email33.xml
Title
email33.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
email
Date Entered
2002-02-28
September 11 Email: Body
I thought I would share a few observations with you about being in NYC on Sept. 11, 2001,when terrorists crashed airplanes into the towers of the World Trade Center.
Nan and I live about 15 blocks north of the WTC and on Tuesday morning I got out early to vote and to take our car to the dealership for some maintenance. I voted in the primary as a Democrat but decided not to take the car in as I wanted to get some work done at my office uptown and the car is parked at Pier 40, the intersection of W. Houston St, the West Side Highway, and the Hudson River, in the opposite direction. So by 8 Am I was on the #1 train (the IRT local) up to Columbus Circle (59th and Broadway).
At my office I started to clear away some paperwork when my broker from New Jersey called me to give me his email address and apologized for not having time to chat because of the confusion at the WTC. Prudential Securities has offices there. I had no idea what he was talking about. When he told me that two planes had crashed into the WTC towers I suddenly understood a strange email that was on my computer when I got in. A fellow had posted to a list I'm on that we were under attack because the WTC had been bombed or something like that. I had discounted the post because while the fellow is pretty smart, sometimes he goes overboard and writes without thinking first. Besides the time/date stamp on the posting was for Sept 10.
After Mark the broker hung up I turned on my radio and finally got the NYTimes station. I ordinarily listen to NPR on our old city station which is now semi-public, but its transmitters must have been in one of the towers. I soon got caught up on things and went upstairs to the college cafeteria to see if the big-screen tv was on. It was and the room, the "Rathskeller," was about half full of students. There was one other faculty member there. We all watched as the towers collapsed and there were the expected ooohs and aaaahs as though we were watching a fireworks display. The students were quiet for the most part, some of the older ones mostly black and Hispanic, were indignant and concerned, the younger ones curious but seeming to have no place to "put" this event. The youngest were supercilious and stupid about the destruction. One of my students, an older woman, had just come in by train from Philadelphia and wondered how to get home. I urged her to get back to Penn Station before the shut the city down. She left.
By 12:30 the school was almost empty. A young white girl, Irish I think, was crying in the cafeteria and I comforted her for a moment. I went to my classroom to make sure no students were waiting for me (the university had formally closed). A Russian student was in the hallway looking bewildered. She wanted to know where her class was. I said classes were cancelled and she was perturbed. I could sense she had somehow missed the whole thing. I told her what was going on and she said she had come to school early and had been in the library all morning. She still seemed more inconvenienced than concerned.
I walked home from 59th street, down 10th Avenue, against the steady stream of people walking home from the financial district north to the upper west side, Morningside Heights and Harlem, Washington Heights and the Bronx beyond that. From street level no indication of the attacks of the morning were evident. Faces were serious, thoughtful, not distressed. A woman walked along with me when she saw I had a small radio. (A year or so ago Bloomberg News had sent out little radios permanently tuned to its station as a promotion and I had kept mine in my desk. I took it with me as I left the office.) But I hadn't much news to share and she stopped off to pray at a church around 32nd Street. She said she would pray for my safety. At that point I still could not see any evidence in the sky of the attacks. Around 29th street I ran into a colleague on her bicycle, heading north to the college. She had heard a rumor that the NYU med school hospital had been bombed--where her husband is on staff. She had rushed out and left matters at the college undone--so she was going back to close out there emotionally. The NYU report had been a hoax.
More in the next post
Chris
jon-christian suggs
english
city university of new york
212.237.8575
jcsjj@sprintmail.com
Nan and I live about 15 blocks north of the WTC and on Tuesday morning I got out early to vote and to take our car to the dealership for some maintenance. I voted in the primary as a Democrat but decided not to take the car in as I wanted to get some work done at my office uptown and the car is parked at Pier 40, the intersection of W. Houston St, the West Side Highway, and the Hudson River, in the opposite direction. So by 8 Am I was on the #1 train (the IRT local) up to Columbus Circle (59th and Broadway).
At my office I started to clear away some paperwork when my broker from New Jersey called me to give me his email address and apologized for not having time to chat because of the confusion at the WTC. Prudential Securities has offices there. I had no idea what he was talking about. When he told me that two planes had crashed into the WTC towers I suddenly understood a strange email that was on my computer when I got in. A fellow had posted to a list I'm on that we were under attack because the WTC had been bombed or something like that. I had discounted the post because while the fellow is pretty smart, sometimes he goes overboard and writes without thinking first. Besides the time/date stamp on the posting was for Sept 10.
After Mark the broker hung up I turned on my radio and finally got the NYTimes station. I ordinarily listen to NPR on our old city station which is now semi-public, but its transmitters must have been in one of the towers. I soon got caught up on things and went upstairs to the college cafeteria to see if the big-screen tv was on. It was and the room, the "Rathskeller," was about half full of students. There was one other faculty member there. We all watched as the towers collapsed and there were the expected ooohs and aaaahs as though we were watching a fireworks display. The students were quiet for the most part, some of the older ones mostly black and Hispanic, were indignant and concerned, the younger ones curious but seeming to have no place to "put" this event. The youngest were supercilious and stupid about the destruction. One of my students, an older woman, had just come in by train from Philadelphia and wondered how to get home. I urged her to get back to Penn Station before the shut the city down. She left.
By 12:30 the school was almost empty. A young white girl, Irish I think, was crying in the cafeteria and I comforted her for a moment. I went to my classroom to make sure no students were waiting for me (the university had formally closed). A Russian student was in the hallway looking bewildered. She wanted to know where her class was. I said classes were cancelled and she was perturbed. I could sense she had somehow missed the whole thing. I told her what was going on and she said she had come to school early and had been in the library all morning. She still seemed more inconvenienced than concerned.
I walked home from 59th street, down 10th Avenue, against the steady stream of people walking home from the financial district north to the upper west side, Morningside Heights and Harlem, Washington Heights and the Bronx beyond that. From street level no indication of the attacks of the morning were evident. Faces were serious, thoughtful, not distressed. A woman walked along with me when she saw I had a small radio. (A year or so ago Bloomberg News had sent out little radios permanently tuned to its station as a promotion and I had kept mine in my desk. I took it with me as I left the office.) But I hadn't much news to share and she stopped off to pray at a church around 32nd Street. She said she would pray for my safety. At that point I still could not see any evidence in the sky of the attacks. Around 29th street I ran into a colleague on her bicycle, heading north to the college. She had heard a rumor that the NYU med school hospital had been bombed--where her husband is on staff. She had rushed out and left matters at the college undone--so she was going back to close out there emotionally. The NYU report had been a hoax.
More in the next post
Chris
jon-christian suggs
english
city university of new york
212.237.8575
jcsjj@sprintmail.com
September 11 Email: Date
9/12/2001 4:02 pm
September 11 Email: Subject
recent events
Collection
Citation
“email33.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 2, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/38649.