story6246.xml

story6246.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-12

Images from that day.

I came out of the subway to the street 3 blocks up from the Trade Center, hearing announcements that there as an explosion in the Towers. As I came up from the subway stairs I immediately saw the gaping flaming black hole in the North Tower. People on the street were caught dead in their tracks, just staring up at it. It was a total disconnect. From everyone: ?My GOD, I can?t believe it, I can?t believe it?. Nobody could tell me what happened. I found out only later it was minutes after the second plane hit the south Tower.

Almost immediately, I tried to get on a phone and tell Mala I was OK, tell her what I was looking at. It seems like she had the same idea and I couldn?t get through to her.

I remember sirens and watching these fire trucks racing by me all converging on the site as I crossed the street. I see these guys? faces hanging on to those trucks.

You knew there were people in those buildings, and you knew it had to be a horror show in there. But you couldn?t really digest it at that time. you felt like an observer watching this horrible thing unfold.

In the midst of all that horror people are still people. I made it to my office, which literally sat in the shadow of the towers? and yet with all that going on the majority of my fellow workers were waiting for someone to tell them to go home. It wasn?t until the first tower fell that they actually left. They were lucky. One block away I am sure there were too many people who would be alive today if they just said ?Fck this, I?m getting out of here right now?.

I didn?t wait, I left, I just didn?t feel comfortable in that building. I had a moment of indecision where as I left the building, I momentarily thought of walking a block over to the complex and get a better look? but a voice in my head (probably Mala?s) told me I was crazy and I made the right decision. If I was my typical self at that moment, I wouldn?t be here writing about it.

One block away I was heading back to the subway again gazing up at both towers . The top floors were at that point engulfed in flames. People were taking pictures. Never a thought until the moment that it happened that they would come down.

The South Tower, standing right in front of me, 2 blocks south, without any warning just began to crumble. I heard a loud cracking, crumpling sound that echoed through the streets and saw the Tower turn into dust, vaporizing as it collapsed almost straight down floor by floor.

I like everyone else stood mesmerized for a time, until I snapped out of and saw that 20 story cloud of dust and debris racing up the street. With police on the street yelling, ?RUN?, I ran heading uptown. I cut over east 1 block hoping to get some protection from a cross street, only to run into the same cloud coming up that street. It was pure survival instincts, no time to think about it, just run. I describe it as a scene out of a Godzilla movie, where you are trying to outrun Godzilla who is right on your tail looming 20 stories above you. I was afraid to look over my shoulder to see how close it was. People running along me were crying.

Eventually, heading due north I did out run it. The wind luckily for me and the rest of the city was blowing the cloud to the east. Somewhere around Houston Street in the village I watched with equal surprise as the North Tower collapsed. ? I think that tower is leaning a bit??, I was telling someone, then just like that it collapsed.

The City that day was like the day the Earth stood still. The is my best description for it. If the end of the world ever comes, meteor, nuclear war, whatever ?.9/11 was a full-blown dress rehearsal. Everyone was out on the streets from downtown to midtown. People were just milling around in a state of shock. It was better to be out on the streets, with each other. The city suddenly became like a very small town. Someone on the street saw that I was looking for a phone and immediately lent me his wireless from his apartment. I finally got in touch with Mala, who after seeing downtown engulfed in flames, thought I was dead. I could understand that, I thought that everyone I left in my office an hour earlier was dead also? A very strange day.

Later on in the afternoon I stood on West Street down by the river somewhere around 14th street, with crowds of people just gazing downtown at the cloud of smoke. Two things? First, the void in the skyline, you just couldn?t get a handle on it (still can?t)? Second, it was such a picture perfect beautiful day?crystal clear blue skies not a cloud in the sky, perfect late summer/early fall temperature, you couldn?t ask for a nicer day.


The year of 09/11 has past?

I heard someone (a witness to 9/11) say on the news that before 9/11 he never really felt that horrible things could happen to him and after seeing the towers fall he realized it could happen to anyone, anytime. I believe that sums it up pretty well.

When I think of that that flaming hole in the tower I gazed at I think of it as a hole that ripped reality right open for a while. What was in that twisted blackness was literally like a window into Hell.

The Towers and the complex of buildings and space around them were a world unto themselves. The complex was a city; it was flowing with people, stores, entertainment, etc. If I close my eyes now I can instantly take a walking tour through all of the corridors, stairways, bridges, and buildings that comprised it. I see the places I went shopping in, the people behind the counters. I can stand in the plaza outside and get vertigo staring up at the top of the towers.

I am always pretty aware of the architecture of the city around me, and there were a number of places, on the streets surrounding the Trade Center, that I would almost always admire and gawk at like a tourist as I walked through and around them. I would think ? this is amazing, this is, this is New York?; I had this sense of being lucky to be able to be there and part of it all.

The summer, perhaps a month previous to 9/11, I decided to go shopping for a book at Borders Books (5 World Trade) at lunch. For the first time in a long time I decided to walk over to the WTC plaza and see if I could find a place to sit down and read, grab something to eat. I hadn?t been there in a while; the plaza was never my favorite place. Too much concrete, too cold, I thought, Typically I would spend my time in the greener parks down by the river. On this picture perfect sunny day however, I found the plaza had become a much warmer, people friendly place since I was last there. There were a lot of nice food kiosks scattered around, tables, benches chairs, etc?I found a nice place to sit down on that day, and was able to read for a while. It was nice?. I distinctly remember feeling the heat of the sun on my face as it reflected off of the steel of the South Tower. As I was going back to work, I decided that it was a nice place to hang out?.. I should take advantage of it more often? that was the last time I was there .. oh well.

I watched that same South Tower crumble before my eyes in about 10 seconds on 9/11.

It took about 1 hour for all of that to be obliterated, vaporized, wiped off the face of the earth. One minute it was there, the next it was gone.

Physical reality around me became pretty fragile for a time following 9/11.

When I was re-located to Sixth Avenue, I was adjacent to Rockefeller Center, another bustling open city plaza. Nice places to stroll around at lunchtime, people watch, sit down. In the middle of this bustling place, full of people, tall buildings, life ? I would get this image of the destruction and ruble of the WTC plaza. This reality was just as fragile as the reality I saw crumble.

Occasionally I get irritated when I here it referred to as ?Ground Zero?. It was the World Trade Center, it was not Ground Zero. Actually to be more accurate, now it is the big hole in the ground where the Trade Center formerly stood.

People can walk by the site, and easily forget what happened there. I have not quite reached that point yet. I still find myself looking up at the empty sky.

There has been a rebirth of sorts, what has happened around the site since is an amazing testament to what man can accomplish. The cleanup, the time period it occurred is truly unbelievable. The life that has crept back into the area this summer is a testament to our resiliency. When I first went back down to the area in December it was like walking thru a war zone. Streets were ripped up and blocked off, stores boarded up, dirt and dust everywhere, the smoke from the still burning pile, and the smell. . Now, except for the steady stream of tourists you have to contend with, you could hardly realize what occurred there.

When I look at the site now, I see what isn?t there any more. . I wonder what tourists see there when they visit ?I am sometimes tempted to ask one.

A common scene: Families posing in front of ?Ground Zero?. Mom or Dad holding the camera ?.?Smile?? and they always do. Its Disneyland ? It?s amazing.

Personally, I believe I have gained a greater appreciation of ?life?, a better sense of what is important vs what is not. Don?t put things off; if its a beautiful day get out and enjoy it, take that cruise you been thinking of; get in touch with that old friend before its too late. On paper it sounds trite like a list of platitudes from a feel good book, however getting past that, I think they are words you can live by.

Life goes on and that?s good.