story8903.xml

story8903.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-01-01

I was on my way to class at NYU that Tuesday morning on September 11th. I remember being late, so I was rushing my way to school. I was already on the train at about 8:40am for a 35 minute commute. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, rush-hour was moving along as usual, small delays here and there. I kept hearing announcements by the train conductor about some "serious incident" and that all trains will not be going beyond Canal Street. I exited the train at about 9:15 from the 8th street station on the N&R line (both planes had already hit the towers by then). I noticed that it was an extremely beautiful day and almost everyone was walking peculiarly slow on the streets. No panic, just stunned faces as I glanced at them. I wasn't yet aware of the situation until I looked South on Broadway and noticed a dark cloud in the sky, I assumed it was just a fire. I walked into my school building and bumped into my boss, he just said that a small plane hat hit one of the world trade center towers. It seemed funny at first to think of a small plane just running into the towers as if they are so difficult to notice. Then I ran upstairs to class, noticed a monitor in the lobby showing images of the event. Strangely, NOBODY was reacting loud. I think it was just the shock that kept them quiet.

Moving along, my class was still in session, so I walked in and sat in my chair. It was strange sitting there knowing that only a few blocks away something terrible was happening. I'm not sure everyone was yet aware of the magnitude of this. The TV in the lobby was facing our classroom. Everyone would turn here and there to see what was going on. All of a sudden everything got very quiet and we all turned around, that's when the first tower fell. Someone walked into the room and announced that we should all go home. I walked outside the room and starred at the monitor as the towers fell in real-time. That's when I panicked, I ran to the phone and called my mom, I was only on the phone with her for 10 seconds before I lost connection. That's when every phone (including mobile) went dead. I ran to a computer, logged on AOL and began to send messages to friends telling them that I'm okay and to inform my parents.

I started crying a lot, something I don't do very often. I began to worry since my best friend worked near the towers, but thank God he called in sick that day. I remained in school until 10:30, around the time the second tower collapsed.

Maybe it's because it was a nice day outside, but everyone was very calmed. Walking north away from the event. The media was a heavier impact on the event then the event itself, that's the impression I got after I got home and turned on my TV.