story9335.xml

story9335.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-06-03

I was sitting at my desk when I heard the first plane hit, although at the time I thought it was a car backfiring (we usually have the windows open and hear a lot of street noise). About 2 minutes later a female coworker came in and said a plane had hit a tower. We are on the 26th floor and could see the towers by looking directly over city hall, we had no buildings in the way. As we watched the papers falling and the smoke being pulled over towards Brooklyn 2 female coworkers left; and I remember that most people left in the office were saying that it could not have been an accident. In typical NY fashion 4 guys (me included) were huddled at a window looking out and up at the WTC; one said that he was going back to his desk to get his coffee and another went to answer his phone. While the 2 of us left at the window continued to watch we saw the second plane come right up out of the south and disintegrate into a huge fireball, I don't remember hearing anything, just one second the plane was impossibly close to the building and the next it was gone. We looked at each other and knew that these were definitely not accidents. I then went back to my desk and spoke to my cousin in midtown and my mother who was living in London at the time; I tried to call home (Queens) but couldn't get through. I called my cousin in midtown again and told him that we would be leaving soon and asked if he could continue to try my wife. We received word that we had to vacate the building; my immediate boss and I (the only ones left) shut down all the computers, lights, and anything else we could think of because we could sense that we might not be back for a while. Outside I stopped to have a cigarette before I started to walk all the way uptown to cross the 59th Street bridge (I live in Queens and figured that Queens BLVD would be the best place to get picked up to get home). On the way uptown I walked along Broadway right in the middle of the street, after a few minutes I stopped turning around to look at the burning WTC. I remember seeing people coming out of stores with little disposable cameras and heading down to the WTC, but they didn't look like rescue workers or photojournalists...About the time I reached 35th Street I tried my wife again (no service), and then my cousin who worked on 47th Street, I needed to rest. When he wasn't there I got a little nervous (turns out the whole city was being let go, but I didn't know that yet). While I was waiting on line for the phone to try my wife one more time (I now have a cellphone) some guy started shouting "One tower has fallen, one tower has fallen". I didn't want to believe him and I kept telling myself that the crashes had been so high up on the towers that it wasn't possible, but when I walked into the middle of the street and saw only one smoking building I knew things had gotten worse. I walked to about 48th Street and tried Queens again, and then I started to cross the bridge...that was the worst, seeing this big gaping hole in the skyline when you were used to seeing everything so symmetrical, and all the smoke washing over Brooklyn. I got to Queens and walked along Skillman Ave. until I could call my wife; about 20 minutes later she picked me up and we went home to watch what was happening. I was not able to go to work for almost 2 weeks, and when we did get back to the office we had some cleanup to do; phone service was restored about 3 weeks after we came back. I have not been to the site since that day, although occassionally I still stand at that window and look out in that direction.