the tower. five verizon trucks, the drivers
with faces as hardened as firemen, head toward the disaster.

- i turn, following a policeman's directions to gain access to the
Brooklyn bridge. i leave the crowd. two policeman in casual
clothes, field questions. they empathetically speak with a man who
cannot contact his mother. they directly me down the street, I can
see the bridge from where I am but no people walking across it.

- a hastily written sign in a restaurant window says "Close".

- Again, with thousands of others, I'm guided back toward the Manhattan bridge.

- I turn off to rest a minute. At an unpopulated block, I reach for
my toes to stretch the backs of my legs. From the corner of
Catherine and Henry I see thousands of people crossing the Manhattan.

- It's probably not worth going to vote in the primaries tonight.
They must have shut it down.

- A woman, covered in soot, pauses at a corner to open her satchel,
perhaps to find something to wiper her face. When she opens it, ash
billows outwards.

- On a side street, a man complains about the lone food vendor:
"Jesus Christ! What is he talking? Thailand?!"

- Joining the crowd: "When tower 1 went down I was . . ."
"canyoubelieveit? canyoubelieveit?" I keep moving, there's no
frame of reference. movies? tom clancy books?

- "This is a freakin' movie!"

- Everyone still trying to call someone.

- Amateur videographer, getting that last shot with a small,
expensive camera. maybe the first time he used it. the building's
already down, there's no purpose of filming. voyeur.

- I stand on the three foot high concrete island between the
Manhattan bridge road and pedestrian walkway, gauging the traffic on
each. The walkway appears to be less crowded. Another camera-man,
with a professional camera (or at least a huge camera), films the
exodus. glad he's getting these shots, not sure how i'd describe
this scene to my mom.

- a man, in complete running gear, jogs over the bridge, toward
manhattan. why this route? with the sweatband around his head and
everything.

- toward the right, we all look toward the brown water beneath the
brooklyn bridge. at least 14 official looking boats wait, pointed
toward the disaster. i've walked over the brooklyn bridge dozens of
times, but never the manhattan. the buildings to the right here look
older, blacker from dirt. a woman stands on the roof of an apartment
building. another building blocks her view to the tower area. but
she's facing the water. she never moves. not once.

- a man stops to fill a cup of water on the ground, so someone's dog may drink.

- the walking path is divided in half. one side for bikes another
for people. today it's all people, all heading to brooklyn. a
screaming bunch of riders approach from the rear, telling people to
move aside. punks. shouts go up. "Fuck you!" "Fuck you!" from
the riders and the walkers.

- two guys ahead have been walking a bike with no brakes. they jump
on and decide to see how far they get, coasting down the bridge.

- red, white, and blue flying over the brooklyn bridge, black clouds behind.

- reach the other side. see guys on brakeless bike resting,
laughing. "we hit the railing like 4 times"

- head toward home, past the brooklyn bridge foot path, near the courts.

- lines of ambulances ready to roll. a trailer containing a mobile
hospital. water flowing down the side of the street

- all hands needed. see 12 nyc court officers, with cuffs and vests,
walking down tillary, away from their regular buildings.

- the new court house under construction rises up, blocking the view
of where the WTC should be

- an ambulance screams off.

- see the cause of the flowing water, an open hydrant

- sign at the corner: "Give Blood! People are Dying! 121 Lawrence
Street . . ."

- court building. office water coolers and tables dragged outside.
cups of water ready.

- 1:40pm sign in front of hotel: "1st Aid 2nd Floor of the Mariott".
waiters, in uniform, have brought out a table and filled all water
pitchers. but not many people outside.

- A group of office colleagues wearing white baseball caps left over
from a promotion, walk slowly down the street, happy to have made it
across, planning routes home. "First, we'll drop Brenda off on the
'A' train . . ."

- "There is a bus running between . . ." An officer offers directions.

- Outside the Metropolitan Transit Authority office, two operations
trucks, resembling beefed up armored cars, shield the corner of the
block--the only possible route to suicidally drive through the
building. Armed MTA employees stand on the corner.

- Not in the office. Nightmare holiday.

- Huge MTA dump trucks and trailers make their way toward the bridges.

- Correctional officers stand outside the detention center. Squad
cars parked in front of entrances.

- 1:50, close to home. TV set up on the corner. don't bother to
stop but. "worst case scenario . . .multiplicty of planes . . .
multiplicity of targets . ."

- i've phoned ahead. meet Nilou as she walks down the street. we embrace.

9/12/01

Notes from yesterday