nmah5700.xml
Title
nmah5700.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2003-09-10
NMAH Story: Story
I wrote the followig description of my September 11 experience the following week. I have not changed it although in retrospect I realize that all the events may not be in exact order, and that my sense of direction was confused. If you were part of the group I describe, or if you know of someone who was part of the group please email me: rasrob@earthlink.net. I would like to compare notes and fill in still empty holes in the story.
Its all good? Part I. In The Body.
At around 9 oclock on the morning of 911, the phone rang in my apartment. It was my wife, Anna. She told me to turn on the TV to see the devastation she had just seen outside on her way to work something about a plane hitting the WTC. Along with millions of others, I watched in horror, in a state of suspended disbelief, as a second plane tore into the second of the twin towers. The plane appeared so small. Its scale was dwarfed by the gigantic building. The plane looked so small. (How could it have been the 757 they later said it actually was?)
I continued watching the TV, again, along with so many others. The Pentagon? Another plane? The first, and then the second WTC building collapsing? I knew that the best hope of finding survivors would be in the first hours following such total devastation. I was going to head downtown anyway; I had a meeting with Jimmy at the White Horse Tavern to see about a job. I knew that after the meeting, I would head further downtown to volunteer in the rescue effort.
It was around 11 oclock . I decided to walk down. I had put on my Nike hiking boots, the same ones that I wore in Israel on Masada; the same ones I wore in Hawaii at the Volcano. I put on black jeans, a black t-shirt, and a black light weight jacket. I put my Israeli Army dog tag in my pocket because I knew that it was the most durable ID that I owned.
I live on 15th Street at 7th Avenue, and I headed West to 8th Avenue which turns into Hudson Street as you travel South. I got to Hudson and 12th Streets, had a brief meeting with Jimmy, and agreed to come in to start working Friday night, basically bouncing and busing. I left Jimmy around 11:15 and headed South down Hudson Street. There was almost no pedestrian traffic heading South. Most people were heading North. I caught up to two red-beret Guardian Angels and asked them if they knew where volunteers were meeting? They said they hadnt heard anything yet. I continued walking South.
When I got to about 10th Street and Hudson, I came across a fire fighter who was completely dazedshell shocked. He was covered with dust from head to toe. The sweat, mixed with dust, had entered the creases of his face making it appear like he was wearing some kind of grotesque mask. Several police officers approached him and began to speak with him in an attempt to help him focus and regain his sense of where he was. It was quite obvious that he had been helplessly roaming the streets, and although he had obviously been at the epicenter, he had arrived haphazardly, pretty far North of the scene of the attack.
I continued on South, I passed Houston Street, and went past the Sachi and Sachi building. The flow of traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, was increasing, as buildings emptied and people attempted to leave the downtown area. At Spring Street and Hudson, I came across the first truly heavy police presence that I saw that day. There is some kind of Federal building on the West side of the street that takes up the whole block. There were dozens of Federal, State, and local police. They were checking ID of anyone even thinking of approaching that building. I continued walking South.
My recollection of exact street names may not be perfect. I tried to retrace my steps yesterday afternoon, but everything is closed to non residents south of Canal Street. At some point later I will retrace my steps just to make sure I have it all correct, but for now my memory will have to suffice
I remember seeing a barricade, and my experience in manning barricades led me to avoid it. Somehow I went West, found an alley, and was able to continue South. I have looked at maps, and I am pretty sure the barricade was at Jay Street and that my detour took me around that barricade and then back to Hudson Street. At this point, there were many police officers, uniformed and in plain clothes, but they all seemed dazed and no one tried to stop me as I continued heading South. I am pretty sure that I reached Chambers Street where it intersects with Hudson and West Broadway. A road block was set up and here it was very clear that no civilians were going to be permitted further South.
I asked one of the police officers manning the road block if he knew where the staging area for volunteers was? Like everyone else, he was in a daze, but he replied that he hadnt heard where volunteers were meeting yet. I noticed that nothing was happeningit was eerie, as if no one was really in command.
By now it was around 11:30 and I decided to just hang out and wait until an appearance of some kind of organization began to unfold. The barricade was set up at a building that had scaffolding for construction so I leaned against it and gazed at the devastation that at this point was about four blocks away. As I was looking South, there was some movement behind me and I turned to look at one of the most surrealistic scenes I have ever witnessed in my life.
Approaching the barricade from the North, coming down West Broadway, was a school bus. I noticed that on the side of the bus there were Yiddish words, printed in Hebrew. It was a typical school bus that the Chassids use to get to work in lower Manhattan. I said to myself: Are they kidding? Have the Rabbis arrived already? What are they going to do to help in this situation? Then the bus stopped right in front of me. The door opened and a Rabbi began to get off the bus. Behind him was, of all things, a fireman. Then I looked beyond the windows of the bus and saw that each seat was filled not with Chassids, but with firemen cramped in like sardines. It looked like the firemen had hitched a ride on a Holy bus on its way to Hell The firemen got off, and continued South on foot.
At about this time, another civilian approached me from the side. He just leaned up against the scaffolding next to me. At first we didnt say anything but then we started to talk. He was in his 30s. He was from Ireland. And he wanted to volunteer. He had a pot belly and a balding head. His accent was thick. He told me he was a super in a building in Mid-town and that he had walked down. His name was John. I didnt know it at the time, but I would be spending much of the rest of the day with John
John mentioned that further West, a group of people were congregating to volunteer. They were construction workers from local 60 and local 40. Iron workers. Demolition specialists. Plumbers, electricians. We decided to join their group in hopes that we could do something. They were already in motion toward us. So John and I just joined their ranks. There used to be a TV series. I think it was called The Texas Rangers. During the opening credits, it showed first one ranger walking down the street. Then he would be joined by another and another and another and another, till finally the street was filled with rangers. That was what was happening with these construction workersvolunteers. People joined the ranks from off the sidewalks, and our number swelled to maybe 70 or 80.
There was a police sergeant who was covered in the dust that was quickly coming to be recognized as the badge of someone who had been close to ground zero in one of its monstrous incarnations. He was either a friend or relative of one of the union officials and he would turn out to be our passport into the valley of the shadow of death
Our rag tag group headed East along Chambers Street towards City Hall. When we reached Broadway, the police sergeant spoke to the police who were manning the barricades, we passed through and then we headed South. I surmised that we were going to approach the rescue zone from the South Eastprobably due to the wind or some other reason.
There were many ambulances parked on the street in front of City Hall which was off to our left. One of the EMS workers gave me a face mask to wear. Some of the union guys were giving out water from a cart that they had brought with them. The air was heavy with smoke and dust. I removed my dog tag from my pocket at put it on around my neck. I began to steel myself for the task at hand. I assumed that soon we would all be digging. I turned to John and said to him that we should buddy up. That I would keep my eye on him and that he should keep his eye on me. One of the Iron workers turned around and made a joke that maybe we should plan a place to meet at the end of the day in case you get separated. He was just laughing in the face of death. Sometimes bravado and a prayer are all you get at this point there were no procedures in place, and no one seemed to know really what to do.
We walked down Broadway and reached what I think was Anne Street (Anne turns into Vesey Street.) We turned right and headed West. Each step would now take us deeper into oblivion. When we reached Church Street, we then headed North. By now everything was covered in a layer of dust that must have been two to three inches thick. Everything had the same color as the dust, and smoke and dust were curling in the air as our feet stirred up the ankle deep dust beneath us. There was paper everywhere and the entire area was permeated with alien-like silence. The closest thing I can think of is the silence in the woods, when the snow is falling With each step forward, civilization was left further behind and the weary stillness of a killing field lay eerily closer ahead.
I noticed that cars parked along the side of the street were completely covered in dust. I remember saying to myself that we had to look inside of every carthat someone might be alive but perhaps unconscious in one of those cars. We kept moving forward
Someone in front of me turned and asked if I had seen that? I turned to look back at the corner, and surrounded by a strip of police crime scene tape, was an object that was as gray as everything else. It still seemed to be out of place, almost as if it had fallen from the sky. Thats an engine from a plane, my unnamed friend said. I wasnt sure if it was an engine or not We kept moving
I decided to make a mental note of where I was. I looked up to my right and saw 100 Church Street above the entrance to that building. The letters seemed to be about a foot high and were gold colored. The tops of the letters had the same dust gray color as everything else, but somehow the golden color of the letters persisted, shimmering through the darkness of Hell. That gold color is the only memory that I have of the area that isnt gray. Perhaps somehow one ray of light had managed to break through the cloud of dust and smoke to illuminate that sign We moved forward
We were on the East side of Church Street, on the sidewalk. Although I was thinking it, someone else actually called out from behind pick up your feet! It was really getting impossible to breathe. So much more of the dust was being kicked up as we walked We fanned out into the street and about a block later, amidst the silence, we heard a police officer yelling from across the street to get back on the sidewalk because there was fear that the building on his side of the street was on the verge of collapse. At this point there was almost no police, fire, or other official presence.
None of us were wearing any kind of real eye protection. I remember saying to myself that even sun glasses would have been better than nothing. My eyes were on fire. Somehow I never touched them, neither with my fingers nor with my clothing. I knew that just to touch them would mean the end of any hope of going forwardand I was determined to go forward.
The group stopped in front of a building. I noticed that the man in front of me was wearing a badge that said he was a fire chief from some up state NY fire department. I told him that it would probably be a good idea for us to get organized at least into groups of two or three. He agreed, but pretty much indicated he was powerless to act to do it. The next thing I heard was that we would have to leave the area, that it was too dangerous. No one wanted to leave some official said that the best thing we could do right now was to give blood and then to wait for further instructions at a different location until it was deemed safe to enter the area. There was more conversation that I didnt hear, but then a fireman who was talking to us broke open a door in the side of a building. He pointed to the whole he had made, but no one wanted to go in that building. At the time I thought they wanted us to go in there to give blood. It seemed so surrealistic to go into that particular building having to duck under broken glass and climb over rubble just to give blood. Now I think maybe they were trying to give us a graphic message about leaving the area...what else could it have been?
Without taking a vote, the entire group agreed to leave the area, and headed North up Church Street. When we reached the barricades at Chambers Street, we were greeted by the media. They wanted to know who we were, where we had been, and if we saw anything, or any sign of survivors. I spoke briefly with one reporter. I didnt tell him there were no signs of survivors. I told him, Theres no chain of command. It wasnt until that night that I learned that the chain of command had been killed in the collapse of the towers
We went to a staging area on the West side. I looked at my watch and noted that it was about 1:00 in the afternoon. In time many hundreds of volunteers arrived. The police said it would be hours before we could be allowed into the area. I waited until around 4:00 and then walked home. I did not return to volunteer the next day. I knew that soon there would be an excess of volunteers, more skilled, and much younger than myself. I only regret that while I was there and available, there was nothing for me to do other than to become a witness.
God bless you. God bless us all.
Robert Hodes
Its all good? Part I. In The Body.
At around 9 oclock on the morning of 911, the phone rang in my apartment. It was my wife, Anna. She told me to turn on the TV to see the devastation she had just seen outside on her way to work something about a plane hitting the WTC. Along with millions of others, I watched in horror, in a state of suspended disbelief, as a second plane tore into the second of the twin towers. The plane appeared so small. Its scale was dwarfed by the gigantic building. The plane looked so small. (How could it have been the 757 they later said it actually was?)
I continued watching the TV, again, along with so many others. The Pentagon? Another plane? The first, and then the second WTC building collapsing? I knew that the best hope of finding survivors would be in the first hours following such total devastation. I was going to head downtown anyway; I had a meeting with Jimmy at the White Horse Tavern to see about a job. I knew that after the meeting, I would head further downtown to volunteer in the rescue effort.
It was around 11 oclock . I decided to walk down. I had put on my Nike hiking boots, the same ones that I wore in Israel on Masada; the same ones I wore in Hawaii at the Volcano. I put on black jeans, a black t-shirt, and a black light weight jacket. I put my Israeli Army dog tag in my pocket because I knew that it was the most durable ID that I owned.
I live on 15th Street at 7th Avenue, and I headed West to 8th Avenue which turns into Hudson Street as you travel South. I got to Hudson and 12th Streets, had a brief meeting with Jimmy, and agreed to come in to start working Friday night, basically bouncing and busing. I left Jimmy around 11:15 and headed South down Hudson Street. There was almost no pedestrian traffic heading South. Most people were heading North. I caught up to two red-beret Guardian Angels and asked them if they knew where volunteers were meeting? They said they hadnt heard anything yet. I continued walking South.
When I got to about 10th Street and Hudson, I came across a fire fighter who was completely dazedshell shocked. He was covered with dust from head to toe. The sweat, mixed with dust, had entered the creases of his face making it appear like he was wearing some kind of grotesque mask. Several police officers approached him and began to speak with him in an attempt to help him focus and regain his sense of where he was. It was quite obvious that he had been helplessly roaming the streets, and although he had obviously been at the epicenter, he had arrived haphazardly, pretty far North of the scene of the attack.
I continued on South, I passed Houston Street, and went past the Sachi and Sachi building. The flow of traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, was increasing, as buildings emptied and people attempted to leave the downtown area. At Spring Street and Hudson, I came across the first truly heavy police presence that I saw that day. There is some kind of Federal building on the West side of the street that takes up the whole block. There were dozens of Federal, State, and local police. They were checking ID of anyone even thinking of approaching that building. I continued walking South.
My recollection of exact street names may not be perfect. I tried to retrace my steps yesterday afternoon, but everything is closed to non residents south of Canal Street. At some point later I will retrace my steps just to make sure I have it all correct, but for now my memory will have to suffice
I remember seeing a barricade, and my experience in manning barricades led me to avoid it. Somehow I went West, found an alley, and was able to continue South. I have looked at maps, and I am pretty sure the barricade was at Jay Street and that my detour took me around that barricade and then back to Hudson Street. At this point, there were many police officers, uniformed and in plain clothes, but they all seemed dazed and no one tried to stop me as I continued heading South. I am pretty sure that I reached Chambers Street where it intersects with Hudson and West Broadway. A road block was set up and here it was very clear that no civilians were going to be permitted further South.
I asked one of the police officers manning the road block if he knew where the staging area for volunteers was? Like everyone else, he was in a daze, but he replied that he hadnt heard where volunteers were meeting yet. I noticed that nothing was happeningit was eerie, as if no one was really in command.
By now it was around 11:30 and I decided to just hang out and wait until an appearance of some kind of organization began to unfold. The barricade was set up at a building that had scaffolding for construction so I leaned against it and gazed at the devastation that at this point was about four blocks away. As I was looking South, there was some movement behind me and I turned to look at one of the most surrealistic scenes I have ever witnessed in my life.
Approaching the barricade from the North, coming down West Broadway, was a school bus. I noticed that on the side of the bus there were Yiddish words, printed in Hebrew. It was a typical school bus that the Chassids use to get to work in lower Manhattan. I said to myself: Are they kidding? Have the Rabbis arrived already? What are they going to do to help in this situation? Then the bus stopped right in front of me. The door opened and a Rabbi began to get off the bus. Behind him was, of all things, a fireman. Then I looked beyond the windows of the bus and saw that each seat was filled not with Chassids, but with firemen cramped in like sardines. It looked like the firemen had hitched a ride on a Holy bus on its way to Hell The firemen got off, and continued South on foot.
At about this time, another civilian approached me from the side. He just leaned up against the scaffolding next to me. At first we didnt say anything but then we started to talk. He was in his 30s. He was from Ireland. And he wanted to volunteer. He had a pot belly and a balding head. His accent was thick. He told me he was a super in a building in Mid-town and that he had walked down. His name was John. I didnt know it at the time, but I would be spending much of the rest of the day with John
John mentioned that further West, a group of people were congregating to volunteer. They were construction workers from local 60 and local 40. Iron workers. Demolition specialists. Plumbers, electricians. We decided to join their group in hopes that we could do something. They were already in motion toward us. So John and I just joined their ranks. There used to be a TV series. I think it was called The Texas Rangers. During the opening credits, it showed first one ranger walking down the street. Then he would be joined by another and another and another and another, till finally the street was filled with rangers. That was what was happening with these construction workersvolunteers. People joined the ranks from off the sidewalks, and our number swelled to maybe 70 or 80.
There was a police sergeant who was covered in the dust that was quickly coming to be recognized as the badge of someone who had been close to ground zero in one of its monstrous incarnations. He was either a friend or relative of one of the union officials and he would turn out to be our passport into the valley of the shadow of death
Our rag tag group headed East along Chambers Street towards City Hall. When we reached Broadway, the police sergeant spoke to the police who were manning the barricades, we passed through and then we headed South. I surmised that we were going to approach the rescue zone from the South Eastprobably due to the wind or some other reason.
There were many ambulances parked on the street in front of City Hall which was off to our left. One of the EMS workers gave me a face mask to wear. Some of the union guys were giving out water from a cart that they had brought with them. The air was heavy with smoke and dust. I removed my dog tag from my pocket at put it on around my neck. I began to steel myself for the task at hand. I assumed that soon we would all be digging. I turned to John and said to him that we should buddy up. That I would keep my eye on him and that he should keep his eye on me. One of the Iron workers turned around and made a joke that maybe we should plan a place to meet at the end of the day in case you get separated. He was just laughing in the face of death. Sometimes bravado and a prayer are all you get at this point there were no procedures in place, and no one seemed to know really what to do.
We walked down Broadway and reached what I think was Anne Street (Anne turns into Vesey Street.) We turned right and headed West. Each step would now take us deeper into oblivion. When we reached Church Street, we then headed North. By now everything was covered in a layer of dust that must have been two to three inches thick. Everything had the same color as the dust, and smoke and dust were curling in the air as our feet stirred up the ankle deep dust beneath us. There was paper everywhere and the entire area was permeated with alien-like silence. The closest thing I can think of is the silence in the woods, when the snow is falling With each step forward, civilization was left further behind and the weary stillness of a killing field lay eerily closer ahead.
I noticed that cars parked along the side of the street were completely covered in dust. I remember saying to myself that we had to look inside of every carthat someone might be alive but perhaps unconscious in one of those cars. We kept moving forward
Someone in front of me turned and asked if I had seen that? I turned to look back at the corner, and surrounded by a strip of police crime scene tape, was an object that was as gray as everything else. It still seemed to be out of place, almost as if it had fallen from the sky. Thats an engine from a plane, my unnamed friend said. I wasnt sure if it was an engine or not We kept moving
I decided to make a mental note of where I was. I looked up to my right and saw 100 Church Street above the entrance to that building. The letters seemed to be about a foot high and were gold colored. The tops of the letters had the same dust gray color as everything else, but somehow the golden color of the letters persisted, shimmering through the darkness of Hell. That gold color is the only memory that I have of the area that isnt gray. Perhaps somehow one ray of light had managed to break through the cloud of dust and smoke to illuminate that sign We moved forward
We were on the East side of Church Street, on the sidewalk. Although I was thinking it, someone else actually called out from behind pick up your feet! It was really getting impossible to breathe. So much more of the dust was being kicked up as we walked We fanned out into the street and about a block later, amidst the silence, we heard a police officer yelling from across the street to get back on the sidewalk because there was fear that the building on his side of the street was on the verge of collapse. At this point there was almost no police, fire, or other official presence.
None of us were wearing any kind of real eye protection. I remember saying to myself that even sun glasses would have been better than nothing. My eyes were on fire. Somehow I never touched them, neither with my fingers nor with my clothing. I knew that just to touch them would mean the end of any hope of going forwardand I was determined to go forward.
The group stopped in front of a building. I noticed that the man in front of me was wearing a badge that said he was a fire chief from some up state NY fire department. I told him that it would probably be a good idea for us to get organized at least into groups of two or three. He agreed, but pretty much indicated he was powerless to act to do it. The next thing I heard was that we would have to leave the area, that it was too dangerous. No one wanted to leave some official said that the best thing we could do right now was to give blood and then to wait for further instructions at a different location until it was deemed safe to enter the area. There was more conversation that I didnt hear, but then a fireman who was talking to us broke open a door in the side of a building. He pointed to the whole he had made, but no one wanted to go in that building. At the time I thought they wanted us to go in there to give blood. It seemed so surrealistic to go into that particular building having to duck under broken glass and climb over rubble just to give blood. Now I think maybe they were trying to give us a graphic message about leaving the area...what else could it have been?
Without taking a vote, the entire group agreed to leave the area, and headed North up Church Street. When we reached the barricades at Chambers Street, we were greeted by the media. They wanted to know who we were, where we had been, and if we saw anything, or any sign of survivors. I spoke briefly with one reporter. I didnt tell him there were no signs of survivors. I told him, Theres no chain of command. It wasnt until that night that I learned that the chain of command had been killed in the collapse of the towers
We went to a staging area on the West side. I looked at my watch and noted that it was about 1:00 in the afternoon. In time many hundreds of volunteers arrived. The police said it would be hours before we could be allowed into the area. I waited until around 4:00 and then walked home. I did not return to volunteer the next day. I knew that soon there would be an excess of volunteers, more skilled, and much younger than myself. I only regret that while I was there and available, there was nothing for me to do other than to become a witness.
God bless you. God bless us all.
Robert Hodes
NMAH Story: Life Changed
NMAH Story: Remembered
NMAH Story: Flag
Citation
“nmah5700.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed November 25, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/43718.