nmah5018.xml

nmah5018.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-16

I work right across the street from the World Trade Center, in the
World Financial Center. When you see the view of the site on TV, it's
the shiny building with the round dome on top that sits right next to
the Wintergarden. (The Wintergarden is the short, rounded glass atrium
with the palm trees in it).

The morning of 9/11, I left my house at about 7:30, and took the
Newark subway to Newark, and then the PATH train in to work. I was running a bit
late, and I arrived at the PATH station at right about 8:30 am. The PATH
station sat right about under the South Tower. I stopped off at my
favourite bagel place, Akbar's, which was in the PATH station, and then
came up through the mall and walked over to work. I walked through the
lobby of the North Tower (the first one hit) at right about 8:35 am ..
about 10 minutes before it got hit. I was at my desk by about 8:40 am.

I had just logged onto my computer when I heard a very loud banging, and I
felt the floor rumble a bit. I worked on the 34th floor, so we didn't get
any street noise. I did work fairly close to the freight elevator,
though, so I thought it was somebody rumbling carts through there.

Then an emergency email popped up from one of the news services, saying
that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Almost instantaneously, we
had an announcement over our building's loudspeaker system. The voice
said that there had been an emergency, and a plane had flown into one of
the World Trade Center towers. They said that we needed to stay in our
building, and should not leave (due to falling debris). The message also
said that the emergency did not effect our building, and we absolutely
should not attempt to leave.

So, I walked out of my office, and went to see what had happened. I
remember the first thing I saw as I rounded the corner was all sorts of
burning papers and debris swirling around the top of our building. We had
just had a ticker tape parade for the Yankees shortly before, and it
looked like that ... all sorts of paper and other things in the air ..
except this time, some of them were on fire.

I rounded the corner and walked to the windows overlooking the World Trade
Center. Our floor was very quiet, and I could hear a lot of people on the
phones, talking about the plane flying into the building in German and
English. There was quite a crowd already assembled at the windows,
watching the North Tower burn. You could tell that entire floors were on
fire, and the flames seemed to roll from bottom to top of each floor.
Huge chunks of burning debris were falling from the building, and I
watched them land on the roof of the Marriott Hotel below, and on cars
parked in the lot next to the Marriott.

At this moment, most of us seemed to think it was a small tourism plane
that had flown into the tower, and one of my coworkers commented angrily
that maybe now they would keep the planes further away. (We used to have
small planes and helicopters flying quite close to us all day long).
Another coworker and I quietly speculated on whether it might have been
deliberate, but we brushed it off as an accident. Still, on such a
bright, clear day, it was hard to see how someone could have accidentally
hit something as big as a WTC tower.

Since we couldn't leave, we sat there and watched the burning debris.
When a particularly large piece fell down, we pointed it out to each
other, and said "Look at that one!" There were pieces the size of cars
falling from the building, most of them on fire.

Then one of my coworkers gasped, and said, "Oh no .. that one is a
person!" I looked up, and I saw a man in a business suit go flying by the
window. I still remember that he had brown tassle loafers on, and the
tassles and his tie were floating upwards as he fell. He looked almost
like he was surfing ... one leg in front of the other, looking down as he
plummeted. He fell out of view behind the Marriott.

Then I looked more carefully, and I could see people clinging to the side
of the building, and I watched a few more fall or get blown out of the
building. The smoke was getting heavier at this point .. it was a huge
stream of black smoke that blew straight south, enveloping the top of the
other tower.

At about this moment, I heard the weirdest jet noise .. very high pitched
and fast, and it seemed to be coming from the south. It sounded like a
jet when it banks hard in one direction, but it also sounded very close.
I looked south, but I couldn't see anything but smoke. Then all of a
sudden, out of the smoke, I saw a United Airlines jet appear. I thought
my eyes were playing tricks on me, because it was so close that I could
see passengers at the windows. They looked terrified, and some of them
were pulling down their windowshades rather hastily.

Then it banked very hard, seemed to accelerate, and it ran into the tower.
When it hit the tower, I could see metal and other things flying .. I
think I saw a person or two fly out, too. (I was practically right across
the street from where the South Tower was hit, and it was just a few
stories above me). When the plane disappeared from view, there was a HUGE
fireball explosion .. it really lit up the whole sky. Someone on our
floor shouted that now the second tower had been hit, and someone else
shouted that we needed to get out of there. I started running and then I
figured that I couldn't outrun an airplane, so I slowed to a fast walk.

I went to my office and grabbed everything I could, and made sure our
vault was locked. First I headed to the elevators, where other people
were waiting. No elevators were coming, so I said that maybe we shouldn't
take the elevators and should take the stairs instead. We walked over to
the stairs and started going down.

It takes a LONG time to walk down 34 flights of stairs, even under the
best of circumstances. Everyone was quite quiet and orderly, and looked
scared. The first few flights were quite fast, but as we got further
down, more and more people joined us, and we had to stand and wait a lot.
We couldn't see anything in the concrete stairwell, so we had no idea what
was going on. At one point, the entire building shook, and we thought we
had been hit.

Still, nobody panicked, and a few people reminded everyone to stay calm
and collected and move in an orderly fashion. Building security was in
charge of the evacuation by this point, and they had the fire doors open
on some floors, and were urging people to leave. I tried looking past the
fire door on a few floors to see what was happening, but all I could see
was more burning debris flying by the windows. I tried my cell phone but
couldn't get reception, so I typed an email on it to my mother, telling
her I was okay.

Well, when we finally got to the bottom, they ushered us through the
lobby, and out the back escalators onto West Street. Once there, we were
kind of on our own. The police had all streets leading to the WTC
cordoned off, but we could stand there and see what was happening. On the
South Tower, I could see huge strips of metal (the exterior panels of the
building) hanging down, and a gaping hole where the plane had flown in.

I tried calling my mother on my cell phone, but got no reception. SO, I
tried sending her the email on it. There was one pay phone in our area,
but it was apparently not working. Since there were still huge chunks of
burning debris coming our direction, I decided to move further away. I
also decided that I needed to get a disposable camera so I could
photograph what was happening.

So, I walked into the grocery store nearby, and I found a black and white
disposable camera (the only type they had for sale) on the wall for
$14.99. The lady at the register paying ahead of me was commenting to the
cashier how lucky she was to have been in the store getting soda, or she
would have been in the tower as it was hit.

Once I was back on the street, I snapped some pictures of the burning
towers, and decided to move to the area where our company was supposed to
assemble during a fire drill. More and more people were moving away from
the WTC and over to the waterfront, probably because of the debris coming
down. We moved as one big herd, and every so often, everyone would start
running for no real reason .. probalby because things were landing near
them.

Once I was over by the harbour, things were a bit calmer. There were
still some people there proceeding as if it was a normal day .. riding
bikes or jogging or roller blading. Other people had fled, and there were
empty shoes near the waterfront, facing in all directions. I guess the
shoe owners had kicked off their shoes to run away?

A few people from my company had converged near the volleyball court, and
one of our managers had a clipboard with all of our names, and was
checking us off. I gave him my name, and he reached over and hugged me
and told me he already had me listed. A firefighter walked by, and I
could see that his face was badly burned .. very white, with blood around
the side of his face. Someone else was leading him, and had tied a white
T-shirt around his head.

The police came up to us and told us it was a secure area, and that we
needed to all move north. I grabbed my disposable camera and shot
pictures of the burning towers as we kept moving. Some of our employees
were crying, but most were very calm. I accidentally walked into someone
as I was taking pictures, and he reached over and hugged me, and told me
that was okay.

On the other side of the yacht basin, a ferry was waiting, going to New
Jersey, where I live. The rest of my coworkers continued to head north,
and I told my coworker Ellen that I would be taking the ferry and going
home. We hugged, and I wished her well.

I almost DIDN'T take the ferry when I first got on the platform, because
the ticket window was closed, and I didn't have much cash with me, anyway.
At the ferry entrance, a neat line of ticketholders was on the left,
quietly handing the tickettakers their tickets and boarding. I walked
over to the other tickettaker to ask where I could buy a ticket, and he
shook his head and told me just to get on. I did, and we pushed off a
couple of seconds later. I was lucky .. this later turned out to be the
last ferry to leave that day.

Once we got into the middle of the river, I leaned back over my seat, and
kept taking pictures of the burning towers. Everyone was talking quietly,
recalling what they had seen, and speculating what had happened.

As we got close to the other shore, there was some confusion. The boat
captain announced that the next stop would be Harborside, which was where
I wanted to go to catch the PATH train. But as we pulled into the dock,
the tickettakers urged all of us to get off the boat. I walked off of the
boat to the landing, but then turned around to ask one of the tickettakers
how I was supposed to get to Harborside.

Just as I was turning, though, there was a huge booming noise. Someone
yelled that another plane had hit, but as I looked across the river, I
could see that it as the North Tower collapsing. I grabbed my disposable
camera and took pictures, while a huge police officer told all of us to
run away. He was yelling that there was another hijacked plane
unaccounted for, and that it was probably coming our direction, and we
needed to run as fast as we could. At that moment, an F-16 came streaking
across the sky, scaring all of us, and we turned and ran across the open
field in front of us.

On the other side of the field, there was a tall, chain link fence, and
a couple of my fellow passengers had to help me over it with my parcels.
(I was carrying a birthday package for my friend Irene that I needed to
mail, as well as my usual briefcase and lunch bag). It took me a couple
more hours to get home after that. Everyone was fleeing Jersey City by
car, but the roads were backed up, and the entire PATH system was down.
I wound up taking a gypsy cab (who didn't charge me) to the Journal Square
PATH station. Then I caught another gypsy cab (which charged us $20
apiece!) with some strangers to Newark Penn Station. I didn't have that
much money with me, but one of the men paid for me, and I insisted on
writing him a check. (I remember asking him what day it was, and he said,
"I think it is September 11th".) Then I caught busses home. I heard the
second tower fall as I was waiting for the second bus.

Very much so! Since I worked right across from the towers, I was working in a
temporary office from September 11, 2001 to May 12, 2002. Then we went back
downtown. Our office was hardhit economically by the disaster, though, and I
was laid off one week before the one year anniversary of the disaster.

I think it should be remembered that this didn't HAVE to happen. It wasn't
a natural disaster; it was caused by destructive people with an "agenda".

I think the flag as a symbol was overused right after the disasters. I saw a lot
of people who were so unfamiliar with hanging flags that they hung them
backwards.

Now, a year later, I think we have a healther renewed sense of patriotism ... more
pride in the country than before the disaster, but without the "hype" and hysteria
that we had right after 9/11/2001