9112001

September 11th, 2001

The following is my eye-witness account of the tragedies of September 11th.

September 11th, began as any other Tuesday morning in New York. Though, in truth, I had only experienced three of them. In late August, my partner, Michael, and I had left our hearts in San Francisco and moved into The Ocean apartments, an ornate nineteenth century building located right on Battery Park and New York Harbor.

Michael's classes at NYU Law School had begun the week before, so he woke early that Tuesday and headed to class. But since my transfer to the New York office wasn't to take effect until Oct. 1st, I remained lazily in bed. Though, my ambitious plan for that Tuesday had been to wake with Michael and head to the TKTS booth in the World Trade Center with the hope of landing half price tickets to a Broadway show. I couldn't believe that I had been in New York for three weeks and still hadn't seen anything! But, alas I was still dealing with New York culture shock, and was sad about leaving my life in San Francisco, so I stayed safely under the covers and didn't open an eyelid until Michael was well out the door.

Once I managed to heave myself out of bed, I had a bowl of cereal, while watching the Today Show, when Matt Lauer began to interview a guest. I quickly flipped the channel (I truly detest Matt Lauer) and landed on a local morning news show called, 'Good Morning, New York'. What I saw, both confused and terrified me. A cameraman was downtown (not three blocks from my building) filming what looked like a horrific fire in one of World Trade Center's towers. The news anchors weren't sure exactly what had happened, though speculation was that a plane had accidentally hit it.

Given that I had all the time in the world, I decided to be a fire truck chaser and see what was going on. So, I threw on some running clothes, grabbed my keys, picked up my wallet and in a flash though, "hmmm, I better take my license, my metro card and a credit card or two with me, after all this IS New York!" Then I ran outside to see what was happening. I even left the TV on, thinking that I would only be gone for a few minutes.

The lobby of my building was already a buzz. The Albanian doormen were running back and forth between the corner and the front door to get a glimpse of what had happened. I ran passed them, thinking I would go for a jog up the bike path to the World Financial Center on West St. That plan changed, however, once I saw the magnitude of the fire. I walked about two blocks, when I stumbled to a stop and gazed at the fire with a group of construction workers frozen on the street. Our necks were craning up at the gargantuan buildings, while our minds tried to comprehend what we were seeing.

A photo of my apartment building, 'The Ocean', in the foreground, with the Twin Towers three blocks behind.

Traffic on West St. was at a standstill, and buses and cars emerging from the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel were honking their horns furiously, oblivious to disaster unfolding in front of them. Floods of office workers were streaming towards me from both the World Financial Center and the Trade Center. They seemed shaken and scared, but relatively calm.

The North Tower was now burning furiously, and my thoughts went to the people trapped inside the building and the horrific scene they must have been facing, trying to run down over 100 flights of stairs to safety through smoke-filled stairways - just as I had seen in the TV dramatization of the 1993 bombing.

Traffic was so locked up, that I was able to cross West Side Highway without waiting for the light to change. I weaved in and out of the motionless cars and as I got to the Battery Park City side of the Highway, an army of fire trucks began to emerge from the tunnel. Needless to say, it was more than difficult for them to navigate through the congested traffic. As the trucks made their slow crawl to the Trade Center, I scanned the faces of New York's finest and gazed into their eyes with total astonishment. They had stony expressions, most likely a combination of fear and resignation. It was as if they knew that whatever was waiting for them at the Trade Center was going to be their ultimate challenge. Looking back up at the tower, I silently agreed.

Another view of my building and the World Trade Center from the Statue of Liberty

I then looked over at the South Tower, standing there pristine and undamaged next to its scarred sibling. My thoughts went to its inhabitants and a million questions cluttered my mind. Would they be evacuated as well? It was obvious that the North Tower was severely damaged, but was the South Tower in danger? I tried to visualize myself in the South Tower and tried to imagine what I would be doing at that exact moment.

I had just come to the conclusion that I would probably be at the North Side windows, like an idiot, watching the North Tower burn, when there was a deafening roar over my head. I cocked my head back in dismay and saw a plane flying at jet speed directly toward the Trade Center. A split second later, and with a sound I could never begin to describe, I watched helplessly as the plane slammed full force into the South Tower. To quote Star Wars, "It was as if a million voices cried out in terror and agony." I opened my mouth to scream, but all I could muster was a horrified gasp. I turned my head to a businessman standing next to me and grasped his shoulder in disbelief, as if he could offer some sort of explanation.

Everyone in lower Manhattan seemed to be screaming and running for his or her life. The crowd that had been quietly streaming toward me from the direction of the World Financial and Trade Centers began running at full speed. I did an about face and joined the stampede toward Battery Park. Running next to me was the foreman of the Ritz-Carlton, which was in the process of being built across from my building on West St. He was screaming into his walkie-talkie, "GET EVERYONE OUT OF THE TOWER! DO YOU HEAR ME? EVERYONE OUT! I TOLD YOU THAT SHIT WASN'T AN ACCIDENT!" Somehow, it wasn't until he verbalized his fear that my brain began to process the fact that what I had just witnessed WAS NOT an accident! The inconceivable had happened. Manhattan had been attacked.

As quickly as I could, I made my way back to The Ocean. I needed to at least pick up my cell phone, before making my way uptown. One of the doormen reluctantly let me in, but as I was waiting for the elevator with a group of people, one of the concierges asked us, "Is whatever you need to get up there REALLY important enough to risk your life for, in case another plane accidentally hits the building?" The woman waiting next to me said, "Yes! My parents are up there!" I thought to myself, in comparison, my cell phone really wasn't a necessity - even though I highly doubted that another plane would target 'The Ocean'. So, I left the building and started walking toward the 4 and 5 Bowling Green subway stop, thinking I could take the subway uptown to the law school to try and find Michael. When I got to the stop, people coming out of the subway told me that the trains weren't running, and since I figured it would be packed anyway, I started to walk toward the South Street Seaport. I hadn't gone very far, when I decided that I was too shaken to walk all the way uptown on the East Side, so I changed my course and headed back to Battery Park to just sit and wait. I wanted to call friends and family and let them know I was ok, but Payphones everywhere had lines 10 people deep. Everyone around me seemed to be sobbing and wandering aimlessly.

Making my way to Battery Park, an older African American woman was in front of me wearing a Marriott maid's uniform. She was sobbing and repeatedly wailing, "No! Lord, No! Lord Jesus, NO!" She had been working at the World Trade Center Marriott and had fled with everyone else while I had been on watching on West St.

In the park, I joined a group gathered around a radio, listening for any information or explanation of what had just happened. It was then that I learned the planes that hit the Towers had been hijacked commercial jets. I almost began to vomit. From where I had been standing, the plane had been going so fast, that I had no idea what type it was. The possibility that it was a commercial airliner, never occurred to me. I quickly left the group, before completely losing my composition, and continued wandering aimlessly around the park, quietly sobbing to myself, like a child lost in a mall.

I was in a total state of shock, not knowing what to think, what to do, or where to go. From Battery Park, I looked up at the Twin Towers, picturesquely situated behind my building, yet engulfed in flames and decided that I couldn't just stand in the park and watch them burn. I HAD to get uptown and try to find Michael, as overwhelming a task as that seemed to be.

Against my better judgment, I decided to walk up Broadway even though it passes within just 2 blocks of the Trade Center. I knew it wasn't a wise decision, but it was the only direct route uptown that I knew of. I really did not want to get that close to the disaster or get in the way of any rescue effort, but at the time, it didn't seem like I had a better option.

A view of my building from Battery Park - taken the afternoon of 9/11 - after the towers had already fallen.

As I approached Wall St., a group of 4 African American women were casually walking in front of me. One of the women turned to her friends and said, "Um....excuuuuuuse me? WHY, may I ask, are we walking TOWARD the Twin Towers???" Her friends readily agreed. They did an about face and headed in the opposite direction back toward Battery Park. What she said made a lot of sense, but before I could find another route, I had to duck into a deli to use the restroom.

The scene inside the deli was eerily calm, complete with Muzak. There were some ancient banker types inside eating their soup and reading the newspaper as if everything was fine and they weren't within three blocks of a major calamity. Then, as I was leaving, a young bike messenger ducked in and rapidly told everyone that a plane had just hit the Pentagon and that he heard that the White House was on fire. My heart and stomach sunk even lower that I imagined possible. Not only had Manhattan been attacked, all of America was seemingly under attack. I was in an utter state of disbelief. All I knew is that I HAD to get uptown and find Michael.

As I came out of the deli, I saw someone emerge from the Wall St. subway station. So, I hedged my bets and ran down into the subway. A number 4 train had JUST arrived (Thank God I had grabbed my MetroCard!) and I just barely forced my way into the overly crowded car. I knew it was risky to take the subway in the middle of a crisis, but a part of me was really relieved to be off of the street. I relished the silence of the underground train, which was a stark contrast to the pandemonium occurring on the surface. The ride began smoothly, as I crossed my fingers and held my breath, praying, "Just let the train make it to 14th St!" And we were just about to the 14th St. station, when the train suddenly slammed to a halt. I had no idea that at that very moment the Twin Towers were crashing to the ground. Had I not gone into the subway and instead continued on my route up Broadway, I would have been running for my life dodging falling debris and the associated toxic cloud of dust.

During the hour and a half that the train was stuck in the tunnel, the conductor announced on the barely audible loudspeaker that a plane had hit the Trade Center. It was then that I had another realization. The train was so quiet, not because everyone was in shock, but because the majority of the people on it had been on the train or waiting in a station for the past hour. Except for the group of women who boarded the train with me at Wall St, the people had absolutely no idea what had happened. The group of women had been IN the South Tower of the Trade Center and had evacuated the moment the first plane hit. They spoke loudly in their New York accents about how they weren't going to work in the Trade Center anymore. After the 1993 bombing and then this, they "just felt it wasn't safe anymore." I couldn't blame them! I was thinking to myself, "I can't imagine how they are even going to repair the damage from this and once they do, what company on Earth would want to have an office there!"

The next hour and a half passed in silence, interrupted only by several messages of false hope from the conductor. Finally, we were told that they were going to "manually" inch the train to the 14th St. Station which was only a couple of hundred yards away. So, after an excruciating 20 minutes of stops and starts we finally made it. The doors open and people rushed to the surface. I stopped at a payphone in the station only to find that it was dead. I tried another. It was also dead. I started to really freak out. Since we had been on the train for so long, I was terrified that something else had happened on the surface.

Entrance to one of the Wall St. Subway Stations - after the collapse

When I emerged from the steps of the subway stop, the first thing I heard from a passerby was, "I just can't believe they're gone! You used to be able to see them from here." "See what?" I thought. "Had another building been hit? Surely the World Trade Center hadn't fallen!" I thought to myself.

I started running in the direction of the Law School down Broadway and found absolutely no cars on the street. Crowds of people were gathered around car radios, like the scene I had just left in the park. I bounced from crowd to crowd as I made my way to the law school, not wanting to pause anywhere too long, because every piece of information I heard just upset me more and more. It wasn't until I reached the third group that I heard for sure that the Twin Towers had fallen. I couldn't believe it. Anyone, who has ever been to the Twin Towers, will tell you how inconceivable that statement is. It still strikes terror in my heart to think of it.

My thoughts went immediately to all of the people I knew who worked in the Trade Center itself and in the surrounding area. Then I wondered if Michael had heard about the planes going into the Towers. If so, he might have tried to go home to find me, which would have put him right in the path of the collapse. At this latest thought, I quickened my haste toward the school, looking for payphones on the way, but every single one was jammed with a line of people.

When I finally made it to the Law School, I found that classes had been cancelled for the rest of the day. And since I wasn't a student, I wasn't allowed into the library to look for Michael. That was the moment that I felt most lost. I had reached the end of my journey, but was totally alone, with no earthly idea of how to find him. I wandered over into Washington Square Park, thinking he might be there listening to a radio, but couldn't find him anywhere. I decided that the best thing to do was to go back to the Law School courtyard and just hope that he would pass by at some point. I didn't have access to a phone, so I couldn't call anyone or even check messages.

Sitting on a peaceful bench in the tree-covered courtyard, I saw several people trying in vain to use their cell phones. Apparently, Verizon had its reception towers on top of the Trade Center and so their phones were virtually useless. Others services were working, but people had to keep re-dialing a million times to get through.

I sat on that courtyard bench for a couple of hours, watching people going to and fro discussing the legal and political ramifications and their theories of the tragedy. There were several international students who were comforting each other, as many of them had relatives who worked in the Trade Center, and they could not get in contact with them. Though I had been sitting there for quite some time, I somehow felt confident that Michael would walk by at some point. I hadn't even developed a back-up plan, not that I could have since I didn't know where any of my friends lived or their phone numbers!

Finally, a girl sat next to me whose cell phone was actually working. I asked her if I could make a quick call and it was then that I realized that I hadn't spoken to anyone all day. I hadn't told anyone what I had seen. It was as if recounting the tale would make it too real. Even if I had wanted to tell someone at that point, I don't think my mind had collected itself enough to be able to properly convey the magnitude of it all.

At any rate, the girl let me borrow her cell and I called my parents to let them know I was ok. The first thing my mother said to me was, "Do you know how horrible this has been for your father and me?" I started to laugh out loud and it felt good. I knew what she meant to say, but only she could make it sound as if I plotted this mass destruction just to make her suffer. We all deal with tragedy differently, I guess. At least it made me forget the crisis that was happening all around me.

NYU Law School - Courtyard - where I sat for hours waiting for Michael on 9/11.

Now, Michael didn't have a cell phone, so there wasn't any way of getting in touch with him. Then after a few more minutes of silence I realized that he probably left me a message on my machine! DUH! It was evident that my mind was no way NEAR functioning properly! So, first I listened to the messages on our home phone. The first was from Michael at 8:58 am. He said that something had happened to the Trade Center and he told me I should go and check it out, because he was off to his 9 o'clock class. I started to panic when I heard the message, because I knew that when he heard about the second plane and the collapse of the towers that he would be beside himself with worry, thinking that he may have put me in the way of a catastrophe. This made me really start to worry that he may have headed downtown to try and find me.

I quickly called my cell phone voicemail to see if there was any other update from him. After listening to a dozen messages from concerned friends and family (each of which brought forth more emotion), the last was a message from Michael. Thank God! He was with a friend and left me their cell phone number. I quickly started dialing the number when, lo and behold, Michael walked into the courtyard! I couldn't believe it! It was a miracle! I have never been so relieved in all my life! It was the first ray of light I had seen all day.

After recounting the events of our respective day to each other, we shifted into 'taking care of business' mode. We quickly grabbed some lunch and then I hit the pay phones inside the law school, which were surprisingly unoccupied. I dialed each number I new by heart, probably a million times. After I got through to a couple of people in San Francisco to let them know we were o.k., I called 411 to see if any of my friends were listed. In a struck of luck, not only was my friend Ethan listed, but he was at his apartment in the Upper West Side - far from the chaos of downtown. So, as soon as I got off the phone with him, Michael and I began our 80 block walk from Washington Square Park (West 4th St.) to Ethan's place on West 85th St.

Along the walk, Michael and I had our first view of Times Square since we moved to New York. But, it was unlike I had ever seen Times Square in the past and probably unlike I will ever see it in the future. Not only was it devoid of cars, but it was practically devoid of people, save for a few handfuls of lost tourists, who had absolutely no idea what to do with themselves. It was an eerie place. We stopped for a few minutes to read the NBC New Ticker, and then continued on to Ethan's.

It wasn't until we reached Ethan's at about 5:00pm that we were able to finally rest, shower, watch the news and start to learn about someone called 'Osama bin Laden'.