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"It
is hard to put into words." From
the 45th floor of WTC Two The
Horror, The Horror A traveler's
cry The
World Trade Center: a Personal Experience It started
out as a beautiful Tuesday morning Try
to remember the kind of Sepember... Scott
Pasquini ’01 witnessed WTC attacks A
day of beauty, inclusiveness, and power An
engineer at Ground Zero 'That's
where people jumped' "It is hard to put into words." By Tom Nagorski ’84 New York City, September 11. I arrived in the newsroom just as the first call came in. One of our staffers was on the line. The World Trade Center, she said, was on fire. She had heard someone say a plane had hit the towers. For a few minutes we watched and waited, hoping the fire would be extinguished, that it really hadn't been a plane, that this must have been an accident. Peter Jennings slipped on his blazer and headed for the anchor desk. The ABC Special Events unit hummed to life. We put off our 9:00 editorial meeting, and peered up at a bank of television monitors. I left a phone message for my wife, Anne Heller ’85, who works for the mayor in an office on Chambers Street. She e-mailed me back: "I heard it and felt it. Didn't know what it was. Was it an accident or a terrorist? Maybe they don't know? Now I hear all the sirens." Then the second impact. Having seen it so many times it is difficult now to remember what anyone said, or did, the first time we saw it. I know I called Anne again. This time I struggled to keep a steady voice. "I think you should get out of there," I said. Then the phones went dead. And then the bulletins flew at us. 9:22. From a White House correspondent: "The President was informed during his first event in Florida. Andy Card whispered info in his ear..." 9:56. From a Reuters report: "A person who answered the phone on the trading floor at interdealer-broker Cantor Fitzgerald, located near the top of the World Trade Center, said, 'We're fucking dying.'..." 10:35. From the ABC News Investigative Unit: "Reports from FAA sources say that there are one and possibly two more planes that have been hijacked and are still missing..." By now we had seen one, and then the other tower come cascading down. "My God," said Peter Jennings, as the second tower fell. "It is hard to put into words." He paused. "Maybe we don't need to." We had also seen the smoke on the horizon in Washington, DC. "Claire, what's that we're looking at," Jennings asked correspondent Claire Shipman, who was reporting from a position overlooking the old Executive Office Building. There followed an awful minute or two of suspended animation, time I spent hoping that this was some fluke, some unrelated brush fire. At 16 minutes before 10 we confirmed that the smoke was rising from the Pentagon. Some 30 seconds later, we had an eyewitness who had watched a jet smash into its side. At the anchor desk, Jennings shuddered. "Want to hold our breath here for a moment." I buried myself in the work. In part because there was no choice. World News Tonight as a discrete broadcast was suddenly irrelevant; the entire news division was now tasked with a "Special Report" that would last for days. We dispatched reporters and producers to lower Manhattan, Boston's Logan Airport, and to Los Angeles, and we made plans to send teams to South Asia – though Osama Bin Laden's name had yet to be mentioned. A parade of experts were called to our New York and Washington offices – to talk about everything from aviation to terrorism to rescue and recovery efforts. The work also obscured, if only slightly, everything else that was rattling my mind. How many thousands were dead? What was coming next? Where was my wife? It was impossible to gauge accurately the spread of smoke and debris, but it certainly appeared - in horrifying image after horrifying image that arrived in our tape rooms - that huge sections of the congested and narrow downtown had been smothered. Anne's office was five blocks from the World Trade Center. Our apartment was across the East River, in Brooklyn Heights. I kept trying to call, but the line was down; when I reached a neighbor, she told me that the woman who cares for our four-year-old daughter was hysterical. "She's upset about the whole thing, and she's upset that Anne isn't home." The neighbor also told me that the smoke was shrouding Brooklyn Heights. At 10:58 there was this, on the e-mail: "There has been a report of a large plane crash in Western Pennsylvania." Nightmare, piled on nightmares. I remember thinking - as I read this latest terrible item - Please God, let this one be an accident. An aviation disaster, all right, terrible, but that at least might be manageable, from a mental standpoint. But please, please, not another act of terror. Where would the next bulletin originate, the next smoldering fire? For that next hour or two it was all impossible to digest, to comprehend, though of course we had to digest and comprehend, continuously. It was our job. What other aircraft were missing? Where was the President? Shanksville, Pennsylvania, joined the datelines. And it had not been an accident. We sent a team there. Another to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. We asked reporters for stories about airport security, for eyewitness accounts and nationwide reactions. Medical reporters were asked about triage work and asbestos levels - both of which seemed very relevant in those first hours. Geared for the daily 6:30 p.m. deadline, all of us at World News Tonight now simply took in stories from the field, edited them as quickly as possible, and put them out on the air. Mostly the coverage was live, check-ins with reporters and experts and eyewitnesses all over the world. Still no word from Anne. Still a flood of e-mails. 11:24. From our aviation correspondent: "The government has shut down the entire air traffic system in the United States..." 11:28. From my soon-to-be sister-in-law, whose wedding was four days away: "Please let me know that you are O.K., if you can...We love you all..." 11:47. From the ABC News research department: "50,000 people work in the World Trade Center. There are 155 businesses there..." I was on the phone with our London bureau when the call came from Brooklyn. It was Anne, and she was all right. She had been among the thousands who sprinted over the bridge when the first tower fell, ahead of the gray-black cloud. She had found our neighborhood gray-black as well, and our daughter, Natalie, just days past her fourth birthday, was asking questions. Why had someone knocked down the buildings? And - her words - "Why was the plane so pointy?" At some point that morning, Natalie had seen a television screen. We stayed at work until two in the morning, when Jennings took his first break from the coverage. "I suppose we did all right," he said. He had been on the air for 17 consecutive hours. And he would be back in the chair at 9 that morning. The overnight team took over. We made assignments for the following day, long lists of stories and questions and new datelines. Several of us checked in to the nearby ghostly Empire Hotel, for a few hours of sleep. The 12th proved another marathon day, another blur of headlines, the first and last story of rescues at the Trade Center, and a strange moment when my boss - Jennings - was interviewing Anne's boss - Rudolph Giuliani. That night I shuffled out at a little after midnight, and headed for the subway. On board the A train, fellow passengers talked loudly about the events, about people they knew who'd been downtown, about what they felt should be done to the perpetrators. South of Canal Street the train slowed, and the car hushed, as we moved at a snail's pace through the Chambers Street/World Trade Center station. People turned to look; a film of dust had settled over the platform but otherwise it was just an abandoned station. A few passengers stood to stare, or perhaps to say a prayer. Past Chambers, at Broadway/Nassau Street, the train picked up speed again, and raced to Brooklyn. It was 1 in the morning. I took a brief detour to walk the length of the Brooklyn Heights promenade, long considered one of the best vantage points for one of the world's most dramatic skylines. For 36 hours I had been watching the pictures, hearing the sounds, and talking about nothing else - but that little walk still shook the senses. The promenade was already decorated, end to end, with flowers and flags, candles and photographs and printed messages. "Pray for the victims and their families," urged the largest of these. People stood, shadowed in the candlelight, silent and staring. And there it was, across the river, that awful empty space, fully lit and still smoking, acrid smell still wafting, though this night the wind was carrying the worst of it north, to upper Manhattan. Then I was home, surprised to find Anne awake. We said nothing, only held each other close, and I broke down and cried. Tom Nagorski ’84 Back to September 11 essays menu
From
the 45th floor of WTC Two By Jerry Price Dan Swingos was a football player. Every Saturday was "a war." He played in three games that went "sudden death." As a defensive end, he always found himself in "the trenches." And then the real thing hit. Miraculously, he is still here to talk about it. Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, three years after he led Princeton out of the tunnel onto the Princeton Stadium turf as captain of the first Tiger team to play in the new facility, Swingos found himself at Ground Zero of the attack on the U.S. Swingos woke up Tuesday morning and went to work like he always does. His work address was the 60th floor of the World Trade Center, building two. He was on the 45th floor of that building around 9 a.m., when the first hijacked plane struck building one. "I didn't hear it, but I looked out the window and saw papers flying around everywhere," he said. "I said to myself, 'what in the world's going on?' Then I looked down and saw fires on the ground everywhere and I figured that something had exploded." Swingos works with former Princeton players Tim Ligue '01 and Chuck Hastings '00. Across the street at the time was former Tiger Gerry Giurato '00, who works at the World Financial Center. "I didn't see the plane hit," Giurato said. "But I heard it coming. I knew it was a plane. At the time, everyone was speculating that it was just an accident, that a plane had lost control and hit the tower. I was thinking that a lot of people might not get out." When the first plane hit, Swingos was with a few other people. They immediately went for the elevator, but they were told they could not use it. Instead, they went into the stairwell. It took around 15 minutes to get from the 45th to around the 15th floor, and then they heard an announcement from the loud speaker. "They said a plane had hit the other building," Swingos said. "Then they said that we had nothing to worry about, because our building was fine and that we could go back upstairs. We all said no to that. We just wanted to get outside and see what was happening." Swingos and his group made it to the ground floor, but getting out of the building was another matter. Police were guiding people to the outside and weren't permitting some regular exits to be used. Swingos thought to get the subway and actually boarded an E train, but the train did not move. After that, he opened the door to the subway exit, the same one he normally takes to work. "I looked outside, and it was a war zone," he said. "There was fire. Shrapnel. And then maybe 10 seconds after I opened the door, I heard it. It was like a missile, and it just tore into the building." It was no missile. Instead, it was the second hijacked plane, which struck building two, at the base of which he was standing. "All of the sudden, huge pieces of metal were falling from the sky," Swingos said. "I dove under the entrance to the building that was covered, but I was just halfway under the cover. I couldn't stay there. I had to take off, across a courtyard." This was the beginning of the most harrowing part. Swingos ran through a maze of falling debris, some of which were huge metal pieces that would have surely killed him. "It got back to the lobby of the building, and I just saw the metal falling all over," he says. "After that fallout let up, I just got out and started running north." At the time, he had no idea about Hastings or Ligue, both of whom made it out of the area that was the workplace for many former Princeton athletes and Princetonians in general. "It was a madhouse," Giurato said. "I never, ever thought anything like that could happen. " For Swingos, the story didn't end there. Around 700 miles away, in his family restaurant outside Cleveland, his anxious family was waiting to hear from him. During this time, they were glued to the TV set, watching first the planes hit and then the buildings collapse. "I didn't have my cell phone with me," Swingos said. "I couldn't get through. Then this girl was the on the street with her cell phone and she was getting reception, and she let me borrow her phone. I called the restaurant, because I knew they'd be there. My brother answered, and as soon as he picked up, they went into hysterics. They were sure I hadn't made it out." But he did make it out, largely by listening to his instincts. "People were just doing what they had to do to survive," said Swingos, who along with Giurato and the others had to walk several miles north to get home. "I just tried to make good decisions and keep going. I wasn't really thinking about the larger picture at the time. I saw a lot of people who were just frozen, who couldn't move. I hope as many made it out as possible. There are a lot of people I work with still missing. It was a horrible, horrible thing. It was the worst thing ever." He came through it. Maybe his experiences as an athlete, as a football player, helped him. Maybe he was just lucky. Whatever it was, he was ready for the "big game," which came three years after his career ended. — Jerry Price Jerry Price is the assistant director of athletic public affairs for media relations at Princeton. He can be reached at jprice@Princeton.edu Back to September 11 essays menu
The following account was written by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and astrophysics professor at Princeton University. An excerpt of this appeared previously in the Wall Street Journal. It originated as an email Tyson sent to several friends and colleagues. The Horror,
The Horror 10 a.m., Wednesday, 12 September 2001
We live six blocks from the World Trade Center, in view of both Towers, City Hall, and City Hall Park. I happened to be working at home yesterday. My wife went to work at 8:20 a.m.. I left at the same time to vote in NYC's mayoral primary. My nine-month-old son was at home with our nanny. My five-year old daughter was attending her second day of kindergarten at PS-234, three blocks from World Trade Center. Lineup time in the yard was 8:40 a.m. in full view of WTC 1. When the first plane hit at 8:50, they evacuated the school without incident. I noticed WTC 1 on fire in a high floor upon returning from voting, about 8:55 a.m. Large crowds of onlookers were gathering along the base of City Hall Park as countless fire engines, police cars, and ambulances screamed past. I went home, grabbed my camcorder, went out to the street and started filming. I consider myself to be emotionally strong. What I bore witness to, however, was especially upsetting, with indelible images of horror that will not soon leave my mind. 1) I first see WTC 1 on fire at a high floor. Not just flames coming out of some windows, but four or five entire floors on fire with smoke penetrating floors still higher. Upsetting enough, but then... 2) Among the papers and melted steel fragments fluttering to the ground, I notice that some debris was falling distinctly differently. These weren't parts of the building that were falling. These were people, jumping from the windows, their bodies tumbling in rapid descent from the eightieth floor. I noticed about 10 such falls, morbidly capturing three of them on tape. Upsetting enough, but then... 3) A fiery explosion burst forth from a corner of WTC 2 about two-thirds of the way up, perhaps the 60th floor. The fireball created an intense radiative impulse of heat from which we all had to turn our heads. From my vantage point, I could not see the plane that caused it, which hit 180 degrees on the other side of the building. Nor did I know at the time that a plane caused it. I first thought it was a bomb, but the explosion was not accompanied by the tell-tale acoustic shock wave that rattles windows. This was simply a low frequency rumble. As it burst from the building's corner, the fireball was so large that it extended all the way across to WTC 1. The fact the building's corner exploded tells me that the ignited jet fuel got focused by the sides of the floor into which the second plane flew, meeting at the corner with increased explosive pressure. The flames were accompanied by countless thousands of sheets of paper that burst forth, fluttering to the ground as though every filing cabinet on multiple floors was emptied. The fact that the second tower was now on fire made it clear to us all on the street that the first fire was no accident and that the WTC complex was under terrorist attack. Morbidly, I have the explosion on tape and the sounds from the horrified crowd surrounding me. At this point I stopped filming, and went back inside my apartment. Upsetting enough, but then... 4) As more and more and more and more and more emergency vehicles descended on the World Trade Center, I hear a second explosion in WTC 2, then a loud, low-frequency rumble that precipitates the unthinkable - a collapse of all the floors above the point of explosion. First the top surface, containing the helipad, tips sideways in full view. Then the upper floors fall straight down in a demolition-style implosion, taking all lower floors with it, even those below the point of the explosion. A dense, thick dust cloud rises up in its place, which rapidly pours through the warren of streets that cross lower Manhattan. I close all our windows and blinds. As the dust cloud engulfs my building, an eerie darkness surrounded us - the kind of darkness you experience before a severe thunderstorm. I look out the window and can see no more than about 12 inches away. Upsetting enough, but then... 5) Outside my window, after about 15 minutes, visibility grows to about 100 yards, and I notice about an inch of white dust everywhere outside my window. That's when I realize that every single rescue vehicle that had parked itself at the base off the World Trade Center must now be buried under 110 collapsed floors of tangled debris, and multiple feet of dust. This collapse took out the entire first round of rescue efforts including what were surely hundreds of police officers, firefighters, and medics. As visibility increased and I could now see the blue sky, there was blue sky where WTC 2 used to be. Upsetting enough, but then... 6) I decide it's time to get my daughter, who was taken by the parents of a friend of hers to a small office building, six blocks farther from the WTC than my apartment. As I dress for survival: boots, flashlight, wet towels, swimming goggles, bicycle helmet, gloves, I hear another explosion followed by a now all-too familiar rumble that signaled the collapse of WTC 1, the first of the two towers to have been hit. I saw the iconic antenna on this building descend straight down in an implosion twinning the first. This dust cloud was darker, thicker, and faster-moving than the first. When this round of dust reached my apartment, 15 seconds after collapse, the sky turned dark as night, with visibility of no more than about a centimeter. It was getting harder to breathe in the apartment, but we were stable. At this point I offer no hope of survival for any of the rescue personnel who were on the scene. Upsetting enough, but then... 7) The cloud settles once again, now leaving a total of about three inches of dust outside my window. Another dark cloud of smoke now occupies the area where two 110-story buildings once stood. This cloud, however, was not the settling kind. It was smoke from ground-level fires. At this time the air in the apartment is getting harder and harder to breathe and it becomes clear that we should evacuate - especially with the likelihood of underground gas leaks. I load up my largest backpack with survival items, put my son in our most nimble stroller and leave with our nanny, who then walks across the Brooklyn Bridge toward her home. I go to where my daughter was held, which was up-wind from all debris on a quiet street. She is in good spirits, but clearly upset. I have a crayon drawing of hers, sketched while waiting for me to arrive, which shows the Twin Towers with smoke and fire coming from them, as only a five-year old could draw. "Daddy, why do you think the pilot drove his plane into the World Trade Center?" "Daddy, I wish this was all just a dream." "Daddy, if we can't return home tonight because of all the smoke, will my stuffed animals be okay?" Upsetting enough, but then... 8) From the calm of an upholstered couch in the office where my daughter was kept, with my son under one arm and my daughter under the other, I realize that, fully loaded, each tower off the WTC holds 10,000 people. From what I witnessed, I have no reason to believe that any of them survived. In fact, I would not be surprised if the death toll reached 25-30,000. Beneath the towers is an entire universe of six subterraneous levels containing scores of subway platforms, plus a hundred or so shops and restaurants. The Towers simply collapsed into this hole - a hole large enough to have supplied the landfill for the World Financial Center across the West Side highway from the World Trade Center. Upsetting enough, but then... 9) I realize that if the death toll is as high as I suspect, this incident is much, much worse than Pearl Harbor, where several thousand people died. It's more spectacularly tragic than the Titanic, the Hindenberg, Oklahoma City, car bombs, and airplane hijackings. The number of deaths in one four-hour period could be nearly half of the American death toll in all of Vietnam. I reconnected with my wife by 4 p.m., meeting her just north of Union Square Park, before we hiked another mile north to Grand Central Terminal for our ride to Westchester, above New York City. I will never be the same after yesterday, in ways that I cannot foresee. I suppose that my generation now joins the ranks of those who lived through unspeakable horrors and survived to tell about it. How naive I was to believe that the world is fundamentally different from that of our ancestors, whose lives were changed by bearing witness to the 20th century's vilest acts of war. Peace to you all Neil deGrasse Tyson New York City
Back to September 11 essays menu By Don George '75 One day after the horrific events of September 11, a reporter called to ask me how I thought those events were going to affect travel. At the time I was feeling both stunned and defiant, and I answered her questions with what seems to me now to be a naÔve, or perhaps just shell-shocked, confidence: Of course, air security would be tremendously tightened and travelers would be inconvenienced, I said, but I didn't think people would stop traveling and I myself certainly didn't intend to change my travel plans. Now, as I write these words on September 16, my mood has changed. The enormity of the events and their repercussions has gradually sunk in. Over the past week, I feel like I have been sifting through the wreckage and debris of my own internal World Trade Center tower, and I realize that I am only now beginning to dimly approach the bottom where the real casualties are. For a longtime traveler and travel journalist contemplating the future of travel, the easy part, the grounding part, is to say what we know: The FAA has tightened air travel regulations. We have to have paper tickets or receipts in hand, we should carry multiple identification cards, we can't check our bags in at the curb, we can't proceed beyond security checkpoints if we don't have a ticket, we should expect long delays and intensive searches of ourselves and our carry-on bags, we should get to the airport twice as early as we used to, and before even going to the airport we should double-check to make sure our plane is flying. These are things we know, but the things that I really want to know, I can't know, no one knows. What kind of response is the U.S. going to make? When? Where? What will be the response to that response? From whom? These are the unknowns that, for me, pierce the heart of the matter. And these unknowns frighten me. On one level, they frighten me because they strike at the very heart of the business I love: travel. Can I in good conscience recommend unreservedly that people get back on airplanes and resume their normal travel plans? Well, no, I can't. I don't have qualms myself about flying now, but I certainly understand why some people would. Travelers worry about security in the air and on the ground. My personal feeling is that most travel is as safe now as ever, perhaps in some senses safer than before. But our once blithe shield of invincibility has been punctured, and it is as if the entire country, indeed the whole globe, is on alert, holding its collective breath. Under these circumstances, I think every would-be traveler just has to listen to his or her own inner voice. But I wonder what ripple effects such uncertainties will have on the intricately interrelated travel business — not just the airlines and the cruise lines, but hotels, restaurants, travel agencies, tour operators, taxi drivers, the countless employees of the world's largest employer. What unsettling effects could this have on the world economy? These are sobering fears, but I have an even greater and more fundamental fear. I fear for the safety of the planet. When the Persian Gulf crisis erupted near the end of 1990, I was the travel editor at the ìSan Francisco Examinerî and my second child had just been born. The new year began, and for my first column of 1991, I was trying to make some coherent analysis of the world situation — but my thoughts kept wandering back to a few nights before, when I had been trekking around my living room trying to bounce my son to sleep. Then I had a revelation, and this is what I ended up writing: "It is one thing to ponder and pontificate about the planet, and it is an entirely different thing to wander around the living room in the middle of the night holding a miraculous and utterly helpless bundle of brains, nerves and blood — this new human being you helped create. Suddenly the meaning of life becomes very clear and very simple — and the fragile vessel we call Earth becomes more vulnerable and precious to you than it has ever been before. "As I thought about that midnight trek, I realized that I want peace so that my children can grow up and discover themselves and the world freely without the threat of war; I want friendship among peoples so that they can experience and embrace the globe's grand diversity; I want environmental preservation so that they can savor all the natural wonders I have known — the intricate worlds of mountain and prairie, forest and desert. "And I realized anew that for me travel is the road to these goals: Travel teaches you about traditions and tolerance; it teaches you about history and continuity; it teaches you about artistic creation and aesthetic ambition; it teaches you about the myriad differences that enrich the global mosaic, and about the importance of each and every piece in that mosaic. And ultimately, travel teaches you about boundaries and boundlessness, and about the stresses and depths, the diminishings and enhancements of love." Ten years later, I reread these words, and a simple truth sticks in my head: I love our planet. Last week I went to a hardware store and bought an American flag. I drove home and posted it proudly on the front of my house. But what I really wish the store had had was a flag of the earth, because that's what really is at stake here. Those horrendous attacks on September 11 were not directed just at the U.S.; they were directed at the planet, at that grand mosaic of differences I described 10 years before, because the terrorists who flew those planes and who masterminded those assaults clearly do not value those differences. As we attempt to come to terms with this assault and to create our response, we should ask ourselves: Have we always valued these differences sufficiently? I hope fervently that we will emerge from this trial — this time of inconceivable loss and suffering — with renewed determination and keener sensitivity to the plight of our brethren around the world. It would be a tragedy infinitely compounding the tragedies we have already endured if we let the terrorists' actions and our responses to them shut down the world. Democracy thrives, freedom thrives, peace thrives, when borders are thrown open, when people from different countries and different cultures are allowed to meet and interact. Ever since I first ventured abroad as a fresh college graduate, I have believed from the core of my being that travel is the road to peace. I have believed that when people from different countries and cultures meet and get to know each other, even briefly, the globe becomes humanized and war becomes that much more insupportable and inconceivable. If the foot soldiers of the world refuse to fight, the generals will have no one to command. And if the children of the world embrace, the fanatics will eventually have no one to martyr. Over the past week, I have found my throat choked and tears welling in my eyes countless times. Watching TV images at home, listening to radio accounts in the car, reading newspaper and web articles at work, anguish and frustration and outrage have gripped my soul and wrung it like a towel, until I wonder if I have any tears left. But as someone who believes passionately in travel, in the wonders and riches that travel bestows — the extraordinary places we see, the connections we forge, the life-transforming lessons we learn — I want to scream out that we cannot let travel be the victim of these events. Because if we do so, we play right into the terrorists' hands. If we surrender to isolation and fear, we create exactly the atmosphere in which terrorism can thrive. On the contrary, we must continue to forge people-to-people connections around the globe, we must continue to stretch ourselves and our sense of our planet, we must continue to grow our own sensitivity to, appreciation of and compassion for all the varieties of peoples and places and conditions around the world. Because this is the hope and promise of our planet; this is our destiny. And how do we do this? By traveling, I do not know what the world situation will be like two months from now, or two weeks from now, or even seven days from now, when you are reading these words. But this I do know: No matter what happens, I will never surrender my love of travel and my love of the world. And I know from the bottom of my heart that the links I forge as a traveler, and the links other travelers forge, will construct edifices of humanity that no terrorism can destroy, edifices of reason, edifices of compassion, edifices of freedom that will tower, in the end, over the terrorists' dust. Don George '75 is the travel editor at Lonely Planet Publications. His Traveler at Large column appears weekly on lonelyplanet.com. He can be reached at dgeorge@lonelyplanet.com. Back to September 11 essays menu The
World Trade Center: a Personal Experience I bought my weekly subway
fare card when the first plane crashed into World Trade Center 1. At
that time nobody at the 86th Street station on the Lexington Avenue
subway line knew anything was wrong. It was just an ordinary day. The
express train arrived almost as soon as I got down to the platform.
I boarded it, opened up my ìWall Street Journal,î looking
for developments in the electric industry. That is part of my job. I
finished my "official" Journal reading by 42nd Street and
spent some time reading about the general state of the economy, which
was getting worse according to some, or bottoming out for others, including
me. There was congestion going downtown. I did not notice it at the
time, because rush hour congestion is not unusual. When I got off at my stop
at about 9:20 a.m., about 15 minutes late, the conductor made an unusual
announcement: "Because of an incident at the World Trade Center,
this train will not stop at Fulton St." I gasped. "Incident"
and "World Trade Center" in the same sentence meant only one
thing: A terrible thing had happened, probably terrorist related. Thereafter, time ceased to
move. When I left the station, I found a place where I could see the
World Trade Center. This was instinctive; I did not expect to see anything.
I figured the incident was like 1993: Some people would be killed, but
most would be evacuated safely and the towers would continue to proudly
watch over the city. Before I could see the towers, I saw smoke, lots
of it, from a very high source. I joined a crowd, looked up, and I could
not believe what I saw. Both towers were on fire. It was horrifying,
unbelievably horrifying. Yet at that time it was possible to believe
that it was like any other kind of terrorist attack, only larger. WTC
1, the north tower, the one hit first, only looked as if it was damaged
on the very top. WTC 2, the south tower, didn't even look very damaged,
but of course the south tower plane hit on the face opposite us. Both
still stood tall and true. I didn't know large planes had hit them.
I was afraid for the occupants, but I kept thinking: Get the people
out, put the fires out, and it'll be OK. It's been done before. The police started shooing
the crowd away because we were standing next to a target building, as
are many buildings in downtown. I went to my office nearby. One coworker,
Pete, had been in the office at the time both planes crashed and had
felt the impact shake our office, which is one-third of a mile from
the towers. Another coworker, Angela, had just returned from an errand
to a store across the street from the World Trade Center complex. I thought about getting to
work. At that time, 9:30, that thought was still possible. First, I
wanted to take some pictures. My real cameras were at home, so I bought
a one-use camera from the drugstore across the street. I didn't feel any sense of
danger for many reasons. I was about a quarter of a mile away. It wasn't
far, but it wasn't that close. Also, the wind was from uptown that morning
so the smoke blew out of Manhattan. We had clear air to breathe and
see in. No ash fell around us; it did not rain papers; no debris pelted
us. It definitely wasn't like a movie, but I felt no danger. I went to the perimeter,
where the police were frantically keeping us back, telling us to do
so for our own safety. At this time, I think very few people thought
the unthinkable, that the towers were in danger of collapse. I believe
the police were saying this because they always say these things during
disasters and didn't want spectators in the way of rescue operations.
Fair enough, they have to do their job. I went to West Broadway,
which gave an almost complete top to bottom view of one of the towers.
I kept shooting, the top, the bottom, the fire, the smoke. I concentrated
on composition, trying to find reasons for each shot. I took pictures
of the smoke against the Woolworth building and the extraordinarily
empty Chambers Street, a clogged downtown artery. I exhausted my film
by 10:00. I was getting ready to go back to the office, to get my wits
together if I could, and go to work. Yet I stayed at the corner of Reade
and Church Streets, transfixed, almost unable to move. I had to let
go of this. But how? A few minutes later, at just
after 10, I heard a rumble and what may have been an explosion. I knew.
I knew that the unthinkable was about to happen, that one of the towers
was about to collapse. The south tower shook, and then the lowest 90
stories descended neatly on to themselves. The top few stories broke
off, and I could clearly see them falling as a separate piece, as if
a crown had fallen off the tower and all of our heads. People started running uptown,
screaming. I turned and tried to run too, but I was wearing shoes that
were impossible to run in. A couple of people slammed into me. I was
afraid of getting knocked over and trampled but I found a side street
before that could happen. I was close to the office.
I planned to pack up and go home. Everybody knew it was time to do that.
The office was undamaged. There wasn't even a window scratched and there
was still electricity, although the phones were out. A building wide
evacuation order had just been issued. Angela, normally perky, was
sobbing and could not stop, saying "Omigod!" over and over.
I hugged her. I couldn't say what we normally do in such instances,
"It's OK," because it clearly wasn't. I mostly said nothing,
except for an occasional "we'll get them." I never doubted
from the first time I heard of the "incident" that there was
a "them" "to get." This incident was neither accident
nor coincidence. I tried to call home: I couldn't get a line out. We three left the building
and a very calm building staff ordered us to walk uptown on Broadway.
We needed no orders do to that. The entire subway system was down, so
there was no choice but to walk. How far, we didn't know. I live in
Manhattan and could walk home easily, but I was concerned for my coworkers
who live in the outer boroughs. We walked with thousands of office workers.
People were calm; I saw no panic at all as we soberly marched through
Chinatown and Soho. Pete talked, and I theorized
and speculated nonstop, envying Angela because she could cry. At first
I thought that the anti-globalization groups did this because I could
not reconcile the radical Islamic groups, which used a crude fertilizer
truck bomb in 1993, with the extreme sophistication of this attack.
I also thought at the time that charges had also been deployed and set
off in the towers because the implosion was so neat, so clean, that
it looked just like a professional demolition job. When we were at about 8th
Street and Broadway, about a mile and a half away, I heard a familiar
deep rumbling. I knew WTC 1 had just collapsed. Contacting home was a problem.
Nobody could get a signal on their cellphones. The payphones, about
half of which work in good times, had lines of people waiting to use
them. I finally found one and called home so my husband would know I
was alive. When I got home, I reached my mother in California on my
third attempt. I sent e-mails to some of my friends who worked in the
financial district. They were OK. Aftermath While I know I'm not as nearly
badly affected as many people, I'm still very jumpy. When food shopping,
I heard an empty truck rattling down Second Avenue. I looked for a good
place to hide, though I refrained from diving under the plums. I saw
a 727 on approach to LaGuardia Airport and stood still until I could
assess the plane was flying too slowly and too high to be a threat.
The day I came back to the office for the first time I left the subway
to be greeted by the stench of burning plastic, silence, and the absence
of the Twin Towers. As time passes, I know I'll get used to these sights,
sounds, and smells. A wonderful thing I hear
from all across America is: despair is not an option. No matter what
their political views, people refuse to despair. They say despair is
a victory for the terrorists. As for me, I will stay in
New York, where I have lived for the past 12 years. I will continue
to work downtown. I would unhesitatingly accept another job downtown
if an opportunity should arise. I will continue to live my life as I
have lived it and plan to live it. I will not grant the terrorists a
victory, however small. Copyright ©2001 Kelly Perl Back to September 11 essays menu
Around 8:50 a.m. Brian Filanowski and I were finishing up a great meeting. We were concerned with our trip the next week to London. Everything I was doing seemed so important. I was efficient and had started early and now before 9 a.m. we had had already accomplished a lot. We meetings all day. At the end of the meeting, Brian says to me, "It looks like it is snowing, there are a ton of papers flying around the street." Looks like a ticker tape parade. What the heck? Someone runs in the office and says a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. Brian checks cnn.com and there is a picture of the hole in the WTC. From the window, we can't see the World Trade Center towers. Wow, another New York spectacle. This should be an interesting morning. A bit of a distraction for a nice day. I plan to go outside and show up a few minutes late for a meeting with the Fidelity reps at 9 a.m. We are changing our 401K provider and things are looking good today. So my plan is to go outside and report to my mom that I saw this interesting thing today.
I expect a minor crash with a bit of a problem. We get down to the plaza
in front of 59 Maiden Lane. I look up at Tower One. "Holy s***,
that thing is really on fire." I am about 200 yards (maybe more
maybe less) from the Tower. It is about three city blocks. How are they
going to put it out?, the crowd debates. Sirens are blaring but the level of tension is not too high. 8:58 - 9:17 a.m. Oh my god. A guy just fell out of the window. Wow another five, 10 people seem to be jumping out. This is about the most interesting thing that New Yorkers have seen but the crowd still wattches. People are falling out left and right of the building. We are getting scared as this thing is becoming too real. You know what, it is bordering on almost too scary but it is still something that the crowd all waits to see. We all declare that this is something that you will never forget. Things are sad but New York is sure it will be able to cope. 9:18 a.m. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. I distinctly remember the moment when the event went from spectacle to sheer terror. The sky lights up with a beautiful orange cloud that turns dark. The sound reverberates between the buildings, and New York begins to run. The morning coffee diversion is definitely over. We scatter in the plaza. I am with five friends. Stay together, I yell. Stay together. I grab Paul's arm. I hug my friend Brooks. Let's get away from these buildings. We need to get away from the Federal Reserve Bank (across the street). We head down Dey Street a small street next to William. Looking back over our shoulder. Walking and running. Walking and running. What the hell was that? A bomb? People are trying cell phones, which are not working. Head out to Water Street. Traffic is out of hand. People are pissed. Someone flew a plane into the f***ing World Trade Center. Was it an accident? Definitely a terrorist, a goddamm terrorist? Get out away from the buildings. Cross over Water Street. Get out to a pier on South Street Seaport. Hot day to be wearing a suit. We have gotten pretty far way. Can't see the WTC. I am unable to use my cell phone for phone calls. I can send email. I write my mom and dad, "world trade center bombed i am ok." Tons of smoke over the city. We are wandering around the pier. I just want to sit down. This has already been a tough morning. George Bush is on TV in a bar. Two plans have crashed into the World Trade Center. He gives his condolences to the victims and their families. Yikes, there are victims and this is the first time I have heard them talked about directly. We wait. One of the guys who was with us when we went to the Seaport is not dealing well. He is angry, this is BS he says, I am heading back to the office at 100 William. This is BS, I am going home. He goes back into the city toward the office. I pray he is okay, but I don't know his name. We begin to walk up the East river. Five Wall Street guys are now walking under the FDR Drive through the Fulton Fish Market. It is an incredible visual clash of the classes. The fish workers are staring at guys in suits coming through their market. Tons of traffic. I wonder if the fish workers think we are a bit crazy. I now have a good view of the towers and I get above the Fulton Street Fish Market. Both towers are still standing fiery and burning. People are jumping out of the building left and right. Both towers. Goddamn, this is horrible. People still jump to their death. No idea how this is all going to stop. My group of four guys is walking up the East River, but I get a bit dazed and fall behind watching the towers of death. Is this really happening, holy smokes? How can we walk away? Isn't there something we should be doing? Helpless. We head into the projects of the Lower East Side. Neighborhoods that we would never go into on a normal day. The residents are very sympathetic. People are gathered around car radios playing them loudly. 1010 WINS says we have other attacks with other planes. Too much stuff to keep track of. This is getting too complicated. I am getting emails from friends. Are you okay? Please respond, we are praying for you. On my phone, I tap the messages "OK" "Safe," thank god you are alive. I get to a corner and look back. The front of the first tower falls off. I begin to weep. It looked like a sandcastle coming down. I walk arm in arm with my friends to the North. We are crushed. We turn a corner. We are met by phalanx of police officers some in riot gear and who are preparing to head into the WTC. They look scared. The tough police officers that you know look frightened. Good luck, fellas. Thanks, we will need it. Someone tells us that the other building has fallen. We did not see that one fall. We need to get north to the West Village, north and away from the smoke. More emails pour in, are you still alive? "OK" "Safe" are my responses. People I grew up with, more people than I can imagine. Friends, family. It is even more emotional. They are all praying for us. If only they knew how much those messages meant. Tears stream down my face. My friends are crying, please tell us that you are okay. On this day, God said I would be okay. We are hot. Our suits have been folded up into backpacks. Ties are off. I need some water. We have been walking for a while. We walk by NYU Stern. It is weird. As I walk through the city, I feel as if I have never been there before. I am in a daze. We take out cash from the ATMs. By noon or 1 p.m., we get to 135 Charles Street in the West Village. Looking down Greenwich Avenue the WTC towers are gone in a midst of smoke. We sit in Brook's apartment, watch TV and eat fruit. In shock, I wonder when I will ever get home to my apartment in Battery Park City, and I thank God that the wind is blowing the other way. I think of the people who have been killed and hope to God no one I know is dead.
I woke up in my friend's apartment at 62nd and Broadway on the Upper West Side around 9 a.m. My friend slowly dragged himself off to his job in lower Midtown while I sat on the couch, having slept poorly, watching CNN. I need to do a few basic things today but I am having a hard time getting started. I have been wearing borrowed sandals that are two sizes too small since the afternoon of the bombing. My feet are cut up and it prevents me from going anywhere all that fast since Manhattan has limited transportation options these days. Cabs are hard to find, and subways and buses are not working well. Basically you have to walk anywhere you want to go. I have three things I want to do today. #1) Get a pair of shoes. Hopefully some stores will open so I can do this. #2) Get a battery for my cell phone. I have not been able to call anyone back and the messages from my friends have poured in. I have a strange phone type that has a scarce battery. #3) Find out the status of my housing as I am a refugee from Battery Park City. I know it will be hard to accomplish these things, but I am determined.
I walk out of my apartment and weep at the sight of humanity. Humans
are everywhere on the West Side. I cross Broadway with tears in my eyes
at the sight of people on the street. The day is beautiful once again,
and I shudder as a police car drives by with sirens. As I walk, I look
up at a tall apartment building about three blocks north of me and think
that this was how far I was from the World Trade Center when I saw all
of those people jumping out of the windows. Surely that could not have
been real. Must have been a dream, here we are on the civilized West
Side. These people are not building jumping type people. These are sophisticated
West Siders of Manhattan. I must have been on some other planet when
I saw that. I need shoes but the Reebok store at 67th Street is not open until 10 a.m. I walk north to 80th and Broadway, I need to get a cell phone charger. No luck at the AT&T store at 80th and Broadway. I come back south. I sit down to eat breakfast at an outside cafÈ at 77th and Broadway. The waiter does not come within 30 seconds. I am restless and get up from the table. I feel like I can not waste any time. I don't even have a home. How can I sit and wait for a waiter? I stand up and randomly I come face to face with my statistics professor from NYU. I am currently in his class in the Executive MBA Program at NYU. He has always seemed so smart, so unapproachable to me. Seeing a live face who I know is too emotional. Having never even had a full conversation together, we embrace and cry just because we recognize each other on the street. We decide to have a bagel together. He is also a refugee from downtown wandering the West Side. We sit and have breakfast together, and then I head down to the Reebok sneaker store at 67th Street. I need to own shoes, I joke with the woman behind the counter. She laughs and cries as I pick out a pair. It is funny how irrelevant sneaker selection has become. Any pair is fine. I am going to get a pair of socks as well. Living in luxury. No need for a box, I am wearing these to go. Now I need a charger for my phone. This is going to be hard. I find a list of AT&T stores that sell these phones. I go back to the apartment and start calling AT&T stores from an ad I found in the paper. I am not having much luck. No answer at most of the stores. One store at 42nd Street tells me that they are closing in about 10 minutes as there is a bomb scare at Grand Central. I walk to 59th Street and 9th Avenue. We don't have a charger for this type of phone. 60th Street "We can have it in two weeks." I get a sandwich at a deli run my very nice Muslim people. You know, I am not mad in the least about the bombing. Just sad and I want to go home. I go back to the apartment on 62nd Street so I can eat my sandwich and check my messages. Voicemails and emails from friends are like drinks of water in the desert. I need to hear them as they give me strength. I am very frustrated about my ability to do anything. I can't seem to get started. I feel so far removed from my home downtown and am frustrated that I can't communicate with anyone. I get messages from people offering to help me. I only want one thing right now and that is to return home. CNN has people talking on TV. I don't care about flight information or talking heads, I just want to see pictures of my neighborhood. I walk to 46th and 6th Avenue. No luck for a charger. 44th and Madison Avenue - no luck. 45th Street - No luck. 50th Street - I head to St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. I am so upset from the events of September 11. I sit in the church and weep very hard. I am crying my eyes out. I am exhausted and tired and unsettled. Suddenly out of the cold world, I hear an older woman's voice. "Oh dear, here is some love" she says and she puts her hand in my sweaty dirty hair. She gives me a hug and cries with me. I don't even have the energy to look at her face. I just sob and hug back. After a few minutes, I look at her face. Her name is Camilla and she is married and about 60 years old. She moved here from Italy four years ago. A New York fireman dirty from the site and still sweaty in uniform also grabs my hand in the pew. "Take care buddy, hang in there, we are going to make it." Camilla makes sure I am doing okay and gets up out of my pew, and I never see her again. You know, people wonder if there are angels in the world. Camilla was the best example I have ever seen. This whole thing is about ! the struggle between good and evil, and I think that evil does not have much of a shot if strangers are willing to be so kind. I walk over the 6th Avenue, no chargers. Finally on 47th Street, good luck. A dealer tells me that a guy on 50th and 7th has the type of charger I need. I go to the store and am in business. Yahoo. I am ready to try to go to my neighborhood. It is now about 4 p.m. I was told by a friend that Pier 40 was a place where Battery Park City residents could go for information about our neighborhood. Pier 40 sits on the West Side on the River around Houston Street about 14 blocks below 14th Street. No cars are allowed there, so I will have to walk most of the way. I get lucky and find a taxi south to Chelsea Piers on 23rd Street. The police will not let the taxi drive any further south. I have a long walk ahead of me. A cop checks my ID at 23rd Street and lets me head south. On the path by the river walking south, I can see downtown Manhattan. This point here is the halfway point of countless runs that I have taken. From here, I know I can get home in minutes while running but today home seems so far away and strange looking. Tears stream down my face and I look at this familiar view. I just want to go home. I make my way south along the river and the West Side highway. Firemen heading north on the West Side Highway are being cheered by crowds as they leave Ground Zero and head home. More tears stream down my face. I want to hug and thank these brave men. God help us all. I keep walking south. Passing the news crews on the highway. My heart beats, maybe I am almost home. I arrive at Pier 40. I have run by here so many times. This is about 10 minutes jogging from my apartment. I can see my neighborhood. At Pier 40, I am greeted by a horde of people. Total chaos. Does anyone know anything about where Battery Park City residents should go? There is a tent. Get in a line, put your name on a list. Police will then drive you down to Battery Park City. I put my name on one list. A woman walking around tells me that I need to put my name on another list. A New York State trooper yells at us to get behind the barriers but the crowd is anxious. People are yelling back at the trooper. I put my name on another list, and a park ranger tells me that since I don't have a pet, I will not be allowed down to see my building. Please, I beg. I need my prescription allergy medicine. You can go to a clinic back at Chelsea Piers, and they will prescribe medicine for you. No interest in walking 23 blocks north again. A man on a bullhorn reads off names to the crowd and says that they are doing the best job that they can. The winds has been taken out of my sails. I have no place to go. I wait in a daze with the crowd, I recognize no faces but I have a bond with these people as we are in the same situation. I must have stood their for about a half hour. Sobbing, I leave Pier 40, walk inland across the West Side Highway and get to Houston Street. At each block I look south and see the WTC smoldering. I am very sad. I have been defeated, and there is no hope in sight. At a barricade, I ask a cop, what should the people from Battery Park City do? He tells me that I should walk over to the Bowery on the East Side and they are driving people down. Bowery is on the other side of Manhattan. Another long walk. I get to the next block, Hudson Street and ask the cop the same question. Do I have ID? Yes I do, sure you can enter, I am allowed to walk south on Hudson Street. Hmm this is interesting. I walk south. I get to Canal Street. My heart is beating faster. I show ID to a cop at Canal Street. They let me through. I am getting excited. I have passed the Holland Tunnel. Empty. The air is bad down here and most people are wearing masks. On the ground, I pick up a used mask, turn it inside out and put it on. I am nervous.
I go from street corner to street corner showing ID getting rejected
at corners and gaining ground at other corners. I realize that the NYC
cops are nicer than the National Guard. The cops are locals and feel
your pain but the National Guard are from out of town and are not negotiating.
I weave my way through Tribeca. Finally I reach Duane Street, which is crawling with the National Guard. Oh boy looks like I am stopped here. I cross over the street to try and see if they will let me get by. This side of the street is closed they yell. I head west on Duane back toward the river. This puts me on Greenwich Street. This seems to be the final point to which news media are allowed to approach. I see Diane Sawyer waiting in front of a bright TV camera waiting to go on the air. She seems so clean in such a horrible environment. I keep heading west past Diane Sawyer and I cut through a park up some stairs, down some stairs and suddenly I am in a different world. Somehow around 6 p.m., I have managed to get below the Stuyvesant High School Bridge. This place is beyond the press lines. Here I have the full unsanitized version of the rescue effort. I keep my eyes low, I don't look around much so that I don't stick out. Thank god I have a mask on or everyone would seek my mouth draped open. Fireman, police are either asleep in the dirt or punch drunk from fatigue. No one seems to notice me. It has the feel of a frat party in a dirty field. I am scared like you would not believe because I know I am close to Ground Zero. Suddenly one of the male partiers drives up behind me in a golf cart, beeps a horn and yells "Look out, we have a woman driver coming." The woman driving laughs and says to me, "Do you need a ride?" Sure I say. Where are you headed? Battery Park City. Hop in. They pick me up. I remain quiet because I don't want to get kicked out. We drive south. I keep my eyes low. I don't want to see anything that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
Our driver yells at his National Guard buddies as we blow through checkpoints.
We get to the harbor where Moran's and the remnants of the Winter Garden
sit. I am driven up to South End Avenue and Liberty Street and am dropped
off about 50 yards from the smoking remains of the World Trade Center.
Strangely, I am not sad, I am a bit nervous, like I am about to pick up a date for the first time. It feels so good to be home, and I have no tears. I feel like a father who welcomes a long lost son, I am glad to have my neighborhood back in whatever shape it is in. Hell has spewed itself on my streets. I step over firehouses. Around dump trucks. Dodge firemen. It is very dusty here. All of my stores are covered with soot. It looks like it snowed. I get about 30 feet from my building. Goddamn, we have a National Guardsman there. Can I get in the building? The building is locked. Can I try the back door? Sure but it is also locked. My mask breaks and I walk away. Maybe the National Guardsman has some sympathy for me and he gives me a new mask. I go to the back of the building. Inside are a three men including my doorman Peter. I go inside. Peter and I hug and cry. It has never been so good to be home. My lobby is dark and dusty, and the building has no power. Peter has stayed with the building since the explosion. He is running a generator and takes me up to the 22nd floor. Peter says to clean out the refrigerator and call down on the intercom. When I am ready and he will bring the elevator up again. My apartment looks great, and there are no problems. I am on the 22nd floor and face the Hudson River. You can see my building from New Jersey and it is now one of the tallest structures in Lower Manhattan. I stand on the balcony and watch low sun. I forget about the turmoil outside and pack a suitcase. I am so lucky to be alive. I need to find an American flag and hang it from my balcony to show the people who did this we are surviving and they can not keep us down. I call Peter who takes me down to the lobby. Do you have a flag? No luck. I head out my back door. On the corner sit three national guardsmen. Do you guys mind if take that flag there that sits there behind you and hang it on the 22nd floor of my building? It is not our flag they say. However, anyone who is talking about flying flags is doing a good thing. I agree. Well if I steal that flag over there, you guys are not going to shoot me are you? No. Coast is clear. Peter and I ride the elevator up to the 22nd floor again. We tie a pair of sneakers to each corner of the flag and hang the stars and stripes above the Hudson River for all to see. It is a touching moment as the sun has just set. Leaving my building I have a rolling suitcase. Dust and mud get caught in the wheels, and I have stop every 50 feet. There are a bunch of dump trucks driving north. Can anyone drive me uptown? The National Guard forces me south and will not let me head north. I have to walk south along the West side highway. Hell lights up the sky behind me. No one seems to be able to drive me north and they won't let me walk north. Finally after walking south, I get to the bottom of Broadway. It is pitch dark. I walk up the Canyon of Heroes in the pitch dark and am stopped at Rector Street. Police force me to walk under the New York Stock Exchange and east. Every block, I have to negotiate my way north. I weave in and out and finally come out below City Hall. I am exhausted. I am not sure where to go. There are no taxis, it is dark. My friends all live to the north. I have two friends in the West Village so I make my way north and back to the west again. I am dragging, having walked all day. I get above Canal Street in Lower Soho. Normally this neighborhood is considered really trendy and cool, but that is so irrelevant now. I need a nap. I have not eaten in hours. I consider sitting in a park to rest but I press on. I see the Red Cross has set up in a school. I go into the Red Cross. The people are so nice. They feed me and give me dinner and are the nicest people I have seen all day. They sit with me as I eat pasta. It tastes so good. They offer me a bed if I need it. I call my friends in the Village. No one is home. The Upper West Side is a million miles away. I feel lost. I tell the Red Cross people that I "can't believe that I am going to have to sleep at the Red Cross." "That is what everyone says!," and we laugh and smile. I rest for about an hour and get a call back from a friend who is in the Village. I head north about 15 blocks and meet my friend. We go to Washington Square Park, where someone has set up a memorial for victims kind of like the Vietnam Memorial. I am too tired to cry. I finally get to bed around 1 a.m. Kevin McGowan '95
There is sobbing of the strong, Kevin McGowan works in sales for Multex, a global provider of investment information and technology solutions for the financial services industry. You can reach him at mcgowak@yahoo.com. Back to September 11 essays menu Try to remember the kind of September...By: David L. Nathan, M.D. ’90 This story originally appeared in the Princeton Packet and is reprinted here with permission. A NEIGHBOR'S TRIBUTE, September 21 On Friday evening, my neighborhood in Montgomery Township was one of many that held a candlelight vigil for the victims of last week's terrorist attacks. Perhaps my narrative of this gathering will sound romantic, like the song from "The Fantasticks" that is quoted in the title above. Indeed, I hope that Friday night is all that we will eventually remember about last week. On that night, we lit candles to fight the darkness that tried to destroy us. We dared to dream a little in the midst of our nightmare. In a country of so many different religions and beliefs, we would find a common language of expression. This was a night of distinctly American fellowship and prayer. The obvious choice of location was a cul-de-sac, partly to keep our children safe from cars, but more important because of proximity to the home of Steve Goldstein, a 35-year-old father missing at the World Trade Center. He left behind his wife, Jill, and two children. Hanna is three-and-a-half and lost her best friend in lower Manhattan last week; Harris is nearly one and too young to understand. In a happier September, my wife and I brought our son, Eli, home shortly before Jill and Steve welcomed Harris. Now we watch Harris and Eli play happily together, unaware of the hole in our hearts. We were concerned that Jill would find the number of people to be overwhelming, and I was impressed that afternoon when she bravely announced that this gathering would be good for Hanna and Harris. She liked the idea of taking photographs for them to see when they're older and have little or no direct memory of their father – or the terrible events of September 2001. The neighborhood children went from door to door, gathering candles and telling everyone to come at 7 p.m. This was the time announced in the media and via e-mail, the climax to a day of prayer and mourning. Scores of unlit candles were scattered all around the street, from small votive lights to massive decorative tapers, suggesting that every candle in every house had found its way to our impromptu gathering. About 20 neighbors were present to start the evening, as adults helped children – theirs and others' – to kindle the lights resting on the asphalt. Soon the cul-de-sac glowed brightly against the black street surrounding us, looking as though the stars above had crashed to our feet. Over the next hour, a steady stream of people gathered among the field of candles. Steve's wife and two small children quietly joined in among family and friends, and we stood mostly in silence. Dozens of people eventually gathered in a kind of ring, and a look around reminded me of the ethnic diversity of our community. There were Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists; blacks, whites, and Asians; immigrants from Russia, India, China, and elsewhere. The candles also bespoke a patchwork of cultures. There was a grouping of three thin candles placed as a traditional symbol of Asian mourning. There were also candles used for the Jewish Sabbath, appropriate for a Friday night. The silence was punctuated when someone was moved to speak. There were words about Steve, the week's events and prayers of different faiths. Many joined in for the one concluding hymn that most people knew: "America, the Beautiful." Then, the candles were gathered into a cluster as everyone stood in the chill September night to feel the warmth and light. Several people suddenly realized that during the confusion of moving the candles, the grouping had formed the outline of a heart that could be seen from the Goldsteins' house. Many lingered in this American cul-de-sac last Friday night, lost in thought, desperately needing sleep, perhaps already dreaming about better times. Perhaps some recalled the drowsy lyrics of that nostalgic song about Septembers: "Try to remember the kind
of September David L. Nathan lives in Montgomery, New Jersey, and can be reached at mail@nathanmd.com.
Back to September 11 essays menu Scott Pasquini ’01, an Upper St. Clair native, witnessed N.Y.C. attackBy David M. Brown This story originally appeared in the Pittsburgh TRIBUNE-REVIEW and is reprinted with permission. Scott Pasquini awoke Tuesday in his Manhattan apartment excited about the start of his new career. Instead, the next few hours unfolded in scenes of unspeakable horror, forever changing the world around him. Pasquini, 22, who grew up in Upper St. Clair and graduated from Princeton University in May, looked forward to his second real day on the job as a corporate financial adviser for Merrill Lynch, following a two-month training stint. "There were a lot of new things going on for me. I had just started to meet everybody I was going to be working with," Pasquini said Saturday in an interview. The family was reunited late Friday at his parents' home in Upper St. Clair for the first time since the attacks. An eye-witness to the destruction of the World Trade Center, Pasquini said the experience was etched permanently in his mind - a series of gruesome images as indelible as snapshots from a camera. Shortly before 9 a.m., he was about to make the seven-minute hike past the twin towers to his office in the adjacent World Financial Center. "I was getting dressed in my bedroom and it sounded like a loud crash," he recalled. "Then I started to hear debris shower down on the building." Glancing from the window, he saw debris scattered across the lanes of West Street. A van swerved, jumped the median and peeled off in the opposite direction. "This was very strange." On the way out, Pasquini asked the doorman if a car bomb had exploded. "Yeah, maybe," the man told him. "It must have been a meat truck or something. There's, like, meat all over the place." Pasquini saw a torso with no arms or legs in the street. Two hysterical women were pointing at a severed human hand on the ground, and someone quickly covered it with a jacket. Nearby Pasquini, still thinking it might have been a car bomb, saw a car that was partially ripped open, its rear windshield shattered. But the scope of the disaster quickly became apparent as he saw a gaping hole, flames shooting from it, in one of the World Trade Center towers. "In the eight weeks I've lived in New York, every time I saw the World Trade Center, I thought, 'Man, those things are so impressive. They're so tall and so massive.' I never got used to the height of those buildings and the massive size." "Now, the north tower was on fire." Pasquini tried using his cell phone to call his parents, Russ and Karen Pasquini, and his brother Brian in Shadyside to tell them he was OK. After many attempts, he got through. "Then all of a sudden I heard the jet engine of a plane coming right over the top of us. It sounded definitely like a full throttle screeching noise. I saw it a split second before it just flew right into the building. "Before I turned and ran with everyone else, you could just see the tail end of the plane and a huge plume of smoke around where the impact was." Smoke and debris spewed into the sky, falling in the direction of the crowd. Flames were shooting from both towers. "Debris started falling all around us. People were panicked to keep moving, but they were not screaming or hysterical. They were in shock, I think. It was kind of like a heavy hail storm, but not that thick. It was more like small particles of glass. "You could definitely smell the jet fuel or whatever it was. It was a dirty smell, different from anything." Then he saw people jumping from high up one of the towers. "Every few minutes somebody would jump. They were tiny images, but you could make out the color of their clothes. A few guys who jumped looked like they were on fire. "We didn't want to watch it, but everywhere you looked, it was there." Pasquini didn't become frightened until he saw one of the towers explode in the middle, crashing in upon itself. He and others took refuge inside a restaurant to escape the stifling, gray dust. With a tremendous explosion of collapsing metal, the second tower came down; and the second cloud blotted out the daylight. As light returned, matter was falling everywhere like a dirty gray snow. Pasquini and others were evacuated from the Battery Park marina at the tip of Manhattan Island, crossing the Hudson River on a small police boat to the New Jersey side. He expects to return to work at Merrill Lynch this week, although officials told him it may be weeks or months before they can return to the World Financial Center. While Pasquini still looks forward to his new career, the world that was just beginning for him last Tuesday will never be that bright again. "Undoubtedly, the United States has changed forever." David Brown can be reached at dbrown@ tribweb.com. Back to September 11 essays menu A day of beauty, inclusiveness, and power An account of Princeton’s memorial service for victims of the terrorist attacks This essay began as an email posting to the Class of ’78 website. By Mary Ellen Curtin ’78 Princeton University's memorial service was on the Sunday after the attacks. The weather was incredibly gorgeous, as it had been for most of that week: warmer than usual for mid-September, with a sky of the most flawless blue. And no contrails. I parked downtown, at the Public Library lot, and walked up Witherspoon Street to campus. Nassau Hall bell was tolling steadily – I don't think I've ever heard it toll for so long before. Almost all the shops had some kind of flag out or red-white-and-blue bunting in the window. Lots of people were on the street, many heading toward campus, but it was very quiet, as it had been all week. I got to Cannon Green and found a place to sit on the grass. The crowd was large, but not enormous – it filled about the west half of the green. Most of those present seemed to be students or faculty; I looked for other members of ’78 but didn't notice any. Almost everyone was wearing dark clothes; there were not nearly as many red-white-and-blue ribbons in evidence as at other memorial events. Remarkably, the speakers’ platform had no flag or bunting, only a very simple green wreath. The thrust of all the remarks and readings was that we are an institution of learning, and that our function especially at times of crisis is to promote understanding, international cooperation, and peace. There was nothing about "America coming together in strength" or anything like that – again, in striking contrast to other memorial gatherings. I can't find a full program for the service on the university website and I seem to have misplaced my paper copy, but here are a few links. President Tilghman's remarks are here: http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/01/q3/0916-smtremarks.htm James McPherson talked about the Battle of Antietem: http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/01/q3/0916-mcphremarks.htm -- I was especially stunned by how much larger a proportion of the population 6000 dead were in 1862 than in 2001. Toni Morrison read a new poem (not online, though you may be able to get a copy by following the link here: http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/01/q3/0916-morrisremarks.htm) -- about the impossibility of speaking to the dead. Very moving, very emotionally difficult. I don't know why Morrison wasn't the penultimate speaker, because whatever she said was bound to have a huge impact: she's a great poet with a gorgeous voice. Everything later in the program was indeed something of an anticlimax. Paul Muldoon read Auden's "September 1, 1939": http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=1391 An undergraduate read a Buddhist meditation on respect for all life; a grad student read part of Martin Luther King's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, on the effectiveness of nonviolence (the speech is here: http://www.nobelprizes.com/nobel/peace/MLK-nobel.html). Maria Tienda's remarks are here: http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/01/q3/0916-tiendaremarks.htm In between, there were performances by chamber musicians and by the Chapel Choir, on the steps of Clio Hall. The day continued almost unbearably beautiful under a cobalt sky; I watched one airplane fly over. The trees, which really persuaded me to come to Princeton in the first place, are still stately and beautiful, though several of the huge elms have been pretty severely lopped. The crowd was always very quiet and somber; only a few people wept openly. The service was very different from past university-wide events I've attended in a remarkable way. More than half of the speakers were women. (In addition to Tilghman, Morrison, and Tienda, there was the undergrad [a young woman of color, but I'm not sure of her ethnic background], and the opening invocation was by a woman who's assistant dean of the Chapel.) I don't know if this was intentional on Tilghman's part or if it just worked out that way, but it was certainly striking, and I definitely had the feeling I was at a different kind of Princeton than the Old Boys' club I entered. The most startling change of all was when Tilghman announced who was going to lead the final song, "America the Beautiful": Princeton's chief electrician. The audience actually made a collective sound, not quite of shock but definitely of surprise. I think we all realized then that the program was not inclusive by accident, but represents a serious policy on Tilghman's part: to include people of color, and women, and even people without advanced degrees. And we know that's the last and highest bastion of prejudice in academia. I was seriously, seriously impressed. His voice is wonderful, too. Mary Ellen Curtin can be reached at mecurtin@alumni.princeton.edu Back to September 11 essays menu By Connie Crawford ’78 *81 The following personal account by Connie Crawford '78 *81 detailing her involvement in the recovery efforts at Ground Zero was posted September 30, 2001, to the princeton-engineers discussion group. Many news reports have reported on the design and performance of the towers, with their remarkable pancaking collapse. My own involvement has been more below ground. I am frequently down at "ground zero" as deputy chief engineer at the Transit Authority (a recent change from my previous career as a suspension bridge engineer). I have been in the subway tunnels that run under and adjacent to the WTC complex, have seen the destruction that was caused by the collapsed buildings, and have been amazed to see large areas of the basements that are OK. One of the things that amazed me to see was the steel columns from upper stories of the WTC towers which speared down through the roadway and 10 feet of overburden to pierce through our tunnels. The N&R station on Church Street is a block away from the south tower. Steel columns from the 80th floor of that tower pierced down more than 30 feet into the earth next to our subway box, and were sticking up out of the ground at least 50 feet. Removal of those spears is difficult to do without damaging our tunnel. I am serving on a special committee advising on methods to secure the 70-foot-high slurry basement wall that is now in danger of being breached. Collapse would let the Hudson River flow into the box. The wall was built with temporary tie-backs, or steel cables anchored in the outlying soil, but those were cut after the basement floors were in place (if not cut, they can snap over time and become missiles in the building). With the basement floors collapsed, the walls are being held in place by non-engineered rubble. Engineers (called "cave dwellers") are being lowered by cable through holes in the rubble to ascertain what parts of the basement flooring are intact and therefore presumably lending strength to the basement wall. A map is being developed for each basement level (seven levels in all) identifying good and bad areas. Removal of debris will take a long time just based on volume of material, but it will take even longer due to the need to protect the basement wall. For example, cranes cannot be placed within 30-50 feet of the wall for fear of adding to the outside pressure on it. This longer reach on the crane booms limits the load they can pick. Plans are underway to re-install the tie-backs so that the box can be emptied. Initially there were more than 1,000 tie-backs. Now they have to be installed hanging down on a cable from the top of the wall, a decidedly more difficult operation. Just to protect ourselves in case the wall is breached, we have installed concrete walls in the 1/9 tubes north and south of the WTC site to serve as plugs. The 1/9 tunnels are interconnected with other subway lines downtown. The Port Authority is doing the same thing in the Path train tubes over in New Jersey. The change in the site over time has been amazing. Now it is much more of a construction site than a recovery site, although firefighters and FBI are still all over the place. Security requirements to get into the sight are changing every other day, as a new entity takes over which is confusing (Fire Dept., Police Dept., Mayor's Office of Emergency Management, FEMA). They are initiating a new pass system this weekend, this time with photos, which means another wait in line. I am also involved in a private sector initiative by the NYC Partnership (a group of industry titans with political and financial pull) to come up with short- and long-term action plans to restore New York City to glory. I am part of a group pushing for a redistribution of NYC's financial district to a larger area. It doesn't make sense to have the financial might of the city (the country, the world?) in a single condensed neighborhood. I'm in favor of development along the lower west side of Manhattan, some of which is now a wasteland, along with improved transit in that area. I feel very lucky that in the aftermath of the destruction that I was able to work productively, that I didn't feel helpless, as did many of my friends. I am also very much impressed by the efforts of the Transit Authority, where I have been employed only four months, to restore train service so quickly. The 2/3 tubes in the area were completely full of water on Thursday and Friday after the attack (the water main feeding collapsed 7 WTC was severed and pumped water into our subway, Con Ed cut off the power feeding our pump stations), yet they re-opened for service on Monday. To me, this is simply incredible. Although our office is several blocks from the site, we did not lose anyone in the collapse. We did have a lot of people get close to the site who saw things that no one should have to see. Some employees lost loved ones. The emotional damage from this event touches just about everyone in some way. Some lessons learned for disaster response: - The as-built drawings for the WTC were closely held at the WTC by the Port Authority due to terrorist threats, and hence were destroyed in the attack. The only complete and accurate set that wasn't destroyed was in the office of Les Robertson, the original designer and a recent ENR Newsmaker of the Year. Unfortunately, his office was a couple blocks from Ground Zero, and couldn't be accessed for two days. Rescuers needed the drawings to identify potential pockets of survivors and means to get to them. We had similar experience trying to get hold of drawings for other buildings in the area. A centralized, secure database for all buildings and infrastructure elements (water mains, etc.) is essential in times of disaster. - Similarly, home and cell phone numbers for key people need to be readily available. This includes staff, consultants, and contractors. We were displaced from our office, and it was difficult to locate and communicate with our own staff much less private-sector folks, many of whom were also displaced. Thank goodness for my Palm Pilot, although I didn't have all the numbers I needed. - Evacuation of people from lower Manhattan was accomplished mostly on foot, walking north on the perimeter highways. Tens of thousands walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, which was not a great idea considering it is a likely target. It took a long time to clear everyone out. A more secure means of quickly transporting lots of people needs to be considered. - Our old subway tunnels were designed with a steel frame every five feet. An interesting byproduct is that the limits of destruction are abrupt and clearly defined. The tunnels are fine up to the first frame impacted, and then they are collapsed. Other types of construction would have had damage extend far beyond the zone of compression. - The value of engineers has been greatly elevated during this disaster. No decisions, large or small, are made at Ground Zero without first consulting with an engineer. Engineers are quoted all over the "NY Times" and other newspapers and magazines. Engineers are even being referred to as "heroes" which is not often heard. You can reach Connie Crawford '78 *81 at crawford@alumni.Princeton.edu
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The following ran on the editorial pages of the Providence Journal on September 12, 2001. It was written by M.J. Andersen ’77, who is on staff at the newspaper. Craig Lazzara is a member of the Class of ’75. 'That’s where people jumped' A friend witnessed yesterday's World Trade Center destruction from his office window. Craig J. Lazzara, a global investment researcher with Salomon Smith Barney, was at work on the 29th floor, Seven World Trade Center, when, just before 9 a.m., a colleague called out: "A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center!" Lazzara went to see. Others who heard the explosion immediately "headed for the stairwells. That was the last I saw of them," he recalled. It appeared the plane had entered the north tower at about the 80th floor, and completely disappeared inside. "Was it a plane or a bomb?" Lazzara heard himself say. "I could hear my voice quaver. I thought: 'Gee, I'm not doing very well.' " Still, at that point, "I thought we were probably safer in here," Lazzara recalled. He telephoned his mother to say he was okay. He thinks maybe a half-dozen colleagues, the early-birds, were with him. His young assistant fled immediately, leaving her purse. Though Lazzara's company occupies most of the building (some 40 floors), no official announcement came. Those who stayed stood at the window, horrified at what came next. "Someone said, 'Is that a body?"' Lazzara recalled. "I saw people fall" — 5, maybe 10, he is not sure. Then the same colleague who had witnessed the East plane crash cried, "Oh my God, Number 2 [the south tower] just blew up." The colleague promptly disappeared, Lazzara said. And "I thought, .You know, it's really time to go.' " He headed for the stairwell, descending 29 flights. Security guards directed fleeing workers to a street behind the building, away from the twin towers. A crowd had gathered, and stood peering upward. "You don't want to look and you don't want to look away," Lazzara said. "It was hideous." Closer to the towers, he heard, "there was blood all over the plaza; that's where people jumped." Lazzara started walking north, toward Soho, thinking at first he would go to the company's other office building about a mile away. He carried a small pager that transmitted e-mail messages from frantic loved ones. His cell phone was dead. He heard the first tower collapse: "It sounded like another explosion. You could see this debris raining down." By the time the second tower fell, he was too far away to know. Salomon Smith Barney's other building was closed. He walked on, finally catching a bus at 57th Street. He walked into his apartment at East 87th Street around 1. Once there, he recalled a meeting he’d attended in the Trade Center towers just the other week. "I would be very surprised if someone I knew didn't die," he said. Back to September 11 essays menu
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My
entire family is safe. We evacuated our lower-Manhattan residence at
about noon yesterday and migrated north on foot to Grand Central Terminal
(about three miles) where we took Metro North to the home of my parents
in Westchester, from where I write this message.