My Memory of 9-11

I took the above notes while in my office at 71st Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, on September 11, 2001. We had managed to get through to the Internet for a few minutes, or -- and -- I was also on the phone with my Mother on Long Island, who was giving me info. At the time of writing the note, only one tower was down.

I remember I was in class at Hunter College earlier that morning (studying Urban Affairs, no less), and there was a commotion in the hall.  We had a speaker due to our class that was running really late so the door was open. Another professor walked in and said "Two planes flew into the World Trade Center." 

Two planes... I knew it was no accident. And an image popped in my mind that I still cannot explain: of both towers toppling over. Not crumbling, as they did, but toppling over, and I knew what a victory that would be to maniacs in the Middle East. Actually, I'm not sure I consciously thought "Middle East" but I did picture it and its people cheering -- not a sight so unusual with regard to something bad happening to the U.S.. These thoughts all took place in less than ten or fifteen seconds and they were mostly visual, not even fully formed sentences in my mind.

You could see smoke rising up (we were on the 17th floor looking south, straight down Lexington Avenue) between the buildings in the horizon (not the actual Trade Center but some buildings). A bunch of us left Hunter and headed to where we needed to go. I got to the street, turned the corner at 68th Street and 3rd Avenue, walking north to 71st, and heard a woman who I imagined had gotten her mother on the phone and said, in a shaky voice, "have you heard from Eileen?" I'll never forget her voice. I think she was asking about her sister. We literally were walking past one another. Eddie Bauer was on that corner. It's not there now but I remember it.

I got to the college where I worked at the time -- Marymount Manhattan College -- and my first thought was of the young, completely clueless students standing outside, smoking, oblivious, and I thought this is going to be their JFK moment.

I got upstairs and my whole office was huddled around an actual "transistor radio" that the ninety year old secretary in our office kept by her desk. Everyone was crowded around her. I walked in the back and turned on my computer and I think I couldn't get on at first. The above info came a little while later.

I went into the Mezzanine, a fancy event room on our floor, which was set up for a lecture using AV equipment, and there were a couple of students milling around. Later on, that TV was on with the news and many people were sitting in chairs, glued to the screens.

I began grabbing students and prompting them to call their folks from our offices. They were dazed but fine till they got on the phone and then there were tears.

Later on, a group of us (we had nineteen student workers in our office that year and the staff looked after them) went to donate blood on 68th and 1st Avenue. The line wrapped around the block and went on for four more city blocks. They shepherded us into Julia Richmond High School and we sat on the type of cafeteria tables/benches I hadn't sat on for better than 20 years. They were much smaller than I remembered. The blood bank, across the street, was dealing with the large crowd by having us sit in the school, and they began to give out snacks to prep us for giving blood. I remember a guy saying "did you ever think when you got up this morning you would be sitting in Julia Richmond High School eating cheeze-its?" 

They ran out of taking-blood supplies after a few hours and our little band never did get to donate -- not that it was needed. We went back to our office, consoled students and each other, took notes on the news, and made calls (when we were able). A colleague of mine was from an area just outside of Shanksville, PA. He couldn't get through to his family. A board member of the college lost 169 people at his company, we later learned. Two students lost a parent.

After we decided to head home, I had to get on the express bus going back to the Bronx. We waited about 2.5 hours but the bus never came. A group of us walked from the bus stop, which was on the east side, to the west side through Central Park, and managed to get on the 1/9 subway headed north. It was working!  Ordinarily, when people rode the subway, they looked down, not making eye contact. Now everyone was alert and aware of what other people had in the hands. Still, there was forbearance with one another, too. It took a long time to get home and I had to take a second bus to get there.  Most people had to walk from Manhattan to other boroughs. Later in the evening, my building lobby had a memorial take place in it. People had candles. The next day we all stayed home. 

Later in the week, my Mom and I tried to get close to Ground Zero, but we only got as far as Canal Street (about a mile north of Ground Zero).

The only cars able to drive on the West Side Highway, to the left of the people in the picture below, were emergency workers. Sometimes an ambulance would go by - silently - with its lights on, and any first responders in the road would stop where they were and salute.

There were signs of people's loved ones posted everywhere: on bus stops, walls, any surface that you could tape a flyer to.

The college had an art gallery and I seem to recall that a student painted this, some weeks or months after:

The local fire station's note to our office (below). We lost 343 fire fighters that day.

These are the notable times to keep in mind and heart:

8:46am - First tower hit

9:07am - Second tower hit

9:37am - Pentagon hit

9:59am - First tower down

10:07am - Shanksville, PA gets hit

10:28am - Second tower down

The next day or day after, maybe by Thursday, when I had class again at Hunter, a line of tanks were riding down Lexington Avenue, as long as the eye could see. I wish I got a picture of that for all of you. I'll never forget the site. I'll also never forget the site of a man at 71st and 3rd stopping in the crosswalk, looking up as he heard a fighter jet, on one of the days that followed the attack.