I lost no one on 9/11. No one I knew lost someone directly important in their life. That's not remarkable; there's over 1.5 million people living in Manhattan, which by itself would be one of the largest cities in the country. The company where I worked had offices in one of the towers and, given its number of employees, was remarkably lucky. The firm had a slight self-congratulatory air after 9/11, since it had instituted some safety procedures after the first WTC bombing and this was considered to have helped during 9/11. A few weeks later I was asked to produce a large chart adapted from a NY Times diagram that showed the various firms' casualties in the Towers. It couldn't be clearer: any employee below the plane strikes was lucky, and anyone above, dramatizations aside, was not. I have no idea how the executives who looked at that chart felt they could glean meaningful planning information (or comfort) from it. All it really said was if the pilots had gotten a last-second hand-twitch, the company would have sustained huge losses.
I was in the subway during the initial attack. Like many New Yorkers, I had little time for the perpetual playback of the images everyone else saw. Those stranded on the streets had to get somewhere. I'm grateful I saw only a little that day, and still haven't looked at more than brief video clips. I give thanks now that I didn't see the things some of my friends did. One was coming out of the subway at Prince Street, felt the wrong low shadow of a plane overhead and looked up and screamed as it slammed into the WTC North Tower. One was riding in a uptown taxi a little later looking at that same tower, trying to get used to the idea of it standing alone after the South Tower had already collapsed; the North Tower was blocked from his view behind a building while the cab waited at a light, and vanished forever in that brief interval. Several others watched what they thought were people falling out the windows from a rooftop in Brooklyn. Those aren't moments you can ever forget. But I saw something worse, in its way, a week later.
(This was written September 12, 2001. Minor edits.)
I woke up, went to the primary, and then got ready to come into the city to do my routine run in Central Park. I passed an older man before going to the subway who mentioned that a plane had hit one of the WTC towers, with no more specifics. We talked briefly about the WWII incident in which a bomber hit the Empire State Building. I boarded the train about 9:30 imagining that the new incident must have involved a small, private plane. I could have saved myself a very long day if I had just gotten a little more information at that point. Nothing from that moment onward was normal.
When the subway got to 8th Avenue, I tried to transfer to the uptown A. There was an E train sitting at the platform, but not moving. Strobe lights at the end of the platform were on — I have never seen them on in any circumstance. When it became obvious there would be a wait, I went in the E train for the air conditioning and sat down, by a cluster of four people: a white professional man in his upper forties/early fifties, two black ladies, and a Jewish woman. I thought it odd they were so sober. I asked the Jewish lady if she knew about the plane hitting the WTC tower. She told me they had all come from downtown, that there had been two hits by passenger planes, the Pentagon as well, and that one of the towers had been leveled as they were leaving. I remember staring at her and thinking that she misunderstood my question, or was just exaggerating, and decided I had to get real information fast. But none of the others were disagreeing with her, and they had all been there. They said the whole downtown area was being covered in white ash, just like snow.
The conductor of the E told everyone the whole subway system had stopped, and we went upstairs. As we exited the subway, another MTA man gave us each a "block" ticket, which is worth one fare ride because service has been blocked. I don't think he understood what had happened yet, or he wouldn't have bothered. It's punched September 11 — my souvenir for the day. I ended walking with that group for about a half hour. The first thing I did when we reached the street was to look downtown on 8th Avenue; the whole area was covered in smoke and nothing was visible, but I knew I should be able to see at least the tops of the towers, and they weren't there. There was never a minute from that point on in the day when a siren couldn't be heard.
A huge number of people were in the streets, and cars even that early were clearing out. We walked uptown from 14th and 8th Ave towards Madison Square Garden. All of them wanted to try to get a commuter train, and I decided to try to get to my second job near 40th and Lexington to get more information, since [primary job] would have immediately closed. As we walked it became clear that the entire city was shut down. One of the black ladies had a headphone radio, and told us that all routes out of the city were closed. By the time we got to MSG, police barriers were being put up, and it was apparent that no one was going anywhere from the island.
It was surreal to see so many people standing by the barricaded huge entrance to MSG, unable to decide what to do. The rest of the day was rush hour without the rush. New Yorkers walk faster than anyone else, pushing and prodding if necessary. But with nowhere to go, they walked slowly or stood still. Probably the only time I'll ever be grateful for those obnoxious vans with loud music systems, because so many of them had opened doors and been turned into PA radios, that we all gathered around to hear more information. All the normal barriers that we put up to survive in the city were gone. Everyone was willing to talk; the enormity of what happened was too big to understand.
I said goodbye to the group I'd been with, and walked up to [secondary job], on the off-chance that someone would be there and I could use the phone. There were a few people still there, and they let me dial out. I was in running clothes all day, and had no phone numbers with me, but luckily had my ATM card because I'd needed to get a pass in the morning, and was able to pull some money out later. I called my mom's home number, and left a message. The rest of the day there were long lines to use the pay phones that were working on the street, and I never had a good opportunity to try. [I later found out that like everyone else she had frantically tried to reach me but never thought to check her own messages before the day was over. There was no way to talk to her or other family for several days after the few hours because the phone lines were jammed.]
With no other information, I gambled that the only way to get back to Brooklyn would be walking across one of the three lower bridges. I headed back down, basically against the flow of everyone else because the police had instructed everyone to go north. I crossed Washington Square Park, went to 6th Avenue. It really hit me in the gut there, because I'm very familiar with that view, and navigate by it in the neighborhood. 6th Avenue at that point framed the WTC towers clearly, and there was absolutely nothing. It was as if the Colorado mountains had been taken away, because they were that big a part of New York. I was there looking for five or ten minutes.
I heard a plane, and saw it was an F-16. I realized there had been no other planes in the sky, which never, ever happens in New York City. F-16s were flying overhead the rest of the day, and with the sirens and a few helicopters were the only things to hear. I walked through the West Village, and tried to find a friend's apartment on Bleecker, but no one was home. Because I was already so far west, I felt compelled to walk over to the West Side Highway, down to get a clear view of the World Trade complex. This was just north of where emergency workers were coordinating, and gave me an idea of the scale of that effort — there were hundreds of people lined up outside Federal buildings, the West Side Highway was overrun by ambulances, police, and fire trucks, many pouring in from New Jersey. The smoke was blowing east, and I knew exactly where the base of the towers was. From my vantage there was absolutely nothing to be seen, not a girder, no rubble, nothing. I will never forget that view. Ever.
A European guy — he may have been German or Czech — asked me to take a picture of him, smiling with the smoke behind him. I did so automatically, gave him back his camera and a second later felt a flush of pure anger come over me. If I hadn't been so numb, I would never have done that. Whatever his motives, I was suddenly furious that anyone would treat that sight as a tourist view. I felt sickened and repulsed.
It was difficult to understand the scale of the columns of smoke. They were obscuring buildings which were huge in their own right. One of the buildings being choked in soot was the Woolworth Building, which in its own time was the tallest building in the world. I realized that the Empire State Building would be alone in scale on the NYC skyline now.
The police were pressing people away from downtown even as ambulances and rescue vehicles were coming in. As they pushed pedestrians, I was afraid I would have to get across the city quickly or be cut off from the east bridges. I went back to Broadway, which was still open down to Canal Street. I walked down the center of Broadway, which was completely empty of cars, except emergency vehicles. To the north, Grace Church and the Empire State Building were framed in an empty street, and to the south below Canal everything was covered by a yellowish-brown smoke that blocked the sun completely.
I saw some footage on television, and when they asked for blood donors I was going to go but was scared I would be too weak to walk back to Brooklyn. Then I heard that they were turning away donors anyway, for now. I became suddenly aware I was very hungry and stopped at a cafe on Broadway and grabbed a sandwich. Throughout the city, places stayed open randomly. It was so strange to see so many restaurants and stores closed and barred as if in the middle of the night and the others acting as though everything was normal. The ones that did stay open must have done a good business. I should have followed Spring across to Delancey to the Williamsburg Bridge, but I couldn't see anyone going that way, and went down to Canal. I found out later it was open — again, it would have been a shorter day if I'd known.
The Manhattan Bridge was open to pedestrians on the top, and along with thousands others I walked across on the level which is usually reserved for cars. Like other friends I talked to later, I felt very exposed on the bridge, but couldn't help stopping and looking at the city. The separate columns of smoke from the bases of the towers were visible just before they joined into a huge sideways shaft that came in our direction, directly over Brooklyn. The cloud was large, thick, and shadowed the bridge. Even though we could see the sun through the smoke, there was absolutely no heat under its shadow.
Looking back reminded me of those Napoleonic war paintings of the retreat from Moscow, with the huge column of smoke rising from the financial district, and the thousands and thousands of people crossing the bridge. Every conceivable type of person was walking — businessmen, old ladies, hip-hop homeboys on bikes, city workers, everybody. No one was smiling. No one was talking. I have never seen anything more surreal than that; it was an end-of-the-world view.
After crossing, I had to deal with being in downtown Brooklyn, from which it is difficult to get to my neighborhood under best conditions. All the subways were still down. I went to a friend's loft on Flatbush. She had been in the city and come back over the Manhattan Bridge also. Both she and her roommate had seen the second plane hit and the towers go down. Her roommate saw what may have been people jumping from the tower. I stank from walking so long; they let me take a shower, we watched the news and had dinner, and I tried to contact family.
Across the street there was a telecommunications building that had been barricaded with sand trucks and construction equipment. This was true of some other previously anonymous buildings also. There were police escorts for bulldozers going into Manhattan. We smelled the smoke, like campfire smoke, which shifted directly over downtown Brooklyn. When I left, the downtown area looked like it was in fog, because the soot was so thick. People everywhere were wearing dust masks. It was dark by then, and every single vehicle that was equipped with a flashing light had it on. Trucks were driving by with banks of klieg lights; all of the downtown Brooklyn federal buildings were lit bright as day, and I think every police officer in the city was on duty and in uniform. This must be what it's like to be in Israel, or Lebanon — somewhere where security is on 24/7. Buses were finally running and someone said the crosstown G was finally up and I got home about twelve hours after starting out.
I think much of the day was worse for the rest of the nation, because you got to see the awful footage exclusive of anything else. It was bad in the city, but people were numb, quiet, or just tough. It is a measure of the true character of people of NYC that despite all other differences, yesterday everybody was helpful and courteous. There wasn't much hysteria. Living here makes you very cynical in general, and I know this sounds sappy, but, at least for yesterday, I've never been prouder to be here. On an appalling, horrible day New Yorkers refused to give in to what we all must have felt inside.
::
What did I see that could be worse than looking at Ground Zero on 9/11? After I wrote the above, I saw the grief it created in its wake:
I saw people handing out and posting flyers everywhere that read "Have you seen me?" — New York's newest group of beggars, from all walks of life, spending their time begging for lost lives and the smallest of hopes.
I saw, in firehouses, subway stops and random places across our famously indifferent city, sudden makeshift shrines of candles, photos, poems, and stories — every one of them a heart-stab.
I went to Union Square that first Sunday, and subsequently a number of times. It was being renovated then. There were candles on the concrete construction barriers, flowers on the ground, photos attached to orange net fencing and plywood, rolls of butcher paper on the walkways with writing. But most of all, there were the words of thousands of different relatives, friends, and acquaintances on every available surface. The words of people who had never written, suddenly challenged to express something absolutely beyond words. Five minutes in that park was painful. An hour was raw agony. Even trying to write about it now is pointless. You wouldn't ever want to see what was written on one sheet by itself, let alone thousands in an area the size of a city block. Just calling what was contained there "grieving" doesn't say anything at all. I can't tell you. I can't even begin to describe it.
::
I remember:
New York had an existing major catastrophe plan used by hospitals, and though it was put into effect immediately, after the first few hours there simply was no large group of surviving victims for it to be implemented on. Most of the blood donated during that time just became a serious overcapacity problem for the Red Cross.
More than soot was carried by that solid column of smoke over the East River. Paper, business cards with WTC addresses, little scraps suddenly invested with too much meaning, scattered on the ground and roofs of downtown Brooklyn for months to come.
The unique chemical signature of Ground Zero fumes — a powerful acrid plastic smell — a constant reminder of that day, smoldering too deep in the wreckage to be put out. It was strong in the first few weeks and gave me many headaches. I took the subway down to City Hall when that area reopened for business and wondered how anyone could possibly work in that chemical cloud. Dust masks were useless; I could barely stay an hour. It became for me in those long following months the emissary of the unknown number of dead in a mass gravesite, an invisible ghost present when the wind shifted.
Marching out of a building for a bomb scare, wondering if that was the future.
The free-floating fear of the anthrax scare, wondering if that was the future.
Cursing at news of the Rockaway plane crash, just two months later, and reliving every single moment from 9/11 in under 20 seconds.
A brief interval when the world was sympathetic to America's loss.
::
9/11 was a criminal action and should have been treated as such. It didn't "change everything." It didn't change anything, but was simply a recasting of an ancient criminal problem, albeit on a much larger scale. Yet here we are, five years later, and "terrorism" is being used as an excuse for everything to enable full-fledged fascism. Take your shoes off. Open your backpack. Be cautious with your phone call. Report "suspicious activities" of your fellow citizens. If you see "something," say "something." These are not competent measures to catch more terrorists. They are simply the attrition of freedom, a foothold for a future (or present) police state.
I don't think 9/11 was, to use the media's blithe phrase, a "transformative event" for me. But I did change as a consequence of what I saw in Union Square. Every time I hear a statistic about another U.S. soldier's death, another Iraqi death, another 40 Iraqi deaths, another Afghan death, I think about that park overflowing with pain. I think about all the thousands and thousands of voices that will never be heard here, that don't have even the flimsy standing of a xeroxed poem on a fence. I wonder how big the park would have to be to hold all the words that Iraqis and Afghans could write about their losses in the last three years, alongside those of the mothers and fathers of U.S. soldiers. How big would that park have to be for the words of those who have "only" been disabled, left homeless, or bankrupt because of a war based solely on lies?
9/11 has become an unofficial state religious holiday, with its own iconography, t-shirts, buttons and yellow ribbon war tie-ins. But projecting lights into the sky and placing official wreaths do not bring the dead back, whether it's the victims of that day or the equivalent number of soldiers lost since then. We don't need a Freedom Tower as an icon; we need freedom itself. It's no idle boast to argue New York was once the freest city in the freest land. The greatest memorial to possibly give the fallen isn't made out of stone or glass. It is the restoration and protection of our Constitutional mandate, and the indictment of all those who have systematically tried to take it away from us. And that is not a group of desperate men with boxcutters, but a tiny cabal of small-minded people, the human equivalent of the AIDS virus, attacking the body politic's immune system and hijacking it from within.
Their punishment is unlikely to happen, but I have the perfect sentence if it ever does: put them behind bars in a room where they will be continuously surrounded and confronted by photos and remembrances of those who have died unnecessarily after 9/11. Of Americans, but also of Iraqis and Afghans. Because they are beyond reform or contrition, let them continue to ignore the people whose deaths they're responsible for as long as they can — but make them do it up close. Give them nothing else but silence as long as they live.
