story9620.xml
Title
story9620.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2003-09-11
911DA Story: Story
It was an unusually clear and beautiful late summer day. The air was just crisp enough to beg for an early morning jog. Two neighborhood friends and I were clearing the last leg of our usual Battery Park route, when a plane flew too low straight over our heads, causing Jon to jokingly duck. Seconds later, I heard the bone-crushing sound of massive amounts of metal colliding. It simultaneously assaulted my eardrums and rose up from the earth--where it registered a low-level earthquake. I have never heard such a chilling sound, and it stopped us cold. We turned to see the entire top of the World Trade Center?s North Tower engulfed in flames, a second after the impact. The ball of fire collapsed to reveal a gaping black hole, at least 10 stories high, its jagged edges licked by flames. We all stood stupefied, absolutely unable to process the information we were receiving through our eyes. There was an eerie silence that lasted for several minutes, during which I thought it must all be a hoax. Then began the sirens and ambulances, at first just a slow trickle, soon a flood. It wasn?t until I heard the sirens that I knew I wasn?t hallucinating.
Jon and Julie and I speculated with others on the jogging path about what had happened. Many seemed to think it had been a plane that had innocently lost its way. ?Buildings simply shouldn?t be that tall,? one woman concluded. I had to side with those who had more ominous thoughts: a man in a suit said that plane was not anywhere near a normal flight path. A hysterical woman cried ?Terrorists!? over and over, and I was inclined to believe her.
Glued to this terrible image of the tower on fire, none of us could ever have imagined that it would not stop at that. Jon and Julie and I walked closer to home, our eyes glued to the towers that are fully visible from almost every street in our neighborhood, which lies only a few blocks north of the towers. Stunned, we stood in the street, along with the hoards of others that were making their way north and streaming out of buildings. The South Tower still stood calm and serene against the brilliantly blue sky while his twin brother burned.
And then, out of nowhere, inexplicably, an explosion in the South Tower as well. From where I stood I could not see the second plane approaching, and it seemed to me an internal explosion. I was now frantic-- running up and down the street unsure of what to do or where to go. I ran upstairs to my apartment to call my family and boyfriend to do the mutual check-up, and then turned on CNN, to see what the establishment--apart from the chaos and wild speculation I had just fled on the street -- had to say about the attacks. It was then I learned, from reporters that still knew little else, that the Pentagon had also been hit. Now truly terrified, I ran back outside--passing a woman cradling a baby, immobile with fear and tears on the stairwell, begging for reassurance that the building was secure--to join the crush of people on the street where I felt a certain safety in community (and at least the promise of mobility).
It was then I heard someone scream, ?Oh my God, people are jumping!? Surely, she was mistaken, taking the bits of debris falling from the building for human bodies, an understandable leap in this day of disbelief, but impossible. No one would ever jump out of the World Trade Center. And yet, I turned to look, giving in to that strange human impulse that draws us watch. I saw a lone figure on a very high floor hanging out the window, frantically waving a white flag, or T-shirt, beckoning the rescue helicopters that would never come. I then saw two people, unmistakable human bodies, their black figures etched clearly against the hard sky, hurl themselves from what I later learned was a fire upwards of 1500 degrees. I can only imagine they were choosing a death slightly less heinous, a death that gave them in their last moments at least, a few more breaths of freedom. There were many others after that, each followed by a collective scream from the helpless on-lookers below, but I could not watch any more.
There is a coffee shop and magazine store in the heart of Tribeca that serves as a sort of village square-- people gather here to gossip, exchange information, and connect with their neighbors. It is a block from my apartment and it was here I now fled. The streets of my usually sparse neighborhood had become crushed with the hoards fleeing from the disaster from below and those who had come for a better view. I was relieved to see the owners, Mary and Fred, a lovely couple dear to many people, and several other familiar faces gathered around a small TV. For the next 15 minutes or so we ran from the door to watch the towers and back to the TV to hear the reports. The terror was palpable. Then, suddenly, a scream rose from the crowd on the street and we all ran out just in time to see the first building collapse. A huge ball of dust, debris, and paper rolled up the streets and stopped a block short. In a panic, Fred locked the door to his cafe, and screamed at everyone to run for their lives. All of it impossible, impossible.
Hysterical, I ran two blocks to Jon and Julie?s apartment. On the way, my boyfriend miraculously spotted me and we were thankfully reunited. He had been evacuated from his midtown office building and walked all the way downtown to find me. Even though I knew he was far from the danger zone, I thought the whole city could be under siege, and was unbelievably relieved to see him. That night we camped out at Jon and Julie?s, along with Lee, another friend from the neighborhood. We were all too scared to be separate. After watching what must have been 14 straight hours of CNN, never sure whether or not we should evacuate our area, we dropped into a fitful sleep.
The next day we watched from the roof as another building collapsed and the fires raged on. The wind shifted and suddenly all the thick soot and smoke that had been blowing to Brooklyn yesterday filled Tribeca, and the apartment. We all fled, unsure when we would return, and became refugees at the homes of parents uptown.
Chris and I have since returned to our apartment as the air quality has improved somewhat. We have everything--electricity, phone, water, TV--which people only a few blocks below us do not. The area is virtually a war zone however, with police checkpoints where we must provide ID to prove we are residents of the area, to streets still littered with thousands of office papers from the WTC, scattered by the blast and ominously singed around the edges. The emergency workers, police, firemen, and National Guard out number the residents at least 50 to 1. The only vehicles allowed on the streets are theirs. Food stores are tentatively opening, and some restaurants are serving limited menus to the residents, since both delivery trucks and people without a neighborhood ID can?t get in.
In a way, I don?t mind the ordered chaos that shapes my neighborhood, my home, so much. Sept, 11, 2001 was filled with sights I will never be able to forget, sights no one should ever see, and it all serves as a daily reminder that I?m not crazy, I am depressed and anxious for a very real reason. My neighborhood has not ?gone back to normal? as our politicians are all urging us to do. It never will, and neither, I fear, will I.
Jon and Julie and I speculated with others on the jogging path about what had happened. Many seemed to think it had been a plane that had innocently lost its way. ?Buildings simply shouldn?t be that tall,? one woman concluded. I had to side with those who had more ominous thoughts: a man in a suit said that plane was not anywhere near a normal flight path. A hysterical woman cried ?Terrorists!? over and over, and I was inclined to believe her.
Glued to this terrible image of the tower on fire, none of us could ever have imagined that it would not stop at that. Jon and Julie and I walked closer to home, our eyes glued to the towers that are fully visible from almost every street in our neighborhood, which lies only a few blocks north of the towers. Stunned, we stood in the street, along with the hoards of others that were making their way north and streaming out of buildings. The South Tower still stood calm and serene against the brilliantly blue sky while his twin brother burned.
And then, out of nowhere, inexplicably, an explosion in the South Tower as well. From where I stood I could not see the second plane approaching, and it seemed to me an internal explosion. I was now frantic-- running up and down the street unsure of what to do or where to go. I ran upstairs to my apartment to call my family and boyfriend to do the mutual check-up, and then turned on CNN, to see what the establishment--apart from the chaos and wild speculation I had just fled on the street -- had to say about the attacks. It was then I learned, from reporters that still knew little else, that the Pentagon had also been hit. Now truly terrified, I ran back outside--passing a woman cradling a baby, immobile with fear and tears on the stairwell, begging for reassurance that the building was secure--to join the crush of people on the street where I felt a certain safety in community (and at least the promise of mobility).
It was then I heard someone scream, ?Oh my God, people are jumping!? Surely, she was mistaken, taking the bits of debris falling from the building for human bodies, an understandable leap in this day of disbelief, but impossible. No one would ever jump out of the World Trade Center. And yet, I turned to look, giving in to that strange human impulse that draws us watch. I saw a lone figure on a very high floor hanging out the window, frantically waving a white flag, or T-shirt, beckoning the rescue helicopters that would never come. I then saw two people, unmistakable human bodies, their black figures etched clearly against the hard sky, hurl themselves from what I later learned was a fire upwards of 1500 degrees. I can only imagine they were choosing a death slightly less heinous, a death that gave them in their last moments at least, a few more breaths of freedom. There were many others after that, each followed by a collective scream from the helpless on-lookers below, but I could not watch any more.
There is a coffee shop and magazine store in the heart of Tribeca that serves as a sort of village square-- people gather here to gossip, exchange information, and connect with their neighbors. It is a block from my apartment and it was here I now fled. The streets of my usually sparse neighborhood had become crushed with the hoards fleeing from the disaster from below and those who had come for a better view. I was relieved to see the owners, Mary and Fred, a lovely couple dear to many people, and several other familiar faces gathered around a small TV. For the next 15 minutes or so we ran from the door to watch the towers and back to the TV to hear the reports. The terror was palpable. Then, suddenly, a scream rose from the crowd on the street and we all ran out just in time to see the first building collapse. A huge ball of dust, debris, and paper rolled up the streets and stopped a block short. In a panic, Fred locked the door to his cafe, and screamed at everyone to run for their lives. All of it impossible, impossible.
Hysterical, I ran two blocks to Jon and Julie?s apartment. On the way, my boyfriend miraculously spotted me and we were thankfully reunited. He had been evacuated from his midtown office building and walked all the way downtown to find me. Even though I knew he was far from the danger zone, I thought the whole city could be under siege, and was unbelievably relieved to see him. That night we camped out at Jon and Julie?s, along with Lee, another friend from the neighborhood. We were all too scared to be separate. After watching what must have been 14 straight hours of CNN, never sure whether or not we should evacuate our area, we dropped into a fitful sleep.
The next day we watched from the roof as another building collapsed and the fires raged on. The wind shifted and suddenly all the thick soot and smoke that had been blowing to Brooklyn yesterday filled Tribeca, and the apartment. We all fled, unsure when we would return, and became refugees at the homes of parents uptown.
Chris and I have since returned to our apartment as the air quality has improved somewhat. We have everything--electricity, phone, water, TV--which people only a few blocks below us do not. The area is virtually a war zone however, with police checkpoints where we must provide ID to prove we are residents of the area, to streets still littered with thousands of office papers from the WTC, scattered by the blast and ominously singed around the edges. The emergency workers, police, firemen, and National Guard out number the residents at least 50 to 1. The only vehicles allowed on the streets are theirs. Food stores are tentatively opening, and some restaurants are serving limited menus to the residents, since both delivery trucks and people without a neighborhood ID can?t get in.
In a way, I don?t mind the ordered chaos that shapes my neighborhood, my home, so much. Sept, 11, 2001 was filled with sights I will never be able to forget, sights no one should ever see, and it all serves as a daily reminder that I?m not crazy, I am depressed and anxious for a very real reason. My neighborhood has not ?gone back to normal? as our politicians are all urging us to do. It never will, and neither, I fear, will I.
Collection
Citation
“story9620.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 17, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/7179.