nmah5349.xml

nmah5349.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-12-29

Tuesday morning, September 11, I woke up early. I was in New York City job hunting. I was originally from the city, and was really looking forward to returning. I'd arrived just nine days earlier after completing a summer job at a theater company, and I'd been getting a little panicky about the search. I was planning on heading up to NYU, to pick up a job bulletin offered by the career services office. I was supposed to pick it up the day before on my way to a job interview, but had forgotten to bring some documentation. Oh well, I thought as I approached Greenwich Village, I'll pick it up tomorrow. At that point the skies opened up, and the rain came down in buckets. Fortunately, I made it to a CVS at Sheridan Square, where I purchased a small black umbrella, before my interview outfit got completely soaked. The newly acquired bumbershoot got me across the street to the Christopher Street 1 and 9 station, where I hopped on whichever arrived first, and headed to 66th Street.

My brother was living in Battery Park City, in a small, but very attractive apartment with a lot of windows overlooking in one direction, the Statue of Liberty, and in the other, the World Trade Center, that was so close, you had to go close to the window and look up. I had a habit of not closing the blinds on those beautiful windows, so the sun was shining in bright. It seemed the rain from the night before had created a beautiful crisp day.

My brother wasn't up yet, and since he had to go to work, I figured I'd lie in bed until he left, as to not to get in his way. I did quickly brush my teeth, and then laid back down on the open sofa bed, and turned on Good Day New York. The news was fairly dull that morning. The primary election was going on, and I wasn't registered to vote in Manhattan, so I wasn't too interested. As I flipped between channel five and the Today show, I realized that after a half an hour, I had a pretty good idea as to what was happening in New York City. A little after eight in the morning, I flipped on Northern Exposure, a show that I'd seen pretty much every episode of, but it was more entertaining than watching reporters standing outside of polling places.

My brother got up at some point during this time, and didn't seem to be leaving for work. He had found some bugs in his programming, that he was trying to fix. I meanwhile, was getting rather hungry. I was planning on going up to Greenwich Village that morning, thinking I would grab breakfast at the Bagel Buffet on 8th street, but since I was really feeling famished, I was now thinking that instead I may go to Pick A Bagel, which was down the block from the World Trade Center, which was only four blocks away from where we were.

I had just completed the debate in my head over where to have breakfast when Northern Exposure came back from it's final commercial break. That's when I heard a roar, like a plane engine, and a big BOOM. I sat up, and looked out the window. A flock of pigeons flew up like something had spooked them. I got off the sofa, and went into my brother's room. "What was that?" I asked, a little nervously. He shrugged his shoulders.

I went back into the living room, and looked south. What I heard sounded almost like a plane crash, and I figured with all that water out there, that's logically where it would have happened. As I gazed out of the fifteenth story window, I saw two people on a balcony looking the up at the other way in shock. I got scared that maybe there was an explosion in the building. That's when my brother came out of his bedroom, and had the bravery to look the other way. He gasped.

There was a big hole in one of the World Trade Center towers. Slowly, I could see a raging fire shooting out. I grabbed the remote control, and changed the channel to the Today Show. No news. I switched around a few times, until I got to Good Day New York again, which was about to switch to Breaking News. There it was, on TV and right in front of me live. I decided that the smart thing to do would be to get dressed. No time for that shower I was planning. I threw on jeans and a short sleeved shirt, put on my socks, considered my new boots, but opted for my Reeboks since I had a feeling that a lot of walking was in my future. I figured with the biggest building in New York on fire, we should probably get away from it for a while. My brother said he just saw "something" fall out of the building. He had a sick feeling it was a person. He was probably right. I grabbed the shoes out of the closet, grabbed my cell phone and purse, and sat down to put on and tie my sneakers.

That's when I heard it. That's when I saw it. The loudest jet engine roar you've ever heard. The engine was louder than the planes you hear when you're at the airport. My brother was still fixated at the window. As the Huge plane passed us, and hit the second tower, he ran behind the open sofa bed and ducked. In total shock I said, what was that? My brother said, That was a second plane. The TV screen turned blue as it lost reception.

Being on the fifteenth floor with a perfect view of the end of Manhattan, of where the plane had just come from, I felt like a target. These planes seemed to keep on coming. I didn't want to stay where I was. I had it in my mind that being lower would help. My brother thought we might be safer in the apartment then out on the street. He was thinking of scenes out of Pearl Harbor with planes coming and shooting and dropping bombs. I guess I won the argument; we left. Now that I think of it, I don't know which way we would have been better off. I took one fleeting look at my notebook computer, wondering if I should take it, not knowing when we would be returning. I decided it was too heavy to carry. We left the apartment, and locked the door. In the hallway was a woman in tears. We got into the elevator. We stopped on a lower floor, where a man got in and made a sarcastic remark about planes hitting the World Trade Center. Two more people got in, and didn't say anything. Everyone was in shock, and dealing with it in their own way.

The lobby was crowded, but we made our way outside, where the Battery Park City promenade was incredibly crowded. There were people everywhere heading south. Some people were in business suits, some were in casual wear; I even saw two maids from the Millennium Hilton, which was right next to the World Trade Center. Everyone was looking back in disbelief. My brother had decided we should go to his office, which normally would have been a straight walk east to Wall Street, but that day we walked all the way to Battery Park, to the very edge of Manhattan, before turning towards the east. A middle aged woman on a cell phone sank down on a bench yelling, "Joe! Joe! Call me! " She was in tears. Joe must have worked in the Twin Towers. As we rounded the Battery, a group of bystanders were staring in disbelief at the giant blazes. "Omigod!" I heard. "Omigod, he jumped!", said a tall, young, black man. He held up his fingers in a V shape as he watched the victim fall to his death. "Peace, my brother", he said. I couldn't look. I couldn't watch anymore death that day.

We finally reached Wall Street, which was completely littered with papers. My brother commented on how messy the street was that day, before we realized that these papers were from the World Trade Center. I looked down and saw a singed document marked "Confidential". We passed the New York Stock Exchange. That building made me nervous. It was certainly a target, and the office was just across the street and down the block from it. I tried to put that thought out of my mind. I looked down, and saw a pair of women's shoes. They were green sandals, and had been left behind by someone.

We entered the office building. We ran into one of my brother's colleagues, who looked freaked out like everyone else. I voiced my thoughts on why I was there. "I'm scared to be alone". I signed in, and went up to the ninth floor, where my brother's office was. The office was dark and empty. His company was located on two floors, we descended to the lower floor, where everyone was talking in small groups or watching one of the two giant televisions. NBC was playing on one of them, the other had CNN. We chose NBC by reason of location, and became glued to the action that was happening only blocks away.

One of the first people we saw standing around the office was a friend of my brother who didn't work for his company. He worked in the second tower of the World Trade Center. His office wasn't too far from the place of impact. When my brother watched that plane hit that building, he immediately thought of this friend. He was very happy to see he hadn't made it to work quite yet. That friend only wanted to talk about the football program which had been my brother's biggest priority about a half hour before. I suppose he didn't want to think about what could have happened, had he been early for work. Since I was in complete shock, and not particularly interested in football under the best of circumstances, I stayed watching the television.

The president spoke briefly, and the news anchor mentioned that the president was in Florida, which I found was an unnecessary comment. Planes were crashing into buildings. We don't need to tell anyone where our public officials are. The next thing I remember hearing was a plane went into the Pentagon. The world was ending. I felt that these planes were going to keep crashing, and there would be no end in sight. I That's when I remembered that my father was on a business trip in Washington. Now I was really scared. I was also adding a sense of dread to my already major sense of fear. I grabbed an orange juice from the company kitchen, and drank it rather quickly.

My cell phone went off. It informed me I had new voice mail, but I wasn't able to hear it, or dial out. I figured it was my mother, who was in Los Angeles. I hadn't tried calling her before, because I didn't want to wake her up with this awful news. I used one of the company's phones, and called Mom. I told her we were at the office, and we were both fine. I asked her if she had heard from Dad yet, but she hadn't. I asked her where he was staying, and it wasn't anywhere near Arlington, so I told her he was probably safe. We hung up in order to keep the lines clear on both ends. I went back to the television, which was showing the image of the plane hitting the second tower over and over again. I couldn't bear to watch the moment of impact. I felt like if I didn't look, it wasn't real. I didn't really happen. Unable to watch anymore, I walked over to my brother and his group of friends. He was sitting at a computer, showing the football program to his friends. They were talking about the Monday Night Football game the night before. I noticed one guy on a computer was using Instant Messenger to chat with people. I was tempted to ask him to send a message to one of my friends who I knew would be online, but I didn't.

The lights flickered, and there was a roar, as if another low flying plane was nearby. I looked towards the window, and coming towards me was a cloud of smoke, dust and fire. I thought that my earlier fears had emerged, and The New York Stock Exchange had been attacked.

A man in a shirt and tie yelled for everyone to get downstairs. A young woman in front of me as I turned around, screamed and ran towards the staircase. She was the only one really showing outward signs of panic.

We ran down the eight flights of stairs. I couldn't help but think how the countless fire drills I'd experienced in school seemed to help. My brother was two people behind me. Even as I ran down, I made sure to keep him in my sights. We reached the bottom, and smoke filled the stairwell. We were stopped by the building staff. The wouldn't let us out of the stairwell. I was standing next to my brother's good friend, and thinking, "This is it. This is the end of my life." I didn't want my life to end. I wanted to see what would happen next.

Finally we were let out of the stairwell, but told we were not to go outside. I still had no idea what was happening. Then finally someone said it. One of the towers had collapsed. The entire lobby was filled with smoke and dust, and outside it was black as night. My mouth filled with some kind of grime I could taste on my teeth. My mind filled with questions. Was it true? Were the Twin Towers really no longer twins? How did it fall? Did the top fall off like in disaster movies? Was the apartment all right? A man entered the lobby. He had been caught outside during the collapse. He was a black man, but the layer of dust on him had turned him grey, like a statue. The building manager brought him downstairs to wash up.

The building staff brought some water coolers into the lobby, and I helped myself to a cup of water, and fetched one for my brother. Soon, outside began to lighten up. We were told it was safe to go back upstairs.

I sat down again in front of the television, and thinking that they were showing earlier footage, I watched the tower fall down. No, that was live. The second tower was down. There was no more World Trade Center. My brother muttered, "Homeless".

The consensus of the group was that we were just as safe upstairs as down, so we stayed where we were as day turned into night once again outside. A couple of men started tearing up tee shirts and wetting them to make breathing easier.

I got over to a phone and called my mother again. She'd spoken to my father, he'd been in the Capital, which had been evacuated. He was now back at his hotel, and he mentioned seeing smoke from the Pentagon in the distance. She told me that one of my best friends who was in the midwest called to make sure I was okay. I then called another friend, who would probably be able to get in touch with some people who wouldn't have my mother's number. She was happy to hear from me.

Once the skies began to clear from black to grey, I quickly went to the bathroom, as I was nervous that something else would happen if I dared be unprepared even for a second. When I got out, the order had been made to evacuate lower Manhattan. My brother and I looked out the window. "Surreal", he said. It looked like the last days of Pompei, or the surface of the moon. A man was downstairs handing something out. For a moment we actually thought it was one of those guys handing out flyers for some business, but later figured out he was handing out breathing masks for people. We grabbed a piece of damp cloth each, and some orange juice to travel with, and were lead downstairs by the building manager.

It was really hard to breathe outside, and I clutched the wet rag to my mouth and nose. We were with a group of people all evacuating the surrounding buildings. We were directed to the FDR drive on the east side of Manhattan. My eyes were stinging, and my throat was getting tired of breathing this toxic air. All the parked cars were covered with a fine layer of dust, and we made foot prints as we walked. There were police officers directing pedestrian and car traffic. The only vehicles on the street that were moving were emergency vehicles heading downtown. When we reached the South Street Seaport, the air finally cleared. I looked back at the plume of smoke that was rising from where those beautiful buildings were supposed to be.

We walked all the way uptown on first avenue, until we got to the UN where we were directed further west. The walk was one of my most memorable in New York City walks ever. Everyone jumped and looked up when we all heard yet another defining loud roar, and we were all relieved to find out it was just a motorcycle. The nervous looking police cadets were on the street, since I'm sure they wanted to have every available person working. There were lines around the block at the hospitals with people donating blood. There were people standing on the street watching television through store windows, something I'd only seen in nostalgic movies. I suppose the strangest thing were the fighter jets flying high above.

We walked to Central Park. We purchased a transistor radio at a local store so we could keep up on the news. I called my mother again to let her know what was going on now. We spent the rest of the day picking up supplies before heading to my Aunt's home in Brooklyn, where we stayed for two nights, (the first one I slept about an hour and a half), before my father was able to rent a car in Washington D.C. and pick us up. We drove across country in four days, and settled at my parents house in Los Angeles.

My brother lost his job shortly after that horrible day, and hasn't been back to work since. I finally got on a plane after 14 months. I'm much more nervous, a little more prejudice, and much more aware of what's happening in the news.

I miss New York City greatly. I miss those buildings. I miss those people. A neighbor of mine from when I was a kid worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, and was murdered in that tower, along with so many others.

Everything. We shouldn't forget a single detail. It's hard to be prepared for the possible disasters that are coming our way, but we shouldn't get lazy. Remember everything, lest we repeat it.

No, I didn't fly a flag. I felt it would be a meaningless gesture for me at the time. I was very upset, and I'm very patriotic, so I didn't feel it was neccessary.