SHARE YOUR 9/11 STORY

September 11th started as any other day. My husband, Kirk, left the house at 5:00 a.m. to go to his job at 6 World Trade Center. He worked as a Planner Estimator for GSA (General Services Administration) a Federal agency with various office locations in New York City, 6 World Trade Center one of them. I left the house at 6:30 a.m. to take my stepson Chris to school. I returned home to start the project I brought home from work. I had planned to work at home for the day. The phone rang (I do not remember the time). It was my husband who said the following in an extremely calm but strained voice: “ Don’t panic. There has been an explosion at the World Trade Center. Turn on the T.V. I don’t know when I will see you. I love you”. He hung up immediately after saying these few sentences. The only words I managed to say were Hello and What????

I turned on the T.V. and in horror saw the second plane hit the second tower. I screamed and fell to the floor. I had lost all feeling on the right side of my body. Due to the emotional and unknown factors of the situation and stress it triggered a Multiple Sclerosis relapse. The phone rang again. I dragged myself to the phone. It was my husband’s sister, Renee inquiring about her brother. We talked about 30 minutes. We tried to console each other. The phone rang again. It was one of my stepson’s teachers at the Middle School he attended. She asked me to come to the school to pick up my stepson. She knew how close the three of us had grown through the years. She knew he would want to wait vigil with me for the hopeful return of my husband, his father. I explained to her about the MS relapse. She understood the problems I had regaining feeling on the right side of my body. Therefore she stayed on the phone talking to me with soothing, comforting words that helped me to regain some feeling on my right side. I left the house in a fog. I arrived at the school to pick up my stepson. I exhibited a forced expression of optimism and hope for my stepson, Chris.

We drove in silence listening to the news on the radio. Chris asked me again, did you talk to Dad? I reassured him I had spoken to his Dad. When we arrived home, we saw my husband’s car. He opened the door and my stepson and I rushed into his arms in a group hug so forceful, my husband’s glasses almost were broken.

My husband, Kirk’s story:

Kirk sat in the Cafeteria at 6 World Trade Center having breakfast. He heard an explosion overhead. He had always possessed an intuitive sense about things in general therefore he sensed something was very, very wrong. He shouted to the staff and the other people in the Cafeteria to leave the building. He made sure everyone had left the Cafeteria. He then took the stairs to the 3rd floor to his office to look for his co-workers. He found no one but the Administrative Assistant. She was walking around the office in shock. She was so afraid she could no longer think. He grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the office and down the stairs, the imprint of her nails embedded in his arm. They proceeded along the glass-enclosed walkway (bridge) to 7 World Trade Center. Kirk looked up as he heard a loud thud. He saw the bodies of the people that jumped crashing onto the glass ceiling. He told the Administrative Assistant not to look as he covered her eyes. This vision consumed his dreams every night for many months. Kirk and the Administrative Assistant joined other people at 7 World Trade Center. As they looked out the windows, they saw the towers in flames. They are told to evacuate. Only one revolving door was working, but miraculously everyone walked through in an orderly fashion.

The Administrative Assistant was better now. She followed the crowds of people walking towards the Brooklyn Bridge. Kirk ran to the Federal Building to call me. He had been my caregiver for about 4 years; therefore he knew that the stress of the horrific situation would cause a Multiple Sclerosis relapse. After the brief phone call to me, he ran back down to the World Trade Center to try to go up to his office to get his wallet and brief case. Kirk only had his car keys in his jeans pocket. The Security Guard did not allow him to return to his office. He did not think it was a good idea. Of course later, when the towers collapsed, 6 World Trade was destroyed. My husband later learned that this Security Guard died. He left the World Trade Center and decided to run to Christopher Street to get the PATH. He joined many people jumping the turnstiles to get on the PATH. This turn out to be the last PATH allowed to leave. As the PATH traveled to Newark Penn Station, the engineer received the signal to stop due to water that flooded the tracks. He refused to stop. After many gut wrenching minutes and prayers, the PATH arrived safely in Newark. Kirk ran the several blocks to the parking lot to his car. He drove at a high rate of speed down the Garden State Parkway to his wife and son who he knew must be distraught with fear and worry.

My husband suffered with migraines and nightmares for two years. It was difficult for him to talk about his experience and read about it in the newspapers. I remember when we read about the heroic efforts of the Day Care staff that evacuated the children from the Day Care Center located at the World Trade Center. We both were moved to tears after reading the thought provoking article. Their beautiful faces waving to him everyday before this horrific tragedy were forever etched in his memories. He was moved to tears that all survived due to the quick thinking and caring staff. Kirk was not easily moved to tears.

My husband was also an architect and designer. Therefore, as a team we submitted a design for the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition. (I have included a copy of the poem I created to accompany our design). This was the last design he completed before his death. On September 23, 2003 he was severely burned. He later died from his injury on September 29, 2003 two years after 9/11. In January 2004 Kirk received a certificate from the LMDC in recognition for his participation and contribution in honoring those who lost their lives on February 26, 1993 and September 11, 2001. I had this certificate framed to honor Kirk’s memory and love for New York.

Thank you Channel 13 for this opportunity. I will never forget.

If your system was working properly I would submit more. This seems to be the only place to write.

Our apt. in Riverdale was on the Hudson River and we saw the Twin Towers from our terrace. As we
watched the second one come down I kept thinking about the fabulous art collection that the Port Authority had in the building and stored below the subway that I had seen only a few weeks before, when working with their curator. We lost a man who lived in our bldg. who was married with one small child and his wife was pregnant with their second child. We lit candles all over our lobby and brought food and comfort to the wonderful young widow. I remember driving around with my husband and wondering what any of us were going to do besides buying some food and supplies for ourselves and then later sharing with the widow.

This painting and my descriptioin tells my story.

http://www.zibbet.com/Egilpatr/artwork?artworkId=110813

Of course, none of us who were living in Manhattan ten years ago (as I still am) will ever forget the horror of that day. I first found out by receiving a phone call just after 8:45 am from my sister in Indiana, which I assumed was a prank on her part (since we have always liked to play jokes on each other) until I turned on the TV and looked out my window toward the already smoking roof of the WTC towers. Fortunately I did not personally have any family or friends who were affected, but that does not lessen the horror, pain and grief of the thousands who died and the many thousands of other friends and family members whom they left behind.

I was working then, and I still do now, in the field of immigration law. Even though, according to CNN estimates at the time (as far as I can recall) at least some 500 of the nearly 3,000 WTC victims were not American citizens, and came from dozens of countries all over the world, including some Muslim countries, it took about zero time for American politicians and TV anchors to start ranting about the “3,000 Americans” killed in the 9/11 attacks, as if not a single foreign citizen had been affected in one of the most international cities anywhere on this planet.

It took about the same amount of time for these same demagogic politicians and media figures to start blaming all immigrants, no matter where they were from, or what kind of legal visas they had (as most, but certainly not all of them, did) for the 9/11 attacks. In addition, there were many calls for making all the immigration laws tougher, especially against Hispanics, who were only involved in the attacks as victims.

Thousands of men who were citizens of Muslim countries (including many who were not Muslims at all, but Christians – I met some of these personally) were told that they would have to report to immigration offices and at least 10,000 were deported on immigration technicalities. I am not aware that even a single one of those deported was charged with any terror related activity or connection. Many reforms in the immigration laws which would have made the system fairer both for immigrants and Americans were in the pipeline at the time. Ten years later, few if any of these reforms have gone through.

However, time moves on. Immigrants are not hated today as “terrorists” as much as they are hated for being “job stealers” in a time of severe economic difficulty. Let us hope that in all the media hype about a ten-year old event which, fortunately, is a lot less likely to happen now that it was then, we will not be distracted from focusing on America’s much more pressing and urgent economic problems.

Of course, we must be vigilant. The Obama administration, we can be absolutely sure, is giving a much higher priority to preventing terror attacks than the Bush administration did immediately prior to 9/11/2001. Which of the two presidents actually killed Bin Laden, removing this scourge from the face of the earth?

But, unless there is a plot somewhere that has eluded detection by the most sophisticated worldwide security apparatus in human history, and let us hope there is not, America’s main danger today comes from inside – from the Tea Party and the other powerful right wing business and financial interests that want to eliminate America’s middle class in order to enrich the super-wealthy few at the very top and reduce the rest of our nation to poverty.

America’s danger also comes from the right wing extremist fanatics who are preaching hate against Latino, Asian, Middle Eastern and black immigrants, and their American citizen children who have broken no law and done harm to nobody. As we remember the awful events of ten years ago, let us not let ourselves be distracted by media sensationalism about an event that is already part of America’s past history from our even more pressing problems today.

It was a gorgeous fall day and as usual, the E train was running a little late to my midtown office. I was in such a rush when I got off the train because I didn’t want to be late for work. The walk was only 2 blocks and I noticed that a lot of people were looking downtown. I didn’t give it much thought. I got settled into my cubicle, turned on my computer and said good morning to a few co-workers. A few minutes later my friend Fran asked me if my Dad went to work that day. I thought it was kinda weird that she asked me that, but I said yes, he did. Then she told me what happened. It was the scariest day of my life. My father worked on the 96th floor of Tower 2.

Then the phone calls began, or at least were attempted. There was no cell service and no one had heard from my father. It was hours and hours before he called my mom to tell him that he was ok. Then I finally heard from him a few hours later. Thank goodness – he made it out on time.

My Dad usually took the subway downtown from Penn and since it was such a beautiful day, he decided to take the bus instead. Thank goodness. The bus was much slower and it took longer to get downtown. That bus saved his life. When he got to tower 2, he got on the elevator up to 78. In the time it took him to get to 78, the plane had hit the building. When the elevator doors opened, people on the 78th floor rushed into the elevator – my Dad could not get out. Then went back down to the lobby and my Dad said it looked like a war zone. He spent the rest of the morning looking for co-workers, dodging debris, getting blasted through a window and just trying to survive.

I reunited with him later that day in midtown and I was never happier to see him. He lost many co-workers. We spent the next month attending funerals and memorial services. My Dad shutdown and never spoke about what happened that day even though we craved for information. What he saw that day was too painful for him to speak about. His office relocated to Rockefeller Center and life went on.

This 10th anniversary is very bittersweet for me. My father survived, not just one, but 2 attacks on the World Trade Center. He won’t be attending any memorials this year. He passed away on December 22, 2010 from bladder cancer. Instead, he’s up in heaven reunited with all of his buddies. Rest in Peace Daddy.

It is not as if I am without any personal memories of 9/11. Only a week or two before the attack, my wife, who is from Asia and had never been to the WTC, stopped by a cafe on the main floor for a snack. My older daughter, who was living just across the river in New Jersey at the time, used to pass through the PATH station underneath the Twin Towers every morning at just about 8:45 am, the time of the attack, on her way to work in Manhattan. Fortunately, she had left her job only a month or two before the attack, so she was not there.

However, only a few days before the attack, she had left off some vacation film at a photo store on the lower level of the WTC to be developed. (Yes, many people still used film in those days, which may show more than anything else how much time has passed.) The photo store was obliterated in the 9/11 attack.

But, several weeks later, one of the cleanup workers found the envelope with the film, untouched, lying on top of the rubble and mailed it to my daughter. She sent the film off to be developed and her pictures came out perfectly, without a scratch.

On 9/11, I was taking a bus from Rutherford to my job near the Stock Exchange. As the bus was about to enter the Lincoln Tunnel, we could see a plane had hit one tower of the World Trade Center and it was on fire. Someone with a radio told us another plane had hit the other tower. I knew it was terrorists, but I didn’t realize how devastating it would be so I took the subway to continue to work.

When I got out of the subway at my stop, people started screaming. Smoke was pouring out of the tunnel toward us. My first thought was poison gas so I ran up the stairs to the exit. People on the stairs were screaming “Don’t go out!” I looked out and the street was totally black. I could only see through the four foot section of street directly in front of me. I ran across the street to the lobby of the Charles Schwab building. My own building was only three blocks away but I couldn’t possibly reach it.
I found out the planes that I had thought were Piper Cubs were really passenger jets full of people. I found that horrifying, and I wondered when the American planes would arrive to protect us. I also learned a plane had hit the Pentagon. I started to worry about a friend who worked in the Pentagon but realized I wouldn’t be able to find out anything about her for hours.

A woman panicked and started screaming “There are two more planes coming! I know it!” I felt myself “catching” her panic as I remembered we were just two blocks from the Stock Exchange. In the old black and white movies someone would always slap a panicking woman & now I could see why. I moved away from her and someone else quieted her.

The air in the lobby was acrid. A stranger gave me his t-shirt to use as a mask so I ripped it up to share with others. The security guards started handing people dust masks which worked much better. One wall of the lobby had a two-story floor-to-ceiling glass window. Suddenly a wall of debris started flying at the window and people started screaming. The second tower had just collapsed, but fortunately the debris was just harmless dust.

The security guards suggested we move up to the 11th floor where the air was better. I went with a stranger named Nelson. We were on a deserted floor of a company with an Arabic name. We searched shamelessly for anything we could use like water or a flashlight. I heard other people climbing the stairs in the stairwell and asked them what was happening. They had tried to leave but the security guards wouldn’t let them. They invited us to join them on the 15th floor. “No one should be alone” they said. I talked Nelson into joining them. On the 15th floor, I was able to call Anton my husband at work a few blocks away to tell him I where I was (in case the building collapsed- anything was possible now) but urged him not to come get me and to go home as soon as he could. I also called my elderly father in Maine & told him Anton & I were fine but might not be home for awhile.

The security guards then told us we had to leave. I didn’t have a chance to call Anton again. We emerged onto a totally changed Wall Street area. It didn’t smell, look, or sound the same. The air was acrid and everything was covered with a layer of fine sand colored dust. There was no traffic sound, just people hurrying away holding masks in front of their faces. I was somewhat in shock & afraid to be alone so instead of going to the building where I worked, I went with Nelson who assured me it would be easy to get to NJ from Brooklyn. We joined the masses of people walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. It looked a little like the Marathon, except everyone was dressed in work clothes, holding masks to their faces, and tensely watching the sky for planes.

We stopped at Nelson’s aunt’s apartment. A friend of hers worked in the public schools and told us they wouldn’t let any schoolchildren go home until they were sure their parents were alive. Nelson’s wife met us in Brooklyn and gave me a big hug. She drove us to their house. All of the bridges were closed but Nelson’s daughter figured out that I could take a subway back to 42nd St. and get a ferry from there to NJ. She walked me to the subway.

On the subway I met two other women who were also trying to get to NJ. We formed an unlikely alliance: myself, a middle-aged Irish-American woman; Elaine, a pretty young Hispanic girl who had picked the wrong day to wear 6 inch heels; and Sheryl, a young black woman in her thirties with two young children who had been interviewing for a job as a prison guard. We got a cross-town bus together but it moved so slowly we got off and walked to the river. Like true New Yorkers we then cut into a bus line going to a boat to NJ. They were using every sort of boat to ferry people across to NJ. Our boat was a lunchtime party boat and we could see costumes from luncheon musical shows hanging in a second floor closet. Others arrived on ferries, tour boats and even coast guard cutters. We sat on the deck during the crossing to distract Sheryl who worried about getting seasick. We discussed why being in the riot police was a good job and were almost cheerful when we reached Weehawken. Then we saw another building crumble and we started worrying about the people in WTC. We had to wait in long lines to get a bus to the Hoboken train station. Once again the buses were a hodgepodge of regular transit and charter party buses.

When I reached Hoboken I realized I hadn’t eaten, but everything was closed. There were water bottles stacked everywhere. I waited on my train seated behind three guys who were joking on their cell phones about how Jim didn’t have to go to work tomorrow since he no longer had a building. A shivering, wet girl got on. I hadn’t seen it, but a crew was spraying water on anyone who was less than ten blocks from the WTC to disinfect them. When I finally got home, I couldn’t hug my husband or my girlfriend because I had to shower first to disinfect. It was 8 PM & there were still cars parked in Rutherford’s parking lot. We hoped their owners were alive to claim them.

If I thought about how 9/11 changed me, I’d have to say it striped away my sense of security. I know now that very bad things can happen. I know there are evil people who want me dead. And I know the American planes I was waiting for won’t necessarily arrive in time or at all. The chances are good that we will be on our own. With any luck we will survive. While I am no longer as intensely alert as I was in the months after 9/11, I am probably more cautious than your average person.

I was also very touched by how bravely people reacted from the firemen digging in the toxic mess to the bystanders cheering those going to Ground Zero. We never need to question the heroism of our citizens or the kindness of strangers in a crisis.

Jackie came and told me that two planes had flown into the twin towers. My first response: how could one plane accidentally hit the building much less two in the same day?
I was on the top floor of a 5 story building in the Bronx. My windows were above head level but I could climb on a chair and see the buildings burning. We, my students and I, stood on chairs and watch the towers spew black smoke into the air. From there the day proceeded around the bells signaling for the class to begin and end marking numbing periods of 45 minutes. The classes became smaller and smaller as parents came and took their teens home. In my last class, we went into another classroom and watched the news reports from lower Manhattan.
I had taken the train that day so I had to wait for Marise to give me a ride home as all MTA services had been suspended. 9/11 shadowed our days and the smells from ground zero permeated the air around us. Everyone morning on my commute, I could see the remains of the towers burning.
On one of the days when we went back to work, I became fearful for those who had jumped from the towers. In so many religions it is a grave sin to commit suicide and yet it would be such an atrocity for someone to survive the attack, jump out the window in fear and desperation and then end up in hell. Before beginning my day, I went to Rodica in tears for those who jumped. She told me that they didn’t jump, that the force of the fires had blown out the windows and that that’s why so many bodies fell. And so, we go on.

We were visiting friends in Yonkers, when Jon Henery yelled, “Turn on the T.V.!!! The North tower has been hit!” We turned it on just in time to see the second tower being hit. We left earlier than planned, expecting the bridge to be closed (it wasn’t) for an 8 hour trip North. We listened to the radio all the way and heard the sickening news. The next week we got a phone call while on board ACCL’s “The Grande Mariner” in Alexander Bay, NY with shocking news: a family friend, Tim Haviland had lost his life on the North Tower. ! On Oct.1 our ship docked at Quebec City and we attended mass at the Anglican Cathedral as a memorial service was going on; Webber’s “Pie Jesu” let go the flood-gates of our tears.

Before retiring, I worked for Metro North Railroad at its Harmon shop facility in Croton-on-Hudson. On the morning of the attacks on the Towers, my friends and I were having coffee on a bench at the back of the shop which looks out toward the Hudson River. Between 8 am and 8:20. without knowing, and not able to say then, or now, we MAY very well have seen the first of those planes, which turned down the Hudson from Albany on its way to the city. We don’t know, but talked about it many times, wondering if one of us had noticed the planes but just never thought about it. A few minutes later, one of the guys inside, working in the ‘clean room’ called us to check out their t.v. to see the first hit on the Towers. As with many people, before seeing the images, we just assumed it had been a small plane, until we saw the damage, then the second hit.

It is a day I will never forget. I was in my office on Water Street when a co worker called and said he had heard that a plane hit the WTC. I ran to the window along with other staff and we could see smoke. Our office faced the South tower. I then went back to my desk since phone were ringing off the hook and my niece called to see if I was OK. I told her yes and then we were asked to assemble in a board room and were instrcuted to remain calm and to remain in the office and now the second plane had hit. I then tried calling my niece back but the phones were dead. Then I remember going to the window again and seeing objects flying around. I kept going from desk to window in horror; not knowing what to do. A short time later I once again was at the window with a co-worker who then says to me that Towere Two is collapsing and I remember saying It can’t be. To my horror I see the dark dust and ak imploding and I guess I turned white in shock. We were once again called together and told to leave our buiding by stairway and walk east. I wanted to go to find ny nephew at the NYSE but knew then was not a good idea so one of my staff walked with me while I walked toward Whithall to get to the SI Ferry. Iremember seeing an ambulance with the windsheilds going trying to clear the windows of the fine ash so they could see to drive. I coverd my face and met a woman from Brooklyn and we both walke to the ferry and then we heard planes and people were screaming to us to get in the building. It was the fighter jets that were circling the area. We both got on the crowded and very quiet ferry and everyon had on life jackets. We sat and could not see anything but smoke and ask and the ferry left the dock. Midway across the water the day changed to a beautiful sunny day whcih we had forgotten amidst the smoke and ask. I walked to the SI train and wanted the Brooklyn woman to come home with me since the bridges were closed but she said her husband was coming for her. I got to my stop and could not find my car. In all of the onfusion, I forgot that I had not left my car at the train station that day. I walked home took off my ash covered suit and my brother who was home in his apartment saw me and wanted to make me tea. He said that I looked like a ghost. I was just in shock for what I had jsut seen. Ithen put on the TV and could not move. It was the worst day that I have ever experienced in my life and I will never forget it and all of the people lost and the forst responders since I had to go to work back downtown to a desolate downtown NYC for months and years to follow. I pray for those lost and for their families and for all that worked tirlessly to find remains at that once beautiful site. The NYC skyline from the ferry would never be the same. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

I went into the office at the school where I worked to pick up my mail, when I heard banging and yelling in the principal’s room next door. I made a remark about it being too early in the school year for anyone to get that upset, when the secretary said that a plane had flown into one of the Twin Towers and that the principal’s son was supposed to report for work there that day. It was hard to believe, so I went up to the teacher’s lounge to see if there was news on the t.v. and sure enough, there was footage of the first plane flying into one of the Towers. Teachers who were in the room were desperate to get home, to find a way to connect with their families, and many didn’t have cell phones.

We brought the students down from the top floor, as they had a view of the Twin Towers from across the river, and some had witnessed the first plane flying into the buildings. Luckily they were older students, but it was very tough to know what to say, as we ourselves didn’t know what was going on. Many students were worried, of course, and some were enraged that we didn’t know more than they did about what was happening. Naturally we tried to reassure them, as best we could, that we were safe and that their families were being notified to come pick them up. Still, it was a harrowing day, as everyone was upset.

A few students were not picked up until later that evening, and a few teachers stayed at the school to wait until their families came for them. We still really didn’t know what had happened, as most of us had been teaching nonetheless that day, as if nothing had happened. The administration had told us to act as if it were a regular schoolday, so classes went on as usual, except that the older children especially were upset and aware that something terrible had happened. Luckily for our school community, all children were picked up, and nobody lost a relative at the World Trade Center.

The neighborhood was ghostly. Not a soul was out, nobody walking, and nobody driving, and getting home that evening was very strange. I remember wondering if it was safe to walk home, and luckily, I lived close enough to work to be able to do that. Still, it was unsettling to walk through the streets. I really didn’t have a good idea of what had happened until I was home and able to turn on the news and talk to friends and relatives from out of town.

I had done my morning work-out at the Westside Y and had gone for breakfast before heading to the Real Estate Board for some property researches. I am a real estate broker.
Leaving the restaurant a block north of the ABC building, I was headed south for the subway but saw a group of people intently watching a large screen at the front of ABC’s front entrance. I asked what was going-on and was told that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. Of couse it was quite unbelievable, as the sky was as clear as could be. My mind went numb as I continued on to the Real Estate Board, where, with all others, I watched news coverage for the next few hours. Of course we saw the 2nd plane crash into the 2nd tower and then knew, without doubt, that it was WAR!!
Later, as I walked back to my car to return to my home, I was crossing Central Park and thinking about the future. My thought was that the USA would finally be forced to “LISTEN”.
I’m a Social Studies graduate from an Ivy League University, returning as a “resumed student” at the age of 43. I returned, not to get a better job, but to better understand a confusing world. I learned that the USA, with 4% of the world’s population, consumed 40% of the world’s non-replenishable natural resources. I learned a lot more but mostly importantly, I learned to “think critically”: not “criticizing”, but “critiquing”. On Graduation day, as I was in the shower preparing for a day in which my family and friends would ask about what had I learned during the past four years, I had an epiphany: I realized that I had learned to ask better questions.
Before returning to school, I didn’t understand the world, nor did I know what questions to ask in order to learn, but now I knew. You ask and then you listen.
9/11 happened because the USA never asked and never listened because it never cared about others, only itself.
So now, perhaps we’re being forced to ask the right questions and come up with some right answers.

I took the F train in Brooklyn at Ditmas ave station which is elevated and you could see the twins towers from there. That morning I saw what looked like a cloud around the 80th floor. I thought it looked funny but thought nothing about it. When I got to the Wall street staation on the no.2 line, a man said a plane when into one of the towers, and I asked if it was a small plane and he said it was a big plane. When I came out from the station from the Morgan building, all the people were out of their offices and the paper were flying everywhere. I went to my office building which is at 32 Old Slip and was waituing on line to maake a call home when a women came running and said the building is coming down. We all looked at each other and said what building, and she she said the tower is falling. We started to run and that cloud came over us. It wasn’t as dark as if you were closer, but it blocked out Brooklyn and you hardly see the water we were walking next to. After a while, we started to walk home. The police wouldn’t lets us on the Brooklyn Bridge because there was too many people there already. We had to walk across the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn. The Tech college were so nice to all the people who were cominng across the bridge. They gave us food and juice water, coffee and let us use the phone and the bathroom and told us to stay as long as we wanted. After a while the trains started running again, so I was able to get back home. I just want to say there is a firehouse at 32 Old Slip and they helped us.That day, they lost alot of men. I am not sure how many. I think about 10. It could be more. God bless them now and forever

From my window we could see the towers. The noise drew us to look out, I thought a manhole cover had blown. While my husband and I watched the first tower burn we saw the second burst into flames. Then came the first collapse. The tower just went down. There was such a sense of unreality. The sky the most beautiful clear blue I’ve ever seen. Facing south, we never saw the planes initiative action, just the results.

There were many people standing in the intersection of Bleecker and La Guardia Place. We went downstairs to be with them. During tragedy, even in a city like New York where people can be so isolated, there was a need to come together. A delivery truck had it’s door open and the radio on, We gathered close and stood, listening. Then the second tower went down. Flames, black smoke backlit by the beautiful clear blue sky. The ash cloud rose as the building went down.

La Guardia Place becomes West Broadway further down. The towers were about a mile from where we’d gathered. After a bit people began to come through. Refugees, the like of which I’d only seen in documentaries. And as in many of those documentaries the people were washed of all color. These people were covered in ash, a thick, sticky coating. They walked alone. One foot in front of another, over and over. They didn’t speak, they just kept going, one foot in front of the other. There was one statuesque black woman. She normally would have had a majestic and commanding presence. Her shoulders were bowed, her head, face, entire body covered with the sticky grey green ash. I couldn’t take my eyes from her. Even now I can’t begin to describe the expression on her face. Then, I couldn’t begin to imagine what she’d seen. One foot in front of another.

The “refugees,” the tall woman in particular, at the same time heightened the sense of the unreal and began the breakthrough into the reality of the moment. It was like a hologram. Watching a newsreel from one angle, move your head and the same scene became starkly immediate and personal.

The sense of shared community continued through the days that The Village was cut off from vehicular traffic. We really were a village. We told the weather by which direction the ghastly plume of smoke was blowing that day. The sky, except for the the noxious plastic smells that we couldn’t get away from continued to be jewel like. One day the air was particularly bad as I walked through Washing Square Park. A woman, a total stranger, seeing me walking with both hands over my nose and mouth gave me a mask.

A couple of weeks later, again in Washington Square Park, I heard a sound coming from the sky, looked up and for the first time since 9/11 a plane was flying over Manhattan. The outline of a plane had become something out of nightmares. I had to fight the instinct to drop to the ground and cover my head. Manhattan was no longer a no fly zone.

After watching TV coverage of 911, I realized that the official stories were false, that an impartial, high order investigation was needed to determine what, why, and how things had happened. (To date, no such public effort has taken place.)

Even before doing some calculations that confirmed my intuition or checking a Handbook of Chemistry and Physics to see that jet fuel could not melt or sufficiently weaken the WTC buildings’ structure, I went to a University library and reread a book recommended to me by a high school teacher in the ’50s, President Roosevelt and the Coming of WWII. In the weeks that follwed I attended several memorial and recollection meetings. At C W Post College, First Responders from L I described their experiences. During question/comment I voiced my concerns about the false official stories that dishonored those who died. After some fool called out denouncing me, a faculty member a former NYPD Homocide Detective, said that he had friends who died alongside him in Vietnam based upon the government’s lies. Only truth will save us, he said, and thanked me for speaking out.
Over the years I have joined with many other knowlegeable people to debunk the official stories and consider the effects of 911 on draconian governmental policies and the injury to our Republic and national life that are based upon false stories.
Truth is sacred because it can lead to progress or drag us down as its abscence has done to people throughout history. Wake up. Rememberance of lies does not honor the dead, idolatry is not homage to any God.

I worked at 60 Wall Street on Sept. 11, 2001 and my office faced west and had a lovely view of the twin towers. I often saw lightning strike the antenna of 1 WTC during thunder storms. I was sitting at my desk that morning, checking e-mail and finishing my coffee before heading to a meeting across the street which was meant to start at 9 AM. I felt the explosion as our building shook. At first I thought someone had dropped something very heavy in the office above mine, but then I turned slighly and saw the giant fireball that came out of 1 WTC. Because my office was southwest of the tower, I did not see the plane, which came in from the north. I screemed and saw all the fire, smoke and debris spewing from the gapping hole in the building. I immediately called my husband (who worked from our home) and told him that the WTC was blowing up again (I had remembered the first attacks in 1993). I tuned my radio to WINS and soon heard the preliminary reports that a small plane had flown into the tower. I innocently thought it was a horrible accident. I counted the floors of the building to see if the many friends I had working in the building were affected and thought they were not. I debated whether to go to my meeting and (stupidly) decided to go, figuring that when I returned there would be more information.

I stepped out on the Pine Street entrance and regretted going out – the air was filled with the debris spewing from the building. I crossed Pine Street to 1 Chase Plaza and went to the lower level to the meeting location. The meeting never really happened, as we were constantly interrupted by announcements that the building was safe and not being evacuated. Those of us in the meeting had no idea that the second plane had struck. A few minutes before 10, the meeting broke up and as we left we saw the TV screens in the reception area showing the smoking ruins of the Pentagon and we all new this was no accident. I remember thinking we were under attack. I quickly left to return to my office to get my handbag and head home. On Pine Street, I saw many people running and I was almost caught in a stampede. When I looked west to see what they were running from, I saw a giant ball of grey dust heading towards us. I ran across Pine Street into 60 Wall Street and everyone was being evacuated to our lower levels. The entire building was engulfed in grey dust.

Rumors started flying that the Stock Exchange had been hit. Someone said the top of the towers had collapsed, which we thought was ridiculous. I found a phone and called my husband, who filled me in on what was happening and that some planes were still unaccounted for. We saw on TV that the towers had collapsed. People were panicking and crying. Some decided to evacuate but our building security warned us to stay until we got the all clear.

Close to noon, we were told that the entire area was being evacuated. I had not been allowed up to my 38th floor office to get my handbag and I pleaded with our security people to let me go up and get my handbag. I had nothing with me other than the pad of paper and pen I had taken to that meeting 3 hours before and told them they could not make me evacuate without money, house keys and my cell phone. I was escorted up in the freight elevator by a security guard and when we entered my office, both of us were struck by the sight of an empty sky filled with grey dust where the towers once stood. Tears welled up in my eyes and in the eyes of the burly security guard. I grabbed my handbag and briefcase, turned off my computer and we returned to our lobby.

In our lobby, cafeteria workers handed us botted water and wet dish towels to shield our faces from the dust. We stepped out into what looked like nuclear winter and headed north. Some of my co-workers crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. I walked with one of my colleagues towards midtown, where we had another office building at 270 Park Avenue. There she was hoping to get a working phone to contact her husband in NJ and figure out how to get home. I live in Hell’s Kitchen and would then walk home. I’ll never forget that walk, as thousands of people walked north. Restaurants in Chinatown opened their doors and offered us cups of water. People helps others who were injured. Ladies took off their stilettos and walked barefoot. Police were everywhere, answering questions and handing out surgical masks.

After dropping my friend off on Park Avenue I headed west and when I got to Rockefeller Plaza. It was almost empty, with only 2 tourists standing in front of the Today Show studios watching the horrow on the TV screens and the news ticker. I had never seen Rockefeller plaza deserted. Suddenly the enormity of what had happened that day hit me and I started to cry. I composed myself and headed home.

Once home, I put my dust covered shoes (luckily I was wearing flats that day), now-dried dish cloth and surgical mask into a shoe box in the bottom of my closet. They are still there.

Life for me after 9/11 did change forever. Every year, on that date, as I watch the memorial services onTV, one thought never leaves my mind. How could this have happened in the most powerful country in the world? How is it possible that we were bombed by our own planes in broad daylight?
And, since it did happen, what could happen in the future? I believe Governor Kean was right in his comments after the 9/11 Report was issued………”They know more about us than we know about them”.

Congratulations to Raouf Zaidan for his beautiful comment. If all of us on earth had the same feeling, no one would have to worry about another 9/11, an Afghanistan, an Iraq, or any of the many other conflicts caused by narrowness, intolerance, lack of humanity, religious obsession and lust for wealth and power.

Even though we are a powerful country, America cannot control everything that goes on world wide. But we can combat hatred, intolerance, exploitation and inequality here at home. This means taking a close look at the agendas of most, if not all, of the presidential candidates now being put forward, or likely to be put forward between now and next year, by one of our two major political parties.

I was in the rehab unit of Mt. Sinai Hospital, following a knee replacement. I was scheduled to be there for another week. While I did not have a TV, one of my roommates did, so that we received the news as soon as it was aired. Morning therapy sessions were cancelled while the staff held a conference. Around 10:30, the floor social worker came in to announce that we were all to be sent out to make space in the hospital for the expected victims of the attack. The most frail would go to nursing homes. Those of us closer to recovery were to be sent home. The hospital had ordered buses, ambulettes and car services. I phoned one of my friends to hurry over with a large suitcase to pack my accumulation of 10 days up. She lived on W.113 Street just off Amsterdam, and was forced to walk all the way to the hospital with the suitcase because she could find no transportation.

When she arrived I shared my lunch with her while we awaited developments. The social worker would come in occasionally to say that they were still waiting for the transportation. We sat there hour after hour listening to radio and watching TV news. When supper came, I shared again with my waiting friend.

At 6:30 the social worker came in and announced that noone was leaving — they had not been able to get the transportation. By that time I was very eager to get home and told her that I had already decathected from my bed and would not stay. She said there was no way for me to travel. I tried calling my own regular car service numbers and was told that none of their drivers were responding. I then called one of my neighbors who had a large car and asked if she could come for us. She was just feeding her two younger boys supper (the oldest was marooned in Brooklyn as a student at St. Anne’s). She said she would come as soon as the boys were fed, and she did. While we waited for her at the Madison Avenue exit from the hospital, we found out why the car service drivers were not responding. They were cruising up the avenue, obviously looking to make a good income that night.

We lived on Riverside Drive, and in addition to the odors of burning World Trade Center that permeated the air, the sound of sirens whined throughout the night as ambulances passed our way carrying those few survivors to the famous burn unit at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. I gathered that Mt. Sinai had been optomistic in expecting survivors. The sound and the smell has stayed with me all of these years.

And yet, it was difficult for me to comprehend the extent of what had happened. I was discussing that fact a couple of weeks later with the young mother who had brought me home that night. She had had the same feeling, and having learned that nuns from St. Hilda’s school (our neighbor and her younger sons’ school) were going down on a regular schedule to volunteer at St. Paul’s Chapel to service the volunteers who were digging, so she joined them for several nights. As soon as I could walk again and handle the subway steps, I did that too.

Since then, being aware of all of the health problems experienced by our local volunteers as a result of breathing in all of those poisonous fumes, I have worried about the many volunteers who had come from abroad to assist in the digging. We met many there at St. Pauls — from Europe, Canada and as far as Australia. I wonder if anyone has information on those people.

I was awakened by a phone call from my wife who had seen the television transmissions while at work. She told me to turn on the TV and I did. I don’t know if it was my drowsy state or just the surrealism of what I was watching, but it took some time, at least until the second plane hit, for the horror to register. At that point, I quickly dressed and went outside. I live on Roosevelt Island, and our West Promenade on the East River afforded a direct view of the smoking buildings. Even more than the visual impression of the disaster, I will never forget the smell of smoke that lingered for a week.

As president of our residents association, I went to work trying to arrange for a blood drive, either on-Island or elsewhere, to take donors from our population of about 12,000 people. I learned that blood centers were swamped all over the City and that, given how few of the victims survived or required blood, that most the donations that day would be discarded six weeks later when their shelf-life expired. I was advised to consider a drive post-New Year’s, when the City’s stored are traditionally low, and that is what we did. Ten years later, our annual blood drive on Roosevelt Island Day, under the auspices of the New York Blood Center, has become a tradition.

This Sunday, September 11, Roosevelt Island will remember our five neighbors lost that day as well as the fallen members of the FDNY Special Ops command, located here. In a candlelight ceremony at dusk, we will gather at our memorial plaque and tree to commemorate our loss through the spoken word and song. You are welcome to join us.

On the morning of 9/11 I was rushing to vote in the primary. I was very surprised to see a line of people looking towards the twin towers. I saw flames.. I thought they were shooting a film!
It was only when I came back home that I found out about the horrible truth.
amazingly, or perhaps not so amazingly when I explain why I became totally numb, incapable of reacting or incorporating what was happening. Myself a psychologist I soon was asked to come downtown and help. I just couldnt face it.
At the end of WWII I was hidden as a child in the country side in southern eastern France close by to the biggest German ammunition center in the area. Just before the allies arrived the Germans blew up the whole compound. Bombs were whistling over our heads as we ran for underground cover. It appears that the only reason we were not all killed is that czek prisoners cut the thread to the dynamite.
Anyway I believe 9/11 brought me straight back to that terrifying moment (among many others) and I just had to be numb. I felt terrible about it, paralyzed to do anything about it) but then i decided that was my chance to explain my sense of shame in the context of my hisotry which I usually avoided to talk about, and perhaps alsosubsequently help others in other circumstances where they cannot deal with a situation and everyone else feels they should be.
What I did was to cook a storm for all the doctors. I managed to compel myself to go down there a few weeks later, to face the whole tragedy. That was the best I could do. Later when I individually met people I happened to know who had lost someone on 9/11 I could cry with them and mourn. That was different.
Flora Hogman

I found out what had happened in the elevator on my way up to my office @ NY Presbyterian where I am a Nurse-Practitioner. It took several more minutes to learn it was an attack and not an accident. I called my husband to pick up our children, who had already been dropped off at school in the East Village. I felt I would need to stay at work, since hospitals would be inundated. I called my mother and brother on Staten Island and remember my brother saying how busy I would be, helping survivors.
As my colleagues and I sat in our office it slowly and sadly dawned on us how quiet it was, how no ambulances were arriving, and how many had probably died.

I waited for hours to receive a phone call from my father. He had worked with the World Trade Center before it was even constructed.. over 33 years. I knew he would be evacuating co-workers before thinking about his own safety. I just returned from a plane flight that morning and decided not to go into work and turned on the T.V. before I went to sleep. The World Trade Center was on fire and my concerns for my father started to worry me. My father had a very important role in the 1st World Trade Tower. As I watched the news and saw planes colliding into the Towers, I was devastated at the fact it was a terrorist attack. I was concerned for everyone’s safety but I had a personal stake because of my father. He barely survived the bombing in 1993 and made the news and newspapers during that event, so again I was worried. After Tower 2 collapsed my emotions were a wreck! After Tower One collapsed I became numb. I knew my father went down with the building because of his dedication to the Port Authority and his concern for the safety of others!!! I received a plethora of phone calls from concerned friends, who knew my father was an employee of the World Trade Center. The plane actually crashed into the area were my father’s office was located. He usually reports to work by 6 am. I knew this day would be no different. I remember as a child walking on the beams before the towers were constructed. The World Trade Center was a major part of my life. I visited there frequently, sometimes just to pay my father a visit. All morning my phone rang and to no avail it was not my father on the other end. I was also thinking of the many family friends that worked at the Trade Center. My family had developed relationships with my fathers co-workers family so no matter what, I was going to be devastated by a loss of family friends of over twenty years and of course the possibilities of losing my father. As his only son I could only reflect on what it would be like not having my father in my life, as he always played an instrumental role in my life. I thought about my children and my two sisters having to deal with the loss of my father. I expected him to go down with the Trade Center because he would risk his life for others before his.

At exactly 12 noon, the phone rang, by this time I was getting annoyed because it was everyone but my father calling me. I didn’t have ‘call-waiting’ so I had to keep my line clear. I understood everyone’s concern for me and my father but I just wanted to hear his voice confirming that he was alive. When I picked up the phone, in tears, I said hello and by God’s will, it was my father. He called me by my childhood nickname that he gave me from birth, and tears of joy poured from my eye ducts. He had decided to grab a cup of coffee and vote in his district before going to work that day. He saw the disaster from the Brooklyn Bridge. Although he saw what had transpired, he wanted to continue to go to the Trade Center but Police Authorities would not allow him, regardless of his title and credentials. Thank goodness.
I finally saw my father long hours later because of the alert. When he opened the front door to his house, I gave him the biggest hug possible. He was distraught! He was weary! He was ‘umbrella’d’ with a somber feeling, yet happy to hold his son in his arms. He worried on how many lives he was responsible for at the World Trade Center, for he was responsible for the hiring of many minorities through a program he initiated and had implemented. Again, his concern was for his friends and their families. Days after being taunted and hunted down by the media (T.V., Newspapers and radio) he nominated himself to call families whose love ones were determined a casualty of the horrific event! Always thinking of others before himself, I assisted him anyway possible.

You often read in history books of such events, but never in my wildest dreams would I think I would have a personal stake in this global Historic event. Every year I make a special call to my father on 9-11 to let him know how grateful I am of his presence in my life. Our relationship has strengthened ten fold as father-son and best friends. Although he has returned to the site once, he refuses to go in that area of Manhattan. Unsure if he wants to visit the memorial, I am blessed he survived another World trade Disaster and mourn for those whose life’s were lost. My father was very popular amongst the World trade Employees and the lost of hundreds, possibly thousands of friends, co-workers and acquaintances I’m sure, still lingers in his memories and on September 11th, I keep my father company because I know how painful the memories must be for him. Now that he is retired from the Port Authority, people will forever question him about 9-11. Although he shows strength, I know he must harbor his deepest feelings of sadness on this particular day.

They say the wing of the Hijacked plane went through his office. My father is a living Angel because God spared his life TWICE relating to World Trade Center disasters!

My deepest feelings go out to all of those that lost loved ones!

I am a high school teacher in Brooklyn. On that clear day myself and my students watched from the 4th floor classroom as the smoke came out of the Towers. One of my students said: “I need to go home, my house is on fire”. From where we watched it did look like all of Brooklyn between us and the Twin Towers was burning. As I was trying o explain that the fire was in Manhattan to the first student, another student pointed to the window in the direction of the Twin Towers and shouted”Look! it’s gone!” We all got silent and tried to comprehend what had just happened. The first of the Towers had fallen. I watched and realized that what I had known for 50 as the NY skyline had been changed forever. Students Kept making comments, I couldn’t answer them. We all got silent and just gathered together and stood and watched. As I look back I realized that all of those seemingly hard core gang banger students really clung to me for answers. For the first time in my educators career, I had nothing to tell them. I hope that I will never have that feeling of utter helplessness again. Out of all the students who have passed through my classes since, I can still rememer the silent attentive faces of the 30 students that stood with me the day our lives changed forever.

I am an RN, and that day, I was scheduled to work 3-11. My unit was a children’s psychiatric unit at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center. My brother in Michigan had called me early that morning, “Turn on the TV!” We sat in awe for hours on the phone and just watched together, totally numb. I knew that the hospital was preparing gurneys for the disaster victims. He pleaded with me to stay home that day. Of course, I could not do that. When I got to work, I had to park on the top level of the parking garage. It was there that I witnessed, in real life, the horrendous plumes of smoke that could be seen from across the river. On my way to my unit, empty gurneys lined the halls. Few victims, if any, had made it to Newark, mainly because there were so few survivors. Many of my co-workers had loved ones in the towers. The morning shift was mandated to stay until 8 pm. that day. Children drew pictures of planes hitting buildings. It was a real effort to treat these already emotionally challenged kids, ages 4-17.
I later spent a week as a camp nurse for children who lost their family members to the tragedy.
I think it was my way of giving, in order to heal from the trauma of that horrible day.

A few days before 9/11 a car went up in flames a few doors down from where I lived on Stanton St. on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. This resulted in a chemical smell, that of burning rubber and metal parts, I smell I perversely like, just as I perversely like the smell of skunk. At 8:40-ish on that fateful Tuesday morning of September 11, I was as usual at my computer trying to get through my email before I went off to work. And I smelled that same chemical smell. “Great,” I thought, “another car burning.” Then the announcement came over the radio that the World Trade Center had been hit by a small craft. Good grief, I thought. I turned the TV on to NY1 and they were conjecturing all over the place. The unedited version of the video clip came on with someone on site shouting “Holy sh*t” as they witnessed the second jet making impact. No one knew what was happening yet. My husband was in his native Nigeria and I was alone so I phoned my brother who lives a few blocks north of me and said, “Bobby, the World Trade Center is under attack.” We made a plan to take a few essential things from home and meet at a nearby coffee shop to deal with this unknown thing together. It is said that moments like this are in slow motion but for me, everything sped up. Trying to contact family to let them know we were okay, trying to reach elderly friends to know if they were needed anything. Bobby and I learned from our friend Sallie that our mutual friend Steve was inconsolable. He feared that his son, who worked on the 103rd floor of Tower 1, was dead. He was certain from the first moment that Paul didn’t make it. As we later found out, alas, his father’s intuition proved correct. I made a one-two-three go bag for myself–passport, medications, water, the few dollars I had lying around the house and a change of underwear. I didn’t take my camera. It seemed somehow inappropriate to be snapping pictures. Nor did I bring my journal. I couldn’t put into words what I was feeling. Heading on 2nd Avenue to the diner where I was to meet my brother, I could hear the wail of sirens and see a stream of vehicles—fire trucks, police cars, MTA buses, school vehicles, what seemed like millions of conveyances pressed into service, every single one of them heading downtown in the direction of, as it came to be known, “Ground Zero.” People covered in white dust and black soot were walking uptown on 2nd Avenue, totally freaked out by what they witnessed, yet elated to be among the survivors. They talked excitedly into cell phones and walkie-talkies, tried to make calls from pay phones to worried loved ones. Communication was pretty shoddy, coming on and off. There was little or no Internet. TV stations and radio were functioning, at least those who weren’t cut off by the effects of the jet planes-cum-bombs. The familiar rubbery chemical smell was pervasive. “We’re breathing in the bodies of the dead,” I thought to myself. It wasn’t a morbid thought. It was a true one. Such overwhelming sorrow, such fear about what might happen next. I kept turning around to see the towers with the two plumes of black smoke and sparkly clouds covering the Manhattan skyline. The day was ironically bright and sunshiny. Suddenly, like a stack of cards, one of the towers went down. I stood transfixed, tears running down my face. Then the second tower collapsed as well. All that life, erased. Later in the day we went with our friend Sallie to the Armory on 26th Street and Lexington, the headquarters for people trying to get information about missing loved ones. We went on our friend Steve’s behalf. He was too overwhelmed to leave his house. There was little we could find out. In the next days Sallie brought Paul’s toothbrush to the Armory to provide a DNA sample. In the Armory itself, grief counselors were stationed all over the place. So many people volunteering, such kindness. Police officers showing the ultimate in compassion. Nothing but help and succor. Nobody yet crying for vengeance. The first responders, the angels and the sisters of mercy. Only later would come the horrible judgments and war fever, the Patriot Act, the erosion of civil liberties, the xenophobic spiral downward. But for this shimmering, shivering, rarified moment, New Yorkers were as one. We’d heard the horrifying news the beautiful flaming birds swan diving from the towers before they collapsed, the plane being downed in Pennsylvania, Bush being ineffective and stupid, tactical errors such as no jets being scrambled, the heroism of the first responders, the hospitals standing by eerily empty of survivors. People kept saying, “This is surreal.” But it wasn’t surreal. It was far beyond what the surrealists, in their artistic reaction to the clanging 20th century, could ever have envisioned. And then the panacea phrase was born: “Back to normal.” How strange that nothing has ever gotten back to normal. We have been irrevocably shaped and reshaped by the events of that day, and its leviathan consequences. Perhaps on September 11, 2011, we can begin to heal and transform what happened and move on. As wars rage in Iran and Afghanistan and assisted regime changes are effected as a matter of presidential discretion, I’m not holding my breath. Om shanty. Pun intended.

Yes, it was a beautiful sparkling day. As I was driving to my job in Jersey City, a commentator on the radio said a plane had struck the World Trade Center. He said to his peer that it was probably a private plane gone astray, and this is what I believed.
Driving east on Columbus Ave. in Jersey City, I saw a very large black cloud straight ahead. Shortly after, the commentator reported we had been attacked.
I recall feeling shocked, and very somber at the same time.(Those feelings are still very present when I recall 9/11.) There was disbelief at the office, and the routine staff meeting was to begin shortly. I recall standing silently looking out a window with a peer. We could see the smoke in the sky.
My heart goes out, as do my prayers, to all those feeling such a loss from this violent tragedy.

UPSIDE DOWN, 9-11 and after, is a full length play to be produced and directed by Tony White in NYC during the months of September and October, 2011. I wrote it based on the reactions of people I knew, although there is a bit of me in each character, as often happens when writing drama.
How did we make sense of the 9-11 attacks? Watch five young New Yorkers and the aged Mrs. Fu, guardian of the unclaimed laundry of the 9-11 dead, take stage and struggle with love, political activism, women’s issues, and reconciliation. How does each decide to live after the world turns “UPSIDE DOWN”? Intense, fast-paced, unresolved, provocative theater. http://www.marciaslatkiin.com

I was getting dressed to go out when I heard an airplane sound, extremely loud and close. I rushed to the back window and there was a huge passenger plane, flying far too low, and seeming about to crash. I live in a 5th floor loft in the mid-Village, with a clear view of the twin towers in plain sight from our front windows just blocks away. There was an audible crash, followed almost immediately an enormous spurt of flames from the upper floors of the World Trade Center. One of my house-mates, Joy, who had left for her work at the Metropolitan Museum, came panting up the stairs saying “We are under attack”. I thought it was a terrible accident. Together we watched in disbelief as the flames belched, surged and billowed. Transfixed with horror, we went down to the street below, which was rapidly filling with people holding hands over their mouths or foreheads, staring unblinking at the scene of terror unfolding before us. There was a distant plane sound, and a second plane appeared heading straight for the towers. I assumed – ridiculously – that it was rescue plane come to explore the damage. It crashed into the second tower with an immense burst of flame. “We’re under attack”, said Joy. She went to work. I stared incredulously, frozen with fear, and saw the pancake collapse of first one tower, then the second, with a fast-moving cloud of ash particles and bits of paper. People started appearing on foot from the disaster scene, gray with dust. Many ambulances started a chorus of sirens. I walked to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where the ambulances seemed to be heading. Hundreds – maybe thousands – of visibly distressed people poured into the area around St. Vincent’s. I asked a hospital staff-member what I could do to help, hoping to mop up blood or comfort the injured. “Can you keep all these volunteers away?” he said. “The ambulances need to get through as quickly as possible.” I spent the immediate aftermath of 9/11 trying, futilely, to keep the front of St. Vincent’s clear of would-be helpers.

10 years later and the memory and pain resurface as if it were yesterday, and I lost no one directly attached to my immediate family and friends….
I work out in Suffolk county as a pharmacist, and was already working that unforgetable morning. A customer came in and told us the Twin Towers had been hit by a plane. News was turned on, stories started flying, people were gripped with fear that the entire nation was under attack, and I did not know if my brother who worked on Wall Street was in those buildings or not. Hours passed as I worked through the panic and fear, trying to keep it together and continue to help my patients as we all listened to the news,
cried and stood in awe and disbelief as we heard of The Towers coming down. It was not until early afternoon that I heard that my brother was okay, that he was among the thousands walking uptown,
covered in devastating soot, unable to speak of what he saw to this day…..
We lost 2 firechiefs, a physician, family of children in my kids’ school and all became victims of others inhumane ways of dealing with differences and miscomprehensions as so many have in history past.
For months, customers came in telling their stories, some of whom were in the buildings and managed to escape. Memories rebound every year as we get closer to September 11th.

We have all been scarred by 9/11, some much much more than others. We strive to promote understanding and open, clear communication in our small universe, to heal and advance forward,
but the tears will continue and we’ll never forget.

I Still Remember
by Ellen Schecter
[I was invited to read these thoughts at a Ceremony of Remembrance on the first anniversary of September 11 at Symphony Space, sponsored by the West Side JCC. I retain the copyright.]
9/11/01. 7:20 a.m. 340 Riverside Drive.
Brilliant blue morning. My husband and I stumble, yawning, into our elevator, already rumpled, and meet — the beautiful couple from 8D: He, impeccable and masculine in charcoal pinstripes, crisp button-down and tie. She, impeccable and delicate in brown pinstripes and crisp white blouse, open at the neck. His and Her colognes. Burnished leather briefcases.
Yet how vulnerable: her perfect pedicure, twenty scarlet American Beauty rose petals peeking out beneath perfectly-pleated trousers; gleaming ginger hair sleekly brushed from a white pinstripe part.
We greet each other and the unsullied day.
The elevator opens.
They stride away in perfect unison, chatting softly, deliberately bumping shoulders, out into the crystalline morning.
* * *
9/11/01. 9:13 a.m. Upper East Side.
We hail a taxi after a medical consultation. The driver turns all the way around, desperate to share his burden: Two planes; two towers; two crashes. He must tell us twice, his voice trembling.
Just like the Kennedys’ assassinations, or King’s, or the Columbia Space shuttle, click! a freeze-frame forever in time.
We three huddle around the car radio—our hearth.
* * *
9/11/01. Noon. Outside St. Luke’s Hospital. Upper West Side.
Sickening replays of blooming orange fire and billowing gray smoke push me and my neighbors into action. Sidewalks teem with restless but orderly crowds nearly frantic to give blood or volunteer.
My city. My neighbors. The bad brings out the good. In droves.
* * *
9/15/01. 2 p.m. Congregation B’Nai Jeshurun:
Today, all day, all week, for weeks to come, people pack lunches and dinners; sort pyramids of work gloves, boots, warm clothes, eye drops; each day another need; each day, another cornucopia. And this is only one small squadron practicing love, not war.
* * *
9/12/01. 8 p.m. Lobby of 340 Riverside Drive.
Two little girls wait for the elevator. They join hands and spin in a circle. I shudder as they chant, over and over, falling each time:
Ring-around a rosie, pocketful of posie,
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
I ask Arturo, our doorman, the question everyone is asking everyone—friend, neighbor, stranger—the question that dreads answers: “Is everyone okay, Arturo?”
He shuts his eyes and shakes his head, unable to say: No.
The woman with rose-petal toes—she still isn’t home. Her husband is keeping their door unlocked. Just in case she lost her keys.
Ashes, ashes, we all fall . . .
Arturo and I clasp eyes in silence.
* * *
9/17/01/. Rosh Hashanah, Midnight. Lexington Avenue:
A hand-lettered sign on Ahmed Muhammed’s yellow cab dashboard: VOLUNTEER TAXI FOR FAMILIES OF VICTIMS.
“How does this work?” I ask. He refuses to look at me but answers, “I wait at hospitals, take people anywhere they must go—for free. I just returned from Queens, but there’s no one at hospital now.”
“How can you afford this?”
“I can’t. But I want people to know—all Muslims are not bad.”
“You’re a good man,” I whisper.
Our eyes meet, and he smiles.
* * *
I collect stories the way other people collect jewels. I spend each day trying to use the same old 26 letters to say something new. And this is one story after 9/11: New York isn’t gaudy lights or concrete canyons; it’s people. Gotham isn’t a megacity, but a gaggle of polyglot villages where neighbors share our green grocer, our newsstand, and our grief. This is never clearer than in blackouts of the ordinary.
I believe we always yearn for connection—to meet each other’s eyes on subways and sidewalks. And when we’re humbled by terror; when tears wash away make-up and masks; when anthrax anxiety scours away armor, we’re left stunningly open to one another.
My eyes met yours on 9/11 and every day since. Eyes that once cut away still say, “I see you. We’re here. Together.”
People asked, “Where was God when those airplanes hit?”
I answer, God was in my neighbors, reaching out to help.
# # #
A biographical note: Ellen Schecter is widely published in print and on the web. She has written award-winning children’s books and television—many of her series for children and families were broadcast on PBS/Thirteen. Her memoir, Fierce Joy, is being published by Greenpoint Press next March, 2012.

I live in New Haven, Connecticut and work in a neighboring town. I was in NH at an early morning meeting when another person who was on her cell phone trying to contact her neice who worked at the Pentagon, saying that the Pentagon had been bombed. When I arrived at work around 10 a.m. my staff where watching t.v. and were crying. They said that the World Trade Center had been bombed. They witnessed the bombing and collapse of the second tower. Needless to say, we were all in stunned disbelief. I went into my office and took out a penny and read the words, “In God We Trust”, and prayed for the people in the towers and for our country. I thought the President Kennedy’s asssasination was horrific; the events of 9/11 eclipsed Kennedy’s death.

My younger daughter is an attorney working for the SEC. At the tie of 9/11 she was branch manager of an office at 7 World Trade. I was driving a school bus and came off the early run to see the TV in the driver’s room showing the twin tower saga. For most of that day I thought my daughter had died. I found out in the afternoon she had survived. Her train was delayed and late to the World Trade stop. She got off the train to see the plane fly into the tower, and took shelter in a recessed doorway. She then ran towards the towers to try to help her staff at 7 World Trade, but was stopped by a policeman. She kept trying to explain and proceed to help when the first tower came down; she ran ahead of the debris cloud. It turned out all seven of her staff members were delayed going to work (from different areas) and NONE of them were in the office at the time. All were OK. I am thankful for the policeman who stopped her and stood fast against the considerable argumentative force of a lawyer. He saved her life.

I was in Paris, just finishing up a trade show and at the boarding gate, when an announcement was made that all flights to the US had been cancelled. We had to reclaim our luggage and go back through customs, not fully knowing what had transpired. American Airlines was really helpful in trying to rebook us, helped us with hotels that night and gave us a vouchure to get back into the city. We didn’t know the extent of the attack until we got into our hotel room and became CNN junkies. I spent the first few days with a gal I met at the airport who needed help – never having been to Paris, nor speaking much French and then I connected with a longtime friend from my early working days, who lives in Paris and I became her stranded American. It was because of her generosity and of the Parisians that embraced us throughout my stay & ordeal that helped us through and which will be in my memory forever. When I finally got home 8 days later, not having the WTC as my directional beacon, night light nor weather barometer was devastating. No longer do I have that view from my apartment in the village and I look forward to when we can have another NYC icon once again.

I was working as Mate on the Port Jefferson Ferry and we were making our first crossing to Bridgeport, CT. I was on the bridge and as we neared the Bridgeport ship channel, when one of the seamen called up that a plane had hit one of the WTC towers. I first thought a light plane had had an accident, but as we looked out the port side windows, we could see black smoke coming from one of the towers. At our distance of thirty-some nautical miles, only the tops of the towers and the Empire State building were visible, and then only on a clear day. But viewing with binoculars, we could see that a real disaster was underway. As I made my way down to the main cabin, which has TV, I saw that most passengers were on their cell phones. After offloading and picking up a normal passenger load, we left Bridgeport and headed out to the Sound. Now, the second tower was also smoking, like two candles, and it was clear we had suffered a terrorist attack. I thought of several acquaintances who worked there, and hoped they were safe (one was out on the plaza and walked away, two perished). I also realized that we were now at war. When we reached Port Jefferson an hour later, the dock was overflowing with vehicles, and we heard that there was now no other way off Long Island. We packed the decks tight and there were no complaints. Same situation at the Bridgeport dock, and again no complaints. This was the start of unprecedented traffic for our vessels, with long waiting lines, as ferries were to be the only way on and off the Island for several days. There were also tight security measures in place on the dock. A couple of days later in Port Jefferson, on another clear morning, I caught an unfamiliar and awful odor in the air, and imagined it to be from the remains of the WTC . This was confirmed when, a week later, I made my way down to the Coast Guard Station for my Captain’s exam, which was originally scheduled for Sep. 12.

It was early in the morning. My neighbors in Southbridge Towers, George and Olga Fried, wanted to use an ATM in the concourse of the Word Trade Center before going for a bagel and coffee. George has the ATM receipt framed. The time was 10 minutes before the first plane went in. We were standing on line across the street, in Pick-a-Bagel, when with a big sucking sound the plate glass window buckled in towards us, then snapped out. It never broke. We stood outside looking up at the hole in the WTC. Smoke poured out.
Already long lines formed at the few coin phones in the area. I borrowed a stranger’s cell phone and called WCBS Newsradio. I’d been a writer, producer and reporter there until retiring in 1995. I believe I was the first ground based reporter on the scene. After going on air, I walked around the block for another vantage point. The second plane went in over my head. The crowd in the World Financial Center’s North Cove Marina was hushed. The men murmured to each other that it was like a movie. Many of the women were crying. After I counted eight bodies falling, I went to a nearby laundry and used its phone to report on the air what I saw. The first building collapse caught me at Exchange Place and Broadway. It took only seconds for the ash to block out all light. I broke into a restaurant to wet a handkerchief as a protective mask. When I arrived home, only four blocks from the WTC, I was covered totally in ash.

Due to previous commitments, I would have been at the Twin Towers the morning of 9/11/2001. Fortunately for me, but not for my son. he went into our local hospital the previous night. Consequently, I was at that hospital on the morning of 9/11. We watched the events unfold on the TV in his room. I often told him that he saved my life. It was the beginning of many visits to the hospital that eventually culminated in a diagnosis of cancer of the bowel and liver. He lost his battle in 2010. Ironic that his eventual death would prevent a death.

My husband used to work in the World Trade Center, Tower 2. Luckily, his company moved across the street to the World Financial Center before 911. He was at work on the morning of 911. I was ill that day & stayed home from work. I woke up to watch the news on television and saw the first airplane crash into the World Trade Center. Then the second. Then the Pentagon. Then those brave people who crashed their plane in a field rather than allow the lunatics to inflict more damage. We attended memorial services in several towns to help share the sorrow of the mourners. My husband was one of the last people to leave the World Financial Center, despite numerous calls from me begging him to leave before it was too late. He stayed to make sure everyone was evacuated from his floor before he would consider leaving. He is a brave man and I salute him.

I was studying French that day around 9:00 AM. And I heard a loud boom! and looked out the window and saw fire in the WTC. I turned on tv and realized that it was terrorism- my friend M arcia called and I
told her the same thing.
We went out to West Broadway and Grand St.
and saw hundreds of people running uptown-looking terrified.
I felt quite helpless-I thought I should buy something – maybe systems would be closed-
I went to the Gourmet Garage nearby- I got some water and I’m not sure what else-
In the checkout line were a little girl with red hair and a Superman t-shirt on. Her dad had rescues her
from very near the disaster-
She must be about 12 now.

The burnt wind went across Manhattan all day to the east- I could only think- those are burned bodies on this cloudless day.

WHEN THE TOWERS FELL

And when the towers fell, were you among
those overtaken by the clouds of dust,
of fiberglass, asbestos, shattered glass,
office memoranda, family photos,
concrete (pulverized) and even ash
of human bone? Please tell me, was that you,
choking, stumbling, with your eyes half-closed
from tears that ran in streaks down ashy cheeks,
unable to wash out the gritty dust
that stung your eyes, invaded all your being,
and made you gasp with every breath? You know
you are among the blessed, for you have taken
through every pore, and deep within your lungs,
and coursing through your veins and all your tissues,
the holy sacrament of innocence
incinerated, crushed, obliterated,
but now a part of you, the lost three thousand.

I was in Brooklyn when the towers fell,
but witness only to the first to fall.
One moment black smoke suddenly turned gray
and with a shower of glittering glass confetti,
crumbling, collapsing, it was gone!
Then rising up, the white cloud of debris,
pushed by a strong west wind across the water,
obscured from sight what was to happen next.
You could not see as far as the East River,
let alone the skyline of Manhattan.
While waiting for the smoke and dust to clear,
I called my brother who lives overseas
to say I am all right, and then to ask
what they are saying there in Italy
about all this, and that was when I heard
him say the second tower fell as well.
And I said no, I’m sure you are mistaken!
There’s so much smoke and dust, it’s hard to tell.
It was not damaged quite so badly. No,
I think that I can still see that it’s standing
Through the clouds of dust and smoke, you’re wrong!
I’m looking at it “live”, he said, it’s gone.

I was in Brooklyn when the towers fell,
but earlier that morning, slow to rise
(I let myself sleep late, it was my birthday),
I lingered over a second cup of coffee,
my radio tuned to “Imus in the Morning”.
Later, while I voted in the Village,
the first plane must have been just turning south,
and while I rode the subway bound for Brooklyn,
it must have been approaching from the north,
its passengers and crew seeing Manhattan,
perhaps at the last minute, understanding,
then extinguished in one horrifying moment,
while below, I transferred to the Brooklyn train
at Chambers Street, not very far away,
but at that time completely unaware.
About the time that I arrived in Brooklyn,
perhaps while I was walking from the station,
observing how the sky was free of clouds,
a cool and pleasant morning in September,
in the building high above me
where I some days worked, consulting,
on the side that faced the river,
looking westward toward Manhattan,
my co-workers watched the tower burning.
Then they saw, not fully comprehending,
The second plane approaching from the south.
As if in some nightmare that offers no escape,
they watched in disbelief, some screamed in horror,
as if protesting NO! could some way change,
somehow undo, prevent what they were seeing.
Just as I reached the front doors of the building,
a friend came rushing out — Do not go up!
WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!, he said, Two planes
have hit the World Trade Center! It’s not safe
to be in a high place! And suddenly
behind him came a rush of others fleeing.
Outside, around me, dozens tried their cell phones,
useless now, because all lines were busy.
A terrorist attack, that much seemed certain.
Beyond that, no one knew what else was happening.
I saw no point in standing there, so I
suggested going to an Irish bar
not far away, O’Keefe’s; it would be open.
There we could stay to watch the television,
and slake this desperate thirst for information.
And so it was I saw the towers burning,
and replayed, the first of far too many times,
again and again I saw the second plane
first strike, then crash into, then smash straight through,
and then that terrible great burst of flame,
and victims falling, jumping, such a sight
as I hope I will never see again.
Then came the news about the Pentagon.
Soon after, there were pictures of the same,
and first word of another hijacked plane,
but at that time, its fate was undetermined.
Restless, and unable to remain,
I made my way back to my place of work,
convinced that there was no threat to that building.
And high above, I saw firsthand the smoke,
and while the towers burned, I thought of how
all those held hostage in the planes had died,
and also those unfortunates who were
where the planes struck, and those trapped in the flames,
and also for their families and friends,
I felt the deepest sadness for their loss,
but ‘til the very last I thought those towers
mutilated only, would still stand,
and never thought that one day I would be
bearing witness as I sit here writing
in another country far from home,
the saddest tale that I shall ever tell:
I was in Brooklyn when the towers fell.

I was on my way to work as a pharmacist for the Rite Aid Pharmacy in Washington Twp in Bergen County.
I was listening to Imus in the morning. It was a magnificent Tuesday morning. Imus just then at approximately 8:45 said he got a call from Warner Wolfe who lived in Battery Park that a small plane probably a Cessna crashed into the tower of the World Trade Center.
That began the devastation and the legacy of 9/11.
I still have not gotten over it.
Jeff Alexander

Memories Almost There
　
My memory of Sept 11 started well before. I was living in Keyport, NJ a 1 square mile town on the bay. My kids and I would walk down to and old concrete dump site on the water. Acres of swamp land, a place in town where the kids in town rode bikes, go carts, and climbed. At the front a park with a baseball field, basketball court, tennis – skateboards area. It had a series of giant old buildings; it had been the location for the building and testing of the first seaplanes. From the old concrete road slabs lying as a wall from the water, you could see the twin towers, directly in front the closest point across the bay.
On Sept 10 early evening I spoke to my friend Brian who lived in Staten Island, in NY. I was going to meet him to give him a video of his band I had taped. We planned to meet in the morning at the world trade center. I also made plans to have breakfast with another friend. Rod Cappola and I met at a radio station on the jersey shore, he was a master broadcasting technician. He helped out this small rock station. I was producing shows, videos and promoting concerts with the station. We both had big families and kids the same age. The most fun we had surfing together. He loved riding waves too. I planned to meet him too, that next morning Sept 11. He worked at channel thirteen the NYC PBS Station. He was the chief engineer.
I always enjoyed going to the top of the World Trade Center to the transmitter studio and on the roof where the transmitters were located. As an equipment and tech nut, it was a wild mixture of dials, knobs, lights, and miles of wire. That room housed all the best techs from all but one of the major New York City Broadcast Television Stations. The roof had these huge Eiffel tower like transmitters and the view of the city and the small area on across the water on the bay in Keyport was amazing.
I woke up at 7 AM and was getting ready to take the train into the city a 50 minute ride. I got a call around eight from Brian who said he was running late would miss the ferry. So we agreed to meet around 11:30 for lunch at the trade center. I called Rod and told him it would be lunch instead of breakfast.
I sat down and was watching TV and a short time after they reported that a plane has crashed into the World Trade center. I watched as the story unfolded, watching the footage of the second plane as well. After listening for a few more minutes I grabbed my son’s police scanner and my video camera and jumped on the bike to ride to the bay.
As I rode across the dirt trail to that dirt mountain I saw a horrifying site. The roaring ring of the flames were glowing, huge amounts of smoke were bellowing from the towers surrounding the city and the water. I through the zoom of the camera lens saw closer the desperation of the scene small colored images coming out of the building.
As the towers collapsed, there was a single fisherman in a little boat sitting with his pole in the water and his back to the reality behind him. I could not believe would I was seeing the towers crashing down in a cataclysmic wave of fire and smoke. I could see the soul’s spirits lifting from the sky out of the firestorm. Another man was looking at a fish.
My friend Rod and all the other engineers were stranded on the roof. I like to think he surfed it like a wave. My hearts and prayers go out always to his family, two other friends and thousands of others, I lost as well.
Two days later I went to the site. I had a friend who was a fire chief in NJ and he was there what turned out to be every day or many weeks. I got a bit closer to see what happened two days later, and the scene was chilling.
Unbelievable Devastation!
I left there and went to Radio City Music Hall to work on the Benefit Concert a Tribute to John Lennon. More memorable than the concert was the difference in every single person in New York City. A city so many times I walked through, disregarding the massive walls of people I was passing by. That day as I day each person looked at each person they passed with a special look and inner understanding of who we are as people and how much help and love we need to share. A smile actually was the best we could all do.
I went Penn station to catch the last train after the concert and inside Penn Station, The people had made their own memorial, poems, picture of policemen, firemen, EMT’s, other pictures of people asking if the have been seen, pictures and drawings. I stared at this one pencil drawn piece of white copy paper. It was a drawing of the image of the towers I had seen from the bay. The Fire the smoke and the rising of the souls out of the fiery furnace and over the top of it all with arms outstretched, A Figure of Christ worthy of times greatest artists. I did not take the train and walked all night around the city.
The spirit and soul of the city of New York City changed and has become and still is a city of cooperation. As I hope we all can remember and learn from.
Such is the memory I share.
Richard Borders

My husband has been a NYC firefighhter for the last twenty years, we had 3 children under 7 on September 11th, 2001. At the time of the attacks, we were bringing our 3 year old son to his first day of nursery school. We found out at the school that New York City was under a probable terroist attack and the Twin Towers were struck by planes and in flames. There was a recall of all NYC firefighters and my husband left to report to his firehouse. When we hugged and kissed good-bye, the first thought in my mind was “this could be the last time I see my husband alive”and that “this is what couples experienced during World War 2 when husbands, fathers, brotohers, sons left for the war”". It was a frightening thought and I remember thinking not to appear fearful in front of my young children so that they would n’t worry about their Daddy.

I was in my Bronx classroom, a colleague came running in screaming put on the radio, quick! ,,,,and in moments all the teachers were in the hallway…”what, happened, my God, what happened??!!” We were ordered by our Principal to carry on like nothing extraordinary was happening, i.e. tvs and radios ordered off, he did not want the children upset…. all day long, parents were coming in to pick up their children…. the teachers were trying to quietly pass on any info to colleagues ….no announcements were made on the PA system. We carried on and collapsed at 3 PM after the last student left….the longest day….
I live in Manhattan…subways not running yet into Manhattan, massive traffic jam into the borough…walking from 125th Street (at least I made it that far by subway) to 78th Street about 4PM…all stores closed, gated, bolted, a ghost town…excepting strange men neatly and strategically lining the streets, standing unarmed but obviously on guard in front of all these endless closed stores, up and down the avenue, wearing strange brownish uniforms … campaign hats, with an emblem of small circles… I had never seen this before… what branch of the service was this? CIVIL DEFENSE CORP….I found this out later…. I had never seen this action of calling up this branch ever taken before…now I know….was war declared? We had to do our jobs, maintain the status quo, keep the children calm, did I miss such an announcement trying to figure out how to travel home to Manhattan?
Another day that will live in infamy….
God Bless the families and loved ones of the innocent victims of 9/11….all they did was show up for work…..RIP…with thoughts, prayers, care and concern.

I remember the beautiful weather on that fateful day. I am an R.N. who works the overnight shift. On that morning I had just lay dow to go to sleep. One of my sons had recently graduated from the”Probie” school of The New York City Fire Department. He was on duty at his firehouse in the Bronx. He called me, said “I’m fine, I’m heading to NYC right now, don’ worry”. I had no idea what he was talking about. He told me to turn on the T.V. and then he had to hang up. I could not believe what I was seeing on the T.V. The horror of what was happening was almost too much to bear. The next hours were frightening Not knowing what was happening to the country or my son is a memory I will never forget. I did not know he was safe until the next day. He came home for a quick visit. He was covered
in black soot from head to toe. As he walked up the stairs all I could see were his blue eyes staring at me from a haunted face. He gave me a hug, said he was alright and left again. I did not see him again for many days Before 9/11 my son was a very happy, optimistic young man. The events of that day, and the sad days afterward deeply effected him. To this day he does not talk about that terrible time. I am very proud of him and all the first responders who sacrificed much on that fateful day. Both of my sons are NYC firemen. While I am very proud of them and glad that they are doing what they love, I worry about them every day. I pray that we will never have to experience another “9/11″

.

There are so many images of “that day” and the days that followed now permanently etched in my memory as they are for many others who have shared. On September 11th, the unimaginable rolled along in quick succession from innocence – “what an outrageous accident” – to hard core reality with the hit of the second plane, followed by the shock of seeing the first tower fall, as word began filtering in about the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa. Each piece was like the segment of a nightmare becoming true. I was taking this in at St. Vincent’s Hospital in the Village, where I worked as an RN and was waiting for my assignment in response to the disaster. I was sent to a make shift sub-acute emergency room to help with the overflow that was expected to deluge the main emergency area. Not many came to the temporary site, and innocence “where are they? Are the streets impassable for the ambulances?” eroded yet again to the reality that so many had died.
Being 25 or so blocks north of the towers, I tried to grasp the enormity of the WTC event on a human scale for those downtown. That perception was sharply boosted by a firefighter in my midst whose facial expression alone informed me he had just known hell, it defied words, and thousands of other New Yorkers would likely also have experienced horror on a similar scale. I never knew his name, but his palpable grief influenced me to do more for the New York community, and I did. The hospital’s enormous response included the offering of holistic stress management, particularly ear acupuncture, to ease stress for anyone who showed up. I’ve often wished that the firefighter who’d known hell, also knew he inspired me to start a clinic(s) that ran more than 6 years, providing 40.000 treatments to ease the stress of affected thousands of people, including other firefighters and their families. On this 10th anniversary, I remember him and how he, unknowingly, helped me to help others. I hope he is okay.
And now, the hospital that gave so much during New York’s darkest hour is no longer here. As a nurse, I shudder to think about this absence in the event of any disaster, large or small, on the lower west side.

It all began as a wonderfully sun-drenched morning. It was also Primary Day in the City. I was running late to work because I wanted to fullfill my right as a free citizen to vote. As I waited on the Number 7 Line platform in Jackson Heights, Queens, I could see in the distance a funnel of dark smoke rising upwards and bending ever so slightly southerly. I did not give it much thought except to think it might be a warehouse or an apartment building fire somewhere in Long Island City. The No. 7 was delayed and I decided to hop off at Woodside and take the Long Island Railroad to Penn Station. As I sat down I looked out of the window. I could see smoke was coming from the other side of the river. Arriving at Penn Station I waited for the No.1 Line towards Times Square. An announcement informed us that service was being suspended below 14th Street due to “police and fire department” activity. Nothing else was added to that all too familiar tune in the New York City subway.

When I arrived at work I was informed that a plane I crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. It was a little while until we were informed that it was a commercial airliner. And then the second plane hit. We were all glued to one PC watching CNN. We learned that another plane had struck the Pentagon building. My God! America was under attack! Working at the New York Public Library, informed by supervisors that we were to leave the building immediately at 11;00AM. But where to to go? All subway lines were shut down. New York City was in lockdown. As I proceeded to leave the building at the 42nd Street exit, the guards at that door slammed it shut before we all could leave. A rumor circulated that there was a bomb threat at Grand Central Terminal. People were running westbound on 42nd Street and wanting to enter the Library for safety.

Once that rumor was dispelled, I left the Library and walked up Madison Avenue in what seemed like an escape from the terror island that was Manhattan. At the same time people would look up if we heard what sounded like an aircraft. The sound and possibility of another airplane falling from the sky was our worst fear. Along with a multitude of others, I proceeded to what I now call my freedom bridge, the Queensboro. Not to be disrespectful, but we all looked like extras in a remake of The Ten Commandments. Except our exodus was from the bondage of fear and terror. And as I walked across that bridge, I looked over my right shoulder. I could no longer see the Twin Towers. I walked 5 miles to get home on that tragic day. 5 miles was but a mere step away from home for me. Sadly, many who perished never got that one step to the safety homw and loved ones. They will ALL live in our hearts FOREVER!

Answering: How did 9/ll affect you?

SECURITY IS IN THE SECRET PLACE

I live in Riverdale in the Bronx, less than one hour by subway from the World Trade Center. The morning of 9/ll I went to vote. I half heard some ladies talking something about, “Isn’t it terrible? The World Trade Center. . .” But my mind wasn’t focused on this conversation. I was thinking of my new grandson, Jonathan, born just three days earlier on the eighth.

As soon as I got home, I called my daughter in Tallahassee, Florida, to see how they were doing.

“Mom!” she exclaimed, “We’ve been trying to call you but couldn’t get through! The World Trade Center. . . .”

It was she who told me. I flipped on the TV as she spoke. However, only one channel was broadcasting because of what had been done to the towers. Finding that one, I, like most Americans, watched all day.

In my first reactions, I wondered, what other things were going to be blown up. Should I get out of New York City? And if so, what should I take with me? But where would be a safe place to go?

However, as days passed and I heard of military plans, increasing security at the airports, etc., I instinctively knew that security did not rely in these measures. Physically, no matter how much money was spent, there was no way that one could foreknow where to put policemen, scanners, and the military for certain safety. There could only be one antidote for fear—Security is in the Secret Place. Victory is only possible through weapons of the Spirit—love, joy peace, prayer, praise, faith, food, clothing, shelter, etc. If ever there was opportunity to learn this, it was now.

“911,” people said, “The emergency number.” However, God has a 911 number—Psalm 91:1: “She that dwelleth in the Secret Place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” This Psalm became an anchor for me: “Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror. . .He shall give His angels charge over thee. . .” I determined to be motivated by love and develop my inner listening powers.

I will only add in the weeks and months that followed. I felt anger & rage. A friend who had served 3 tours in Vietnam said he wished he was younger because he was ready to enlist again. My office was closed for a week & I was glad because I had no desire to return downtown. The day my office re-opened my boss called to ask why i wasn’t there. She was home because of the jewish holidays & angry that I was absent. I told her I didn’t know the office had re-opened & since my computer had crashed 2 days before the attack I didn’t have any internet access. After she chewed me out, I thought its not worth it and I went to Kinko’s to type & email a letter of resignation. I found that I developed a cough & had to carry cough drops everywhere. I decided to make every day count since you never know when it’s your last. I had a particularly good christmas and my grandmother said the terorrists didn’t strike here. I began 2002 with a new attitude but within 2 months I lost my grandmother & father. The loss combined with the residual feelings about 9/11 threw me into a tail spin from which I have not yet recovered. I tried to find a grief counselor & ended up using money from the 9/11 health fund to seek counseling at Riverside Church. I was glad to speak to someone but the damage is lasting. I wonder everyday what if that awful day never happened. How different all our lives would be.

I was on the X27 bus from Brooklyn in the Battery Tunnel when a woman on a cell phone said a plane hit the Twin Towers. I told her that had to be wrong as it was a beautiful day, maybe it was a helicopter. The driver told us to get off the bus outside the tunnel on West St., just before 9:00 AM. I called my boss and said something terrible had happened and said a prayer. I turned to walk away and heard a woman scream. The second plane flew overhead and I turned and yelled NO! but could not hear myself. My heart broke as I saw the plane hit the South Tower. I ran and tried to take the Lex Subway but an undercover officer told me not to. I made a call to my Mom, telling her I loved her and to let my Girlfriend know I would meet her later on. I called again and heard that the Pentagon was hit. I remember seeing the plumes of smoke, heart breaking. I ran towards the Brooklyn Bridge and heard the explosion and saw smoke. I thought it was the Bridge. I waited for a ferry on Pier 11 and an elderly woman was crying so I held her as she cried. We got on a ferry, a young girl said the building collapsed as we rode in smoke. When the air cleared people clapped and I said “No, there it is.” I only saw one Tower. I realized the Tower fell and my heart kept breaking. Getting off the ferry in Jersey City I saw two young girls all cut up without shoes and as I turned they were gone. I walked along the water, turned to my right and saw the other Tower fall. I was in disbelief. I got to a restaurant where they opened up their phones to everyone. My Girlfriend was able to get in touch with me and I met Her in Summit, running to a bus then took a train. I took a detox shower in the parking lot and drove to my Brother-in-Law’s house. The Red Cross told me I was in shock. Driving back to Brooklyn was such an empty feeling. Months of F15 planes flying over Brooklyn, driving through the Battery Tunnel, passing by The Pile every morning. I prayed, cried, cursed. My heart goes out to my Cousin as she lost her husband. I also lost a childhood friend of mine and husband of an old friend. The only female Police Office killed lived around the block. I sat on my stoop the next day and spoke with my Cousin. She wanted to do something positive and had certainly done so. Nightmares were common for months, seeing all the dump trucks passing us in the tunnel, so angry, so heartbroken. We saw those buildings going up as kids. Project Liberty helped in the last six months of its program, I’m eternally grateful. My Brother, a Police Officer and an old friend, a Fire Fighter worked on The Pile in the aftermath. Thinking about September 11th breaks my heart to this day. PLEASE NEVER FORGET ALL THOSE LOST.

The first few days,
and weeks
after September eleventh, two thousand and one,
as thou i was floating,
my steps became gentle,
so tender
and careful,
as I walked
down the sidewalks
of my Brooklyn neighborhood.

As if
my soul,
somewhere
inside me
could not bear
the impact of stepping.

Now ten years later,
I wonder if also
the earth
itself
was wounded
in need of gentle vibration
and healing.

9/11
Palabras sin sentido en un mundo de silencio , desdicha y ahogo .
Un mundo basado en los escombros de los muertos perdidos ,
de las almas atrapadas bajo un cielo lugubre de llanto y tristeza , de apatia y ceniza.
Un vuelo de pajaro , una tristeza contenida , un sufrimiento pasivo , el aire intoxicado, mis siniestros pensamientos , la brisa de aire que camina entre los escombros de llanto y pesar, un color purpura y un cielo celeste, un andar sin camino , un camino sin huellas ni pisadas ni las sombras de seres pasaron , un llamnado de ausencia alerta, un grito de soledad que despierta de una larga ausencia, un pesar interminable, inacabable , un llamado de ayuda, un cementerio sin muertos, un llanto reprimido un cielo sin estrellas, una vela sin fuego.
Otro dia de silencio , sin voces ni sonidos, un hueco en el aire y toda la falta de destino, un alma tambaleante que va de aqui para alla pero sin decidir , no tiene a donde ir y en la trampa se queda sin esperanza de conseguir un momento de tranquilidad . Bajo cadenas y candado mi alma estrellada contra la ventana sin poder salir ni entrar sin poder respirar.
Con dolor que asfixia, con una pena hirviente en un fuego sin llama , un dolor prolongado y silencioso , un llanto absente en una realidad horrorosa,sin futuro y esperanza, sino un prolongado dolor que se extiende en el infinito, un dolor profundo lleno de horror y suspiros ,un dolor desgarrante en una carne putrefactada por la lentitud de su final extravagante, lleno de calor, color, sonido incesante de llanto y quejido que lamenta el destino sin esperanza.
Todo el grupo de gemidos sollozos, tristeza, dolor insoportable que toca todas las celulas del cuerpo , aquellas vivas y aquellas que ya no sienten.
La desesperacion del grito en un vacio, en una ausencia de esperanza en un lugar que no hay mas que dolor y una muerte inminente.
Una muerte despiadante e incesante , una muerte sin final, que lastima lo mas profundo de todo y de todos que lo rodean y tambien a aquellos que se encuentran ausentes e incapaces de proveer .
ayuda , o un adios calmo y sin reproches , un adios humilde a aquellos que han sido determinados a morir una muerte inhumana .
Los llantos y gemidos de dolor se estremecen en las calles vacias y deshabitadas donde solo un polvo blanco parece cubrir toda la superficie existente.
Un polvo blanco que se siente negro y pesado y que se nos pega como una peste . Un polvo que nos hace acordar que cayo un silencio forzado ,un silencio agobiante e interminable. Un silencio provocado, como un parto sin contracciones .
Apenas puedo escuchar ya que miro por la ventana y veo dos torres altas que se estan incendiando y aunque ya no las veo, mi memoria las tiene presente y ahora puedo escuchar todas las voces y gemidos atrapados entre las llamas y sin poder ir a ningun lado mas que a un infierno inevitable.
Las gentes y almas evaporadas en un hastio de cenizas y restos de un pasado prometedor y lleno de futuro ,
la luz es penetrante en un paisaje lleno de tristeza y soledad .
Cada vez que escucho una ambulancia , aparece el temor a una desgracia proxima. Una desgracia de la cual no me puedo recuperar.
Una desgracia que puede volver a ocurrir en todo instante, una desgracia que me hace sentir la fragilidad y vulnerabilidad del tejido humano.
Un dolor agobiante lleno de llanto insesante.
Un dolor estruendoso como una pesadilla intermitente que aparece y desaparece sin dejar huella alguna.
Un calor asfixiante que desaparece en el horizonte , sin ningun rastro mas que una nube negra que llena de humo todo lo que la rodea. Una nube pesada como una pesadilla de la cual no me puedo despertar . Una pesadilla llena de imagenes que ambulan sin rumbo ni sentido en un vacio infinito, un hueco en el aire, donde no se escuchan mas que llantos y suspiros .
Un dolor tan insoportable que carece de motivo y sentido, de la vida destruida.
Un pesar prfundo llena mi alma, una inmobilidad de los sentidos que piden descanso de un sufrimiento interminable. Una pena taciturna que solloza, una pena que recuerda el atardecer de una civilizacion opulenta pero sin fuerza de superar el dolor percibido y con un sentido de ausencia de cosas queridas. Una pena de reproches a un pasado de abuso y superuso .
Una pena sosiegada y espantada por el aire contaminado en aquel dia soleado e inesperado.
Una pena oscura y preocupada por el amanecer de la peoxima manana .
Una pena horrorizada por el triste panorama de una nacion estirpada de su iniciada jornada en una nueva manana, transformada en una compleja gama de sabor a garrapinada formada de restos de carne humana .
Una pena que enciende la llama de alarma de una trsite jornada, apaciguada por la pesada y encumbrada hermana de una muerte cercana .
Una pena traumada por el horrible venir de futuro deshecho en las calles desiertas de una ciudad alarmante por su ritmo incesasntee de sorpresa asfixiante .
Una pena producida por la ausencia de sentidos y motivos surgidos de deseos inactivos .
Una pena insaciable de amor ausente estirpado de una realidad alarmante y constante en un paseo desesperante .
teresa gejer

The silence. The silence of people walking north through the streets and Central Park, covered with ash, finding a way out of the city. The silence of people waiting in a line that circled the perimeter of the Citigroup tower ready to give blood for persons taken to hospitals, not realizing that you were either alive and on your feet or dead beneath the rubble. The silence of the acrid smoke rising in the air and filling our lungs. The silence.

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