story9175.xml

story9175.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-03-31

On Tuesday morning 11 September 2001, I was working the breakfast shift at a restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. I had woken up at 4:30 a.m. to take the 7 train from Flushing into the city. By time 9 am rolled around, I was swamped with customers who were demanding for more coffee and more food. Some time during service, the hostess told me in passing that her friend had just called up to tell her that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Thinking it was an accident, I gave a quick thought to sympathy and dove back into my job. A little while later, the hostess told me that a second plan had crashed into WTC 2 and that it looked like terrorism. "That's great," I thought helplessly.

Then suddenly, table by table, people were receiving and making cel phone calls like crazy. It didn't surprise me as the restaurant's clientele were often writers or executives of major companies in the publishing industry. I overheard conversations at tables and heard words like "attack" and "terrorism". It was the most disturbing situation I had ever been in: having to keep on doing my job while people were dying and thinking that my could life could be in danger as well. My manager and the restaurant owner ran outside down to Fifth Avenue to look downtown. They returned and said they saw a lot of smoke.

I stopped everything I was doing and called my mom to tell her not to come into the city that day. She had planned to commute in some time in the afternoon. She asked me if there was a fire in the city because she saw smoke billowing over towards Queens. I told her it was more serious than that and they were terrorist attacks and that I would try to find a way home as soon as possible. I then called my boyfriend in Seattle. He hadn't woken up yet; it was 6 in the morning there. I told him what had happend and that I loved him and gave him all my mom's contact information. I told him to call my mom and make sure she was alright if anything happened to me.

I finished my shift and my manager told me that a lot of servers scheduled for lunch couldn't make it in because of transportation problems (because of the ensuing chaos of the attacks) and cordially invited me to stay and work if I wanted to. Needless to say, I changed out of my work clothes and started mentally mapping out possible destinations.

As I was about to leave, the owner brought up a stereo from the office and turned it to a news station that was broadcasting reports. I remember him laughing as they reported that the Pentagon had also been attacked. It seemed as if he thought he was listening to entertainment fiction. He turned around and pointed at me and asked something to the effect of, "You're working lunch, right?" Yeah, right.

I left and tuned my walkman to a news station. I remember one broadcaster clearly saying, "It seems we are at war now. With whom-- we do not know." As I emerged from the restaurant, I saw that the streets were flooded with people just wandering uptown. I walked up 55th Street and couldn't shake this surreal feeling as I was listening to my walkman that this was some hoax in the vein of Wells's War of the Worlds.

I assumed trains weren't running, so I took the next best step and went to my college where I found some friends. On my way, I heard a man tell his friend, "Hey, this isn't the time for that. This is the time when we have to come together."

At St. Luke's Hospital, ambulances had closed off 59th Street and a doctor had taken charge of the situation with a blowhorn. He announced that there were car bombs going off all over the city (a false report that was being broadcasted everywhere) and that people needed to leave the vicinity. I walked with some friends to donate blood and then we went to a friend's apartment in the upper west side. Since the tv antennas had collapsed with the towers, we couldn't watch tv and nobody wanted to listen to the radio. So I made calls to friends in other cities to let them know I was ok and was able to reach a friend who went to George Washington University in DC. We were both glad to hear each other.

My friends and I sat around and talked and we ate dinner. A convoy was sent to the local liquor store. They returned with the proper items and reported a long, snaking line there-- apparently we weren't the only ones looking to drown our fears. Around 7 pm, I decided to venture out with a friend and found that the trains were working and got home to find my mom glued to the television.