story1722.xml
Title
story1722.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-09-04
911DA Story: Story
Memories of 9/11
I took an early train to work on September 11, 2001. That day I had a meeting scheduled with my supervisor at 8am. The 6:17 am train would take me to the Hoboken, NJ terminal instead of directly into New York City as the later ones do. I was fortunate that on this fateful morning I went to Hoboken because Hoboken is directly across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan and it offered a fantastic view of the WTC. Little did I know that this would be the last time I saw the towers from Hoboken. While I cannot remember for sure, I hope I looked at them, they were hard to miss, especially since my train comes in at the eastern end of the station directly in front of the river.
From Hoboken, I would have to take the Path train into Manhattan. I walked down to the platform, on one side, there were the Path trains to 33rd St and on the other were the trains to the WTC. As I walked to the bottom of the stairs, I saw that the 33rd St train that I needed to catch had just left the platform. Since I was in a rush to get into the city for my meeting, I thought about taking the WTC train, which was still in the station. I would then take a subway up to Fifth Ave and 14th St where I worked. As I took a few steps toward the train with the distinctive ?WTC? above the door another 33rd St Path entered the station, so I turned around and got on it instead of the WTC train. While I would not have been there during the attacks, it still gives me the chills that I was within a few seconds of getting on the WTC Path and being at the WTC on 9/11/01.
My 8 am meeting went on as planned. My supervisor was scheduled to fly to the UK at 12 noon that day. Just as the meeting was ending and my supervisor was leaving my office a co-worker came in and announced that a plane had crashed into the WTC. I called my wife who works in New Jersey and told her. Like most people, we thought that it was a terrible accident by a small plane. I walked to my supervisor?s office, it faced south, and I wanted to see if I could get a view of the towers. The view of the WTC was blocked but I could see the smoke rising.
Several co-workers and I went down to the street to get a better view. We stood on the corner of 14 St and Fifth Ave and had a clear view of the gapping hole in the north tower. It was evident that this was not damage from a small plane. I remember seeing the papers flying out of the building, it was a surreal sight, one of many I would see that day. I kept thinking of how many people must be dead and injured. After standing there for what seemed like an hour but in reality was probably only 5 minutes, I decided to go get the camera I had in my tenth floor office. I grabbed the camera and went back down. As a looked to take the picture, I noticed that the second tower was burning. My first thought was that the fire spread from tower one. I took a few pictures then went back upstairs. That is when I found out, from the radio, that a second plane hit the second tower.
At this point, I was numb. I could not get a handle on what was going on, my mind could not process it. Know one could concentrate on work, and all I know is that I did not want to be cooped up in my office listening to the radio. I wasn?t afraid that my building was next, I just wanted to be outside with everyone else. I decided to walk the 20 blocks (subways closed down) to a seminar I was supposed to attend at 10 am. I knew it was going to be cancelled, but I needed something to do. As I walked north up Fifth Avenue away from the WTC, I remember the sirens, all the sirens, and there noise filled the air like a thick fog. I kept looking at the Empire State Building waiting for a plane to hit it next.
As I approached the hotel where my seminar was being held I finally got a hold of my brother on my cell phone. He was off that day and I figured he could fill me in on what was happening on TV. While I?m talking to him a guy standing next to me, who was also on his cell phone spurts out loud to anyone who will listen, that his wife just told him that one of the towers just collapsed. We tried looking downtown from where we were but from that point on Seventh Ave., the WTC was not in view. I told my brother to check it out on the television and he confirmed it. Again, my mind said, this is not happening.
I went inside the hotel and as I expected, the seminar was cancelled. Then I did a silly thing, I called an associate and asked her to put together a sales report, which was part of the information, I needed as a follow up to the meeting I had that morning. I cannot believe that I was thinking about something so trivial when the world around me was coming apart at the seams. I guess it was defense mechanism and my mind was pretending everything was normal as a way of getting through the day.
At this point, I started walking back to my office. I walked down Sixth Ave. so I could look at the remaining tower as I walked. It seemed that everyone in New York was out on the street by this time. All you could hear were the sirens and the radios from all the cars pulled along the curb. Not many were talking. Some were crying, most just had a stunned look on their faces.
When I was around Sixth Ave. and 24th St. the south tower started to collapse. I watched as it just crumbled in slow motion, and you could hear a muffled roar as it came down. As horrendous as it was, it was quite spectacular, the glass and metal shimmering in the beautiful sunlight against a perfectly blue sky. When it was gone, I started walking again, some guys were cursing and shouting other people were crying. I started saying aloud to myself ? They finally did it, they wanted to take the towers down and they finally did it. I was thinking of the WTC bombing in 1993 where the bomber?s plan was to knock one tower into the other.
When I got back to the office, I found out that management had closed the office but no one had gone home because all the tunnels and bridges out of the city were shut down. We were locked in so to speak.
Everyone was milling around the office trying to sort out what had happened and wondering what was next. By now, we all knew about the Pentagon and the crash in Pennsylvania.
Employees that lived outside on Manhattan were trying to arrange to stay overnight. I did not want to stay overnight I wanted to get home to my wife and two daughters. That?s when it dawned on me, Manhattan is an island, maybe we can get out by boat.
Three co-workers and I walked from 14th street and Fifth Ave. to 38th street and Twelfth Ave. to catch a ferry back to Hoboken, NJ. While walking it felt that we were unwitting extras in a disaster movie. The streets of Manhattan were virtually empty of traffic with the exception of emergency vehicles. It was quiet and any government building we may have passed was blocked off you could?nt even walk in front of them.
We waited in line for four hours while military jets circled above the city. While on line, waiting to get on a ferry, all you could see in lower Manhattan was smoke it was as if the whole lower tip of Manhattan was gone. All I kept saying to my co-worker, the same man who hours earlier came into my office with the news of the first plane hitting, was I can?t believe they?re gone. I thought the towers would last forever and they probably would have if left to the elements not to mankind.
I finally made it home by 6pm that night. The first thing I did was give my wife and kids a big hug and kiss. My brother was also over at my house. We eat some dinner. I hadn?t had a bite to eat since 5:30 that morning.
After eating, I put the television on and for the first time all day I saw the pictures of the planes hitting the Worls Trade Center. One particular shot really stuck with me. It was of the second plane hitting the south tower and in the frame you could see a flock of birds taking off after being frightened by the explosion and I thought to myself, I?m ashamed to be a human being today.
Bob Mauriello
I took an early train to work on September 11, 2001. That day I had a meeting scheduled with my supervisor at 8am. The 6:17 am train would take me to the Hoboken, NJ terminal instead of directly into New York City as the later ones do. I was fortunate that on this fateful morning I went to Hoboken because Hoboken is directly across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan and it offered a fantastic view of the WTC. Little did I know that this would be the last time I saw the towers from Hoboken. While I cannot remember for sure, I hope I looked at them, they were hard to miss, especially since my train comes in at the eastern end of the station directly in front of the river.
From Hoboken, I would have to take the Path train into Manhattan. I walked down to the platform, on one side, there were the Path trains to 33rd St and on the other were the trains to the WTC. As I walked to the bottom of the stairs, I saw that the 33rd St train that I needed to catch had just left the platform. Since I was in a rush to get into the city for my meeting, I thought about taking the WTC train, which was still in the station. I would then take a subway up to Fifth Ave and 14th St where I worked. As I took a few steps toward the train with the distinctive ?WTC? above the door another 33rd St Path entered the station, so I turned around and got on it instead of the WTC train. While I would not have been there during the attacks, it still gives me the chills that I was within a few seconds of getting on the WTC Path and being at the WTC on 9/11/01.
My 8 am meeting went on as planned. My supervisor was scheduled to fly to the UK at 12 noon that day. Just as the meeting was ending and my supervisor was leaving my office a co-worker came in and announced that a plane had crashed into the WTC. I called my wife who works in New Jersey and told her. Like most people, we thought that it was a terrible accident by a small plane. I walked to my supervisor?s office, it faced south, and I wanted to see if I could get a view of the towers. The view of the WTC was blocked but I could see the smoke rising.
Several co-workers and I went down to the street to get a better view. We stood on the corner of 14 St and Fifth Ave and had a clear view of the gapping hole in the north tower. It was evident that this was not damage from a small plane. I remember seeing the papers flying out of the building, it was a surreal sight, one of many I would see that day. I kept thinking of how many people must be dead and injured. After standing there for what seemed like an hour but in reality was probably only 5 minutes, I decided to go get the camera I had in my tenth floor office. I grabbed the camera and went back down. As a looked to take the picture, I noticed that the second tower was burning. My first thought was that the fire spread from tower one. I took a few pictures then went back upstairs. That is when I found out, from the radio, that a second plane hit the second tower.
At this point, I was numb. I could not get a handle on what was going on, my mind could not process it. Know one could concentrate on work, and all I know is that I did not want to be cooped up in my office listening to the radio. I wasn?t afraid that my building was next, I just wanted to be outside with everyone else. I decided to walk the 20 blocks (subways closed down) to a seminar I was supposed to attend at 10 am. I knew it was going to be cancelled, but I needed something to do. As I walked north up Fifth Avenue away from the WTC, I remember the sirens, all the sirens, and there noise filled the air like a thick fog. I kept looking at the Empire State Building waiting for a plane to hit it next.
As I approached the hotel where my seminar was being held I finally got a hold of my brother on my cell phone. He was off that day and I figured he could fill me in on what was happening on TV. While I?m talking to him a guy standing next to me, who was also on his cell phone spurts out loud to anyone who will listen, that his wife just told him that one of the towers just collapsed. We tried looking downtown from where we were but from that point on Seventh Ave., the WTC was not in view. I told my brother to check it out on the television and he confirmed it. Again, my mind said, this is not happening.
I went inside the hotel and as I expected, the seminar was cancelled. Then I did a silly thing, I called an associate and asked her to put together a sales report, which was part of the information, I needed as a follow up to the meeting I had that morning. I cannot believe that I was thinking about something so trivial when the world around me was coming apart at the seams. I guess it was defense mechanism and my mind was pretending everything was normal as a way of getting through the day.
At this point, I started walking back to my office. I walked down Sixth Ave. so I could look at the remaining tower as I walked. It seemed that everyone in New York was out on the street by this time. All you could hear were the sirens and the radios from all the cars pulled along the curb. Not many were talking. Some were crying, most just had a stunned look on their faces.
When I was around Sixth Ave. and 24th St. the south tower started to collapse. I watched as it just crumbled in slow motion, and you could hear a muffled roar as it came down. As horrendous as it was, it was quite spectacular, the glass and metal shimmering in the beautiful sunlight against a perfectly blue sky. When it was gone, I started walking again, some guys were cursing and shouting other people were crying. I started saying aloud to myself ? They finally did it, they wanted to take the towers down and they finally did it. I was thinking of the WTC bombing in 1993 where the bomber?s plan was to knock one tower into the other.
When I got back to the office, I found out that management had closed the office but no one had gone home because all the tunnels and bridges out of the city were shut down. We were locked in so to speak.
Everyone was milling around the office trying to sort out what had happened and wondering what was next. By now, we all knew about the Pentagon and the crash in Pennsylvania.
Employees that lived outside on Manhattan were trying to arrange to stay overnight. I did not want to stay overnight I wanted to get home to my wife and two daughters. That?s when it dawned on me, Manhattan is an island, maybe we can get out by boat.
Three co-workers and I walked from 14th street and Fifth Ave. to 38th street and Twelfth Ave. to catch a ferry back to Hoboken, NJ. While walking it felt that we were unwitting extras in a disaster movie. The streets of Manhattan were virtually empty of traffic with the exception of emergency vehicles. It was quiet and any government building we may have passed was blocked off you could?nt even walk in front of them.
We waited in line for four hours while military jets circled above the city. While on line, waiting to get on a ferry, all you could see in lower Manhattan was smoke it was as if the whole lower tip of Manhattan was gone. All I kept saying to my co-worker, the same man who hours earlier came into my office with the news of the first plane hitting, was I can?t believe they?re gone. I thought the towers would last forever and they probably would have if left to the elements not to mankind.
I finally made it home by 6pm that night. The first thing I did was give my wife and kids a big hug and kiss. My brother was also over at my house. We eat some dinner. I hadn?t had a bite to eat since 5:30 that morning.
After eating, I put the television on and for the first time all day I saw the pictures of the planes hitting the Worls Trade Center. One particular shot really stuck with me. It was of the second plane hitting the south tower and in the frame you could see a flock of birds taking off after being frightened by the explosion and I thought to myself, I?m ashamed to be a human being today.
Bob Mauriello
Collection
Citation
“story1722.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 15, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/6710.