9/11 20th Anniversary

I can’t believe it’s been 20 years, it still feels like yesterday.

 

I'd just started first grade when it happened; the teachers didn't want to tell us what was going on, so they made up a story about a rabid raccoon on the school grounds. And then our parents all came to pick us up, and that's when I found out what had happened.

 

Around 5am I let my dog out and she starts barking so I run to let her in and I immediately smell skunk. She got blasted full on. Little did I know how petty my little problem would be. I can't believe it's been 20 years. RIP to all that were murdered that day.

 

I was living in Florida, after the first plane hit one of the guys on my crew come s to me and asks” do planes hit buildings often in nyc? “ I said no, why , he says one just hit the wtc, come look. Walking over I though it was going to be a little plane like what happened to the Empire State Building once before. Was watching the news feed when the 2nd plane came flying in. Total disbelief in what was happening.

 

Crazy to think this was 20 years ago.

Obviously I was living in Miami. Still remember being pulled from 5th grade and sent home for the day. We thought something had happened at our school. I remember coming home and seeing my dad watching the news and calling all of our family in New York to see if they were OK.

What a crazy moment in history.

Even crazier to think the younger generation now only knows it from textbooks.

RIP to all who were lost that day. I wish we could go back sometimes to the unity that followed. I have never seen this country so united in my life the weeks and months following that day.

 

I worked two blocks from the WTC for 12 years, and walked through it from the subway many, many, times, before we moved a mile north in 1992. I was in a meeting that started at 9 AM, and we heard a plane had hit a tower, but the picture on the CNN web site seemed to indicate a small hole. An hour later someone came in the room and told us that one tower had collapsed and the other was on fire. By the time I got outside to look, the second tower had collapsed, and all there was downtown was smoke. Thus, I’ve always felt strangely disconnected from it, despite being a mile away, since I knew less of what was going on than people on the other side of the world.

I personally didn’t know anyone lost there, but I knew people who lost close friends and family members.

it’s hard to believe it’s been twenty years.

 

I was working at HBO then on 42nd street on the 23rd floor of the Grace Building. We could see the smoke from the burning towers from our offices, which faced south across Bryant Park.

My director had the TV on in her office and several of us were in there watching with her. We started watching CNN after the first reports of a plane hitting one of the towers. When the second tower was hit we all knew it wasn't an accident. Really we knew before that, because planes don't just fly into buildings in clear weather, but we weren't thinking about anything other than the impending tragedy before the second plane crashed into the south tower.

We got a communication from HBO Security shortly after the second attack asking us all to remain calm and remain in the building. The entrances to the HBO Building on 6th Avenue and the HBO floors in the Grace Building were being locked as a precaution and we would get further communications shortly.

By 10:30am we could see groups of people walking up 6th Avenue. The subways and buses were shut down and people just started to walk north after the South tower fell just before 10am. At 11am Giuliani gave the official evacuation order for lower Manhattan and the groups became a nonstop crowd walking north. The amazing thing was that the crowd walking north was orderly. Nobody was pushing or trying to walk at a much faster pace than the people around them. I've never seen a crowd under that kind of self-control before or since. Maybe like us they were all in shock and just going with the flow.

Any other big news event would have had the office buzzing, with people talking about events and trying to figure out what was going on. By the time the South tower fell we were mostly sitting silently with the weight of events becoming too oppressive to allow for much conversation. I remember going back to my office and just logging tickets at that point. Catching up on a backlog of work that never ended but that was quiet for today. The Help Desk was just down the hall and usually the phones were ringing off the hook by 11am but today they were mostly silent with the occasional call coming in.

Our SVP showed up about 11:30am to let everybody know that we were going to be allowed to join the stream of walkers when security decided it was safe to do so. He normally would have used the opportunity to give us a group communication of some sort but today he was just passing on what security told him to.

I believe that sandwiches and wraps were brought to us about noon, however I'm not 100% certain. I remember being hungry on the walk up 6th Avenue that afternoon and most of the shops that we passed being closed. It's quite possible that I had no appetite when the free luncheon showed up and skipped it. My stomach was definitely roiling all morning as I contemplated what was happening a couple of miles south.

I got a call from my dad at about 12:30 saying that he was planning to pick up my sister at school at 3pm and if I could get to 88th and West End by then he'd pick me up also. I lived up in the Bronx at that point at 238th street and It was going to be a loooooong walk home for me.

I went into my director to see if I could get a better idea on when we were going to get sprung and she said that security was planning to open the building for departure sometime between 1:00-2:00 depending on how much the crowd went down outside. The crowds on 6th Avenue at 12:30 were enormous. Like an endless thronging mass of humanity slowly wending its way north out of the stricken financial district.

I wound up at 88th and West End by the agreed upon time and got my ride to my father's place in Washington Heights. I had dinner with them and then he offered to take me up to my place afterwards. I told him we'd never get by the roadblocks on the Hudson Bridge at 225th street but he said he had MD plates and he was pretty sure he could talk his way past the checkpoints. My old man was an MP in WWII in Germany after the war and he'd gotten really good at talking his way around control points. He knew the jargon, which surprisingly hadn't change much in 50-odd years.

When we got to the first checkpoint the officer there let us through but warned my father that he'd have trouble getting back into Manhattan, since inbound traffic was heavily restricted at that point. My father told me later that he looked for anybody but that guy on the way back in. They let him through.

It took days for business to get back to normal. HBO basically shut the NY offices for 3 days and then slowly opened things back up, with all the arrivals cleared by security beforehand to make sure the minimum number of necessary people were at risk at an given time. HBO really knew how to take care of their people.

 

When it happened in 2001 I was a recent college graduate and was my first year at work in Istanbul, Turkey.

That day my soccer team Galatasaray had a Champions League game against Lazio and I was a season ticket holder. Was getting ready to leave work and head to the stadium to watch the game. Once the news broke decided to skip the game and head home to watch it. It was extremely heart breaking. At no point that night I would have thought I would be a Newyorker one day and my kids would be born in New York just 5 years later.

New York is our adopted city and USA is our adopted country. Very sad for all those lives lost. But feel worse for all who lost their loved ones that day.

 

my last year of work before retirement. office was just across from grand central station. my floor at work was being renovated and there were construction guys all over. right past the entrance doors there was a conference room with a TV. i got to work about 8:45 or so and as I went through the doors I saw a bunch of people huddled around watching tv, both my work associates and the construction guys. The first plane had just crashed into the building. Well of course we watched the whole time. As the buildings started to burn a few of the construction guys said they had worked on the towers, building them, and they were going to collapse. Sure enough.....

i had been at a dinner at windows on the world just a week before. i knew the maître di., who was killed. just one tragedy amongst all the others.

grand central was closed until very late in the evening. They had rushed national guard troops there. everyone at my location was pretty shook up. we didn't know what was safe and if we were in harms way.

I used to do a lot of plane travel. Sometimes at small airports we got to the plane 15 minutes before takeoff. In May of 2002 I took my last business trip. had to get to the airport 3 hours early. every bag was being opened and inspected. every bag. For those of you who are young, the changes 9/11 caused were just as dramatic as the changes Covid is causing, but of course in a different manner.

 

I was at the playground during recess when cops showed up at the school. That never happened, so I figured something was up. Then, a friend said he heard there had been a terror attack at the WTC. I couldn't believe it until they let us out early and I saw replays of the second plane hit. A neighbor 3 doors down worked in one of the towers and never came back. I could only imagine the pain and suffering that family experienced. The names Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were on the news everyday for months after the tragedy.

RIP to everyone who lost their lives from those attacks.

 

I always think about how utterly terrifying it must have been for all the people stuck in those buildings above the impact zone. No chance of escaping just knowing that would be the end of their lives.

Then the 1st responders who had the courage to keep going into the buildings helping get people out. That to me is the definition of a hero. Going towards something when most people are running away.
RIP we will never forget all the people who lost their lives that day.

 

I worked my last couple of years in mid-town before I "retired" and moved to Colorado, so I wasn't there when the WTC was hit, but I knew a few people who died in it. By then I was living in the mountains west of Denver and working downtown there and they sent us all home for three days. My daughter was still living in NY (and is still), and I wanted here to come and stay with me - even re-locate - but she's a died-in-the-wool NY'er. Fortunately she wasn't affected beyond the emotional trauma we all experienced. I finally got to visit the memorial a few years ago and was moved to tears and sadness.

I still can't watch any re-enactments of it, documentaries or dramas.

RIP to those who perished, especially to those brave men and women first responders who lost their lives.

 

Sad and depressing day.

 

I was watching everything in my apartment in New Jersey. I remember running across the street to get smokes and seeing a woman laughing about something while in the phone. I was stoned out if my mind and I said “do you know what’s happening right now”? She replied “no, what”? I told her that terrorists were attacking the Twin Towers. She froze in her tracks and turned pale as a ghost. I kept moving because I was trying to fend of what I think was a panic attack.

Shortly afterwards I met up with friends in Highlands and we just watched the towers and smoked some more. We were all speechless when the first one went down. We stopped smoking at that point and a bit of paranoia kicked in. We started trying to figure out if we knew anyone who had parents or relatives that worked there. We came up empty that day but found out shortly after that we knew a few of people from school who were impacted.

I was at ground zero on 9/12 with my best friend. He works for a construction company in the city. He tossed me and electrical workers union shirt and I geared up like I belonged. When we arrived there was nothing we could do. The bucket brigade had as many people as it needed at that moment. There were plenty of union workers (they were all wearing shirts with their locals) waiting to volunteer.


The sight itself was apocalyptic.

I mean the towers were piles of rubble but shops in the area were burnt out, glass everywhere inside. There were puddles deep enough to submerge your entire boot. The smoke blotted out the sun. There were people looting. I remember one guy in particular who pulled a cash register drawer out. It was locked. He couldn’t open it so he just walked away with it.

At one point I sat down on a sidewalk to tighten my laces. A reporter tried to interview me. I was 19 and hadn’t fully processed it all so I told her I had no comment. I had too tell her more than once to get her to move on.

I wish we’d been able to contribute to the rescue effort in some meaningful way, but I also sometimes think I’m better off not having seen what many of those volunteers, police, fire fighters, and first responders saw during the search and rescue. I’ve seen some messed up stuff in my life and it sticks with you. The less the better.

Sorry for rambling, those are just some things that come to mind whenever I see something about “remembering” 9/11.

 

I was there.I worked two blocks East of the Twin Towers. 4-5 years earlier, I had worked as a temp for a firm in the South Tower for a week. 2-3 years after that, I worked in the World Financial Center (WFC) for an Investment Bank as a Consultant for 9 months. Both towers and the WFC were destroyed. I'm certain that probably some of the people I worked with perished, but no friend or anyone whose name I recognized.

I was running a little late that day. My stop with the WTC/Wall St. Stop on the 2/3 line. My train pulled into the station about 10 past 9, and I could immediately tell that something was wrong. There was something palpable in the air. I asked a guy who was running for the train and who had an absolutely panicked look on his face what was going on. He replied that planes had hit both towers and they think it was terrorists. I went up the steps to the street, one block away, looked up and saw the two huge gaping holes, flames and smoke pouring out of the towers, people in both towers above and below the holes looking out the windows, people in other buildings looking out their windows, and thousands of people on the street standing there staring.

I went on to work, thinking it was Wall St. and business would go on. I immediately called my folks to let them know that I was ok, then checked my voicemail and email, and began working. I soon noticed that I was the only fool working, so quit, and joined others huddled around a radio. My boss had been in a meeting on the 40th floor of our building on the west side of the building, and had seen several people jump to their deaths. I'm glad that I didn't see that. About noon Mayor Giuliani came on the radio and told everyone south of Canal St. to evacuate. The trains had stopped so those on the west side were advised to walk up the West Side Highway, and those of us on the East Side were told to walk up the FDR. As luck would have it, I had broken the big toe on my left foot the day before, so had a moon shoe, and had to walk home to Brooklyn (3 miles). There was a young woman from Queens who had just graduated from college that spring who asked if she could walk home with me and stay with me until her parents could come pick her up.

It was such a beautiful fall day. Crystal clear blue sky and a cool breeze. The way everyone was helping each other was amazing. People had brought down paper towels and those big water bottles and were wetting paper towels for people to hold over their mouth and nose. On the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge, people had drug chairs out of offices for people to sit and rest, and had brought bottles of water down for people to drink. I tried to volunteer for days but was turned away, as every place I tried said that they had tons more volunteers than they could use. I learned that people from all over the US were coming to NYC to volunteer, sending water, food and money for the rescuers and construction workers cleaning up the site. The atmosphere in NYC was totally different for about 3 months. People were quiet, subdued, and respectful. Church attendance boomed. People didn't go to the theater or out to eat. Then overnight things returned to normal.

It only took the city, power, and phone companies a week to get everything back up and running. We were back at work the following Monday. They had rigged temporary phones. Many of the buildings had huge tractor trailer generators on the sidewalks with cables bigger around that your arms running into buildings to power them. The whole south end of the island of Manhattan was covered in a coating of dust that was human remains, carpet, office furniture, documents, etc. for about two weeks and then everything was cleaned over a weekend. A good friend had to run an errand and was outside only a block or two away when the towers came down. He was enveloped in the cloud of dust. He told me that he thought he was going to die immediately. He did wind up getting cancer and dying about 10 years later. The National Guard armed with machine guns were on every street corner. No vehicular traffic was allowed below Canal St. All deliveries were escorted by NYC Police or State Police. There were shortages of food at restaurants. Many shops weren't open for months, and some never re-opened. Several of my friends worked as System Administrators or in IT and they had to stay there and sleep there for several days. They had to turn the power off on all the pcs, routers and servers. Food was delivered and they were allowed to take showers in the partners' showers.

My youngest niece lived just South of Canal St. and for some reason her neighborhood was locked down and she wasn't allowed to leave for a week. She was from a small town in NC and was scared to death. I couldn't go see her and she couldn't come stay with me.

I'll never forget that day or the succeeding weeks. Pictures and posters everywhere asking if we had seen their mother/father/sister/brother/son/daughter/friend. It was a horrible time. I pray we never have to go through anything like that ever again.

 

We all have our stories, none of them good.

 

The dust really sticks out in my mind. The way it covered everything coupled with the large amount of water on the streets made it seem like it had snowed heavily then turned to rain. Oddly is was probably one of the more unnerving things that I saw that day. The way it covered everything in the area - streets, puddles, windows, stores, a pair of mannequins in a busted window display - it was everywhere. It also seemed to just hang in the air contributing to the strange daytime darkness in the area.

Sorry about your friend. My friend and I wore well fitting dust masks while we were there and we like to think we weren’t there long enough for it to cause health issues. We both at crappy lungs in our 40’s, though.