story1399.xml

story1399.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-22

I was working in a windowless room on the 6th floor of the Port Authority at 15th Street and 8th Avenue when the attacks occurred. The first indication that anything was wrong was when the man at the next desk received a phone call from his wife in Albany. She was screaming so loudly that I heard everything she said. Simultaneously, the door to our office flew open and a colleague entered and screamed "Oh, my god, I just saw a plane crash into the WTC" and fainted. We rushed to help him and I called my lawyer in Queens on my cell phone. He was in his car and couldn't get a radio station before our phones went dead.

Another colleague and I ran to some offices with windows that faced south. We had a straight-ahead view of the WTC -- the Port Authority building is the tallest building north of the WTC. We stood there and watched the next hour's events with horror. I finally was able to get my lawyer again on the cell phone and was telling him that the fire in the north tower was so out of control that there was no way for it to be put out when the building collapsed. I became so distraught that he strongly urged me to leave the building and walk north.

Having no idea what would be in store for the next few hours, I went to my desk, filled a thermos with water, walked down to a deli on 8th Avenue where I bought a foot long hero and some chocolate bars and an apple and set out on foot. I was standing on the curb waiting for the light to change at 7th Avenue when I realized that I didn't have to. There was no traffic and there were thousands of people in the middle of the avenues.

I walked up the center of 5th Avenue, part of a silent migration heading north. It's hard to gauge my mood at the time -- I was fully aware of what was going on around me, internally commenting on what I was seeing, yet strangely detached. I marveled that something could bring NYC to a complete stop. I was amazed at the number of people silently trudging north -- grimly silent, not uttering a word. I was frightened by the F16s streaking overhead. My heart was broke within me as I heard the church bells all over Manhattan tolling the dead. I remember staring at the clear blue sky and thinking that in front of me it was a beautiful world and behind me the gates of hell had opened.

I turned east on 38th Street and walked up Park Avenue toward Grand Central. Days later I realized that I wasn't completely rational -- I remember looking into Gramercy Park, an odd little side trip for someone making an escape, so I wandered a bit before heading north.

I felt wary about entering the Grand Central because it could be a target, but eventually decided to give it a chance. At Park and 41st, a U. S. Customs officer stopped me and let me through when I showed him my Metro North pass. I showed it again to policemen at the station door. Inside the station there were men with bullhorns announcing departing trains. I heard one announce a Stamford train, but the crowd rushing to the platform was too intense. Then I saw some men running towards another platform and yelled "Stamford?" They said yes and I ran after them. We were the first to arrive and were able to get seats on the last car.

The train filled quickly. The biggest, burliest, meanest conductor was standing on the platform outside our window controlling the mad crowd -- some people were rushing the sides of the train to presumably climb on top and he herded them back into the station. He even yelled at the conductor of our train, who kept opening the door to let just one more in.

We left about noon. The train crawled slowly towards Stamford and I arrived in Larchmont at 3:00 (usually a 40 minute ride). Everyone shared food and drink. But, again, there was very little talk. What could you say at the moment? The only conversation I remember concerned the sharing of working cell phones -- people were passing around the working phones so other people could call home.

A man across the aisle deserves an award for kindness. He must have had all of the home numbers of his co-workers in memory and called each one to tell the wife that he saw her husband walking up 6th Avenue.

When the train pulled into Larchmont, two Larchmont police officers were on the platform and I saw a squad car moving through the parking lot, so that accounts for three of Larchmont's four-man police force. When we crossed the bridge over the train tracks, we could see the pillar of smoke downtown.

When I returned to work on Thursday I was stunned to see every surface, every pole, every wall, covered with pictures of the missing. I walked from Grand Central to my office and the sad truth revealed itself. So many lives, so many families crushed. My heart became heavy with overwhelming grief.

The tragedy tapped into a bottomless well of sadness. For months afterwards the sadness lay lie smoke over the city, defining and coloring our world with its grimness.

One year later, I still am very affected. I thought with each milestone (3 months, 6 months), I would let go of a little more of the grief. And I have -- I've stopped talking obsessively about it with my friends, the dreams are gone and I don't hyperventilate when a bad memory pays a visit. But I finally came to the conclusion that it will always lie like a lump in my chest, eternally my sad companion, because the enormity of the event is like the enormity of human existence, confirmation that we are a cruel species and allow petty tyranny to control our gentler natures.