email368.xml

email368.xml

born-digital

email

unknown

yes

2002-08-19

225 rector place is a about a 25 story apartment
complex. Brek's apartment is on the northeast corner
of the 16th floor. the building is across west st.,
and 2 blocks south of the south tower of the trade
center. from her windows, you could see from bottom
to top of most of the south and west faces of both
towers. there are no tall buildings obstructing the
view. i woke up on sept 11 to the disgusting sound of
the first plane crashing into the north tower. i was
alone in the apartment. i got out of bed and could not
figure out what had made the blast. a small bomb was
my best guess. it was curious though, and completely
revolting, that body parts were strewn for several
blocks along west st. a man came and draped white
cloths over them. the fire in the north tower
intensified and soon i could see people clinging to
windows near the fire. some began to jump, i supposed
to escape the heat. they tumbled a long time. the
sound and sight of their landing still
>lingers in my mind. they exploded like sacks of
flour. then, out of the windows facing east, i saw
what looked to me like a small plane fly in slow
motion and slam into the southeast corner of the south
tower. i cannot now recall what sound that made. i
did not think it was a passenger jet. i remember,
though, muttering to myself, "what the fuck is going
on." i went into Brek's bedroom and turned on the TV.
they were already calling it a terrorist attack, and
i then learned that the cause of the first explosion
that had awoken me was also a plane. it had crashed
into the north tower. the fires in each tower were
most intense on the sides opposite where the planes
had crashed. i could plainly see the body of the
second plane lodged within several floors of the south
tower. never did it cross my mind that the towers
might collapse. it was a beautifully cool day, and
people were standing all around the sidewalks beneath
me. dozens of fireengines, police cars and trucks,
and other city and government vehicles were now
amassing on both sides of west st. they were driving
right over the body parts which had been draped with
white cloth. i was still in my bedclothes and
although i still thought i was safest in the building,
i decided i should put some real clothes on. i went
into my bedroom (brek and rob's office) and began to
put on my pants. at that moment, i heard the loudest
sound yet, although the specifics of that sound now
escape me. i went into the living room and saw the
top of the south tower buckling like a house of cards.
this is where everything gets fuzzy. i remember i saw
a cloud of debris, including steel beams hurtling at
the windows i was looking from. i ran behind the
kitchen wall at first but then realized that while it
was protected from the south windows, i was still
exposed to her windows which faced east. then i went
into her windowless bathroom and shut the door. the
whole building shook like an earthquake and i heard
debris crash through her windows. the bathroom door
rattled. i have no idea how long i stayed in the
bathroom. probably just a minute or so. i cracked
the door at some point and saw that the apartment was
filled with this foul smelling orange-grey dust. the
furinture was just spots of darkness. i shut the door
again and realized that i needed to find 4 things:
shoes, keys, wallet and phone. i held my breath, and
opened the bathroom door. i could not see anything.
i walked by memory, i guess, into my room and felt for
the items i needed. i managed to grab my shoes,
wallet and keys. i could not, however find my phone,
and after a few seconds of feeling around, and running
short of air,I ran out of her apartment. in the 16th
floor hallway a woman was moaning out of fear. i put
on my shoes and said, "holy shit, holy shit." i told
her we needed to take the stairs to the bottom of the
building. i think she was comforted by this idea,
because she stopped moaning. we went down several
flights, stopping on several floors to see what
everyone else was doing. they were confused. some
followed us down the stairs. some went back into
their apartments. the east staircase became too thick
with dust around the 7th floor, so we swithced over to
the west staircase which for some reason did not have
as much orange-grey ash in the air. at the bottom of
the stairs we saw the doorman-- he was a welcome
sight! he had a towel over his nose and mouth and was
stooped over. he said, "go to the river, go to the
river." we started south, toward the river, and away
from the wtc. after a block or so, the ash was still
very heavy in the air. it was hard to breathe. the
ash was collecting in my throat. i think a doorman
from another building yelled at us to come into his
building, because somehow we were then in the lobby of
another building. the air was much cleaner there.
some people had no shoes. some people were saying,"we
are all going to die." the few men who appeared to be
trying to take charge were not making much sense.
they were contsruction workers mostly, and they seemed
very determined. but they weren't doing anything but
talking and walking in and out of the building. the
doorman of that building was calm and collected. he
told everyone to stay away from the windows and to get
to the south end of the building. we did. we heard a
giant rumble and knew the north tower had just
collapsed. we could see the streets get clouded over
again (they had cleared briefly). the electricity
went out. another man invited a few of us into his
ground floor apartment. it was in the south west
corner of the building. his name was bruce. an asian
woman named judy (who had a radio), a young irishman
named sam and a middle eastern man, and i all sat
around bruce's table and were quiet. we talked some
but were mostly quiet. i was trying to figure out how
and why the towers collapsed. i still could not
believe that the planes alone could bring them down.
the middle eastern man calmly explained that the jet
fuel would burn hot and weaken the steel beams and
once one floor collapsed, it would set off a clean and
efficient dominoe effect. this did not make sense, at
the time to me. i do not remember the name of this
man. after perhaps an hour the ash had mostly settled.
i could see blue sky out of his windows. it looked
outside like a grey blizzard had hit and dropped
thousands of pieces of paper along with it. i asked
bruce what he thought i should do. he said he didn't
know. he said i could stay there as long as i needed
to. i decided i should go look for brek. somehow i
thought she would be coming back to her apartment. i
walked outside and back north to her building. while
it was fairly clear on the ground, it was still very
cloudy up 16 stories. i stood in the ashy street for
several minutes thinking about what i should do. then
i saw a blue and white city bus which was full of
preschoolers being driven from the scene.
>they opened the doors and told me to get in. the bus
driver had a bland _expression on his face when i asked
him where they were going. he was sweating. a large
man dressed in black with a ponytail was running the
show. he told the bus driver where to go and when to
stop. we drove very slowly. i was standing in the
back of the bus. all of the kids were crying, but
they were all being held by an adult. a woman was
talking on her cell to her brother in texas and asked
if i wanted him to call anyone. i got on the phone
and gave him my parents # and said to call them and
tell them taht sam was ok. he did. the bus let us
off at the southern end of manhattan at battery park
where many firefighters were resting. i was given a
dust mask and i put it on. the preshoolers went to
get on a ferry that they said was headed for new
jersey. this sounded like a bad idea to me. i
wandered in circles for half and hour or so wondering
what to to do. i used a construction workers phone to
call berkeley. i left a message. he offered me some
mcdonalds breakfast. he had a giant bag of egg
mcmuffins. i said no thanks. the vendors in the area
were giving away free sodas to everyone. they had
parked there chrome vendors together and were now
walking away from the area together. then i asked him
how i could walk to brooklyn to my new room (thank god
i had it, and my keys to get in). he said to walk
across the brooklyn bridge. that made sense to me. i
started east when i heard a tugboat calling out,
"atlantic avenue in brooklyn, the miriam moran is
headed for brooklyn." he kept calling this out over
his speaker. i ran to it. he called out, again over
his speaker, "don't run, we ain't leavin yet." i
walked to it and got on. i was so thankful and
finally relieved. i used another man's cell phone to
try to contact Brek. it didn't work. the tugboat
waited for about 20 minutes. very few people got on.
so we left for atlantic avenue in brooklyn. i had a
vague idea where this was. i felt safer the further i
got from manhattan. it was a short ride. i was
disappointed. i started to walk towards the tall
clocktower builing in brooklyn which i knew was kind
of close to my apartment. i walked a long time. i
rested for a few minutes in a church and used their
bathroom and their phone. they saw the ash in my hair
and on my clothes and asked about my story. i can't
remember what i told them. i kept walking and got
hungry. i stopped in at a pita place, but quickly
walked out when i heard them speaking in a middle
eastern language. after asking for directions twice
and using two more pay phones, i arrived back at my
room and lay down on my bed. i talked to my roomates
and used their phones.

Mon, 17 Sep 2001 16:39:08 -0700

** a story **