Nyc!!
First, I want to thank Chief Fox for starting this thread. Today is the first time since last week that I’ve been able to logon, and this was a welcome surprise.
I’ll never forget. I had the day off for once, and was living at Christopher St and the West Side Highway, which is (depending on who you talk to) about 12-14 blocks directly north of the WTC. Was trying really hard to sleep in, but for some reason, the sirens and horns, which are normal for NY, were uncharacteristically invasive to my sleep time. So, I decided to get up and turn on CNN to see if there was anything of note to be concerned with. It was around 8:30am.
Eventually saw the first report of a “small Cessna or helicopter” hitting the north tower of the WTC. That was something of note, but of course, it didn’t seem such an emergency for me, although that wasn’t the usual Tuesday morning. So after watching the news for awhile, I decided to go outside. Made a left out the apt door, walked one block east to Washington St, and from previous experience (walking home from work, last block before home, look left, see the WTC), I knew I could see with my own eyes what was going on. When I got to the corner, there were about 20-30 people standing there, talking about it. An unfortunately classic NY moment.
Then, the unthinkable happened. Another explosion. We didn’t see the plane, but we did see the huge fireball erupt out of the south tower. It was at this point that we all realized that this “might not be an accident”. Tried to call family and friends to no avail, so a couple of us decided that maybe we should make our way downtown to help or what, we didn’t know. All we did know was that there was a need for some form of evacuation for those that were left in the buildings and we wanted to help in some way. I would think those reading this account can imagine we had no idea what we were doing, but somehow, for some reason, we were drawn toward the damage.
As we were walking (I didn’t know what time it was and wasn’t paying attention), we saw the south tower come down.
Another thing I’ll never forget is hearing Aaron Brown from CNN on the radio saying there was another explosion and it seemed as if the tower was enveloped in a cloud of dust. Well, from our vantage point, we knew that it had fallen and some serious sh!t was happening. Everyone knows what occurred thereafter.
Fast forward a day - some friends and I decided that since we were so close to the ingress/egress point of emergency service, we were going to stand on the median on the highway and show our support. I had several 3’x5’ American flags from a previous job, so I went through my stash and handed them out (as many as I could, save one for myself) to those who didn’t have one.
At the time, I worked for a foreign based organization (French), so incidentally, all of them were grounded for about 6 weeks, and consequently, I didn’t have any work, so all I did, day after day, was stand on the median waving the flag and showing my solidarity.
Yet another thing I’ll never forget - on one side of the highway were the fresh workers going to the site to recover whatever possible, and on the other side, beaten, downtrodden workers coming away from the site after spending countless hours trying to do what they could.
Thinking about the open windows of the buses with hands outstretched to simply touch the flag I was holding, time after time after time, will always be with me. It’s one of the seminal times of my life, and it always wrecks me whenever I close my eyes.
Lastly, there was a large plot of dirt waiting to be seeded as part of the project to plant trees and such for the revamping of the WSH that was going on at the time. My friend J and I saw that although there were signs galore showing support of the EMTs, Police, Firefighters, Red Cross and myriad other emergency service being sent to the site, there were no candles for the departed. So, we went to Duane Reade and gathered as many tapers as possible. Dug holes, planted the candles, lit them and prayed. This is always what gets me - the very next morning when we got up and made our way over to the median, we saw that what we had done had prompted others to add to the memorial and also that it had blown into something we had never dreamed of. There were so many candles that there was practically nowhere to stand. It still breaks my heart.
Sorry to be so winded, and there is still so much more to relate, but this is the first time I’ve ever really been able to tell this story, and I thank you.
Just one more thing - I want to thank Mr. Punch for this, and thank you so much for being with us…
“Wore my NY Yankees cap all the next week. People were nice to me on the train. Of course I’m not American but I wanted to show my solidarity and the Japanese were the warmest they’d ever been. The world was with you.”
TuG.
