Remembering 9/11
Amanda B Reckondwyth
Shipmate
in All Saints
Not sure if there's a 9/11 thread elsewhere -- I can't find one.
Today is the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
I was there.
I was working at a law firm on Maiden Lane, which runs east-west through Manhattan's Financial District. Our office was more toward the eastern edge.
I had gotten off the subway that morning at Rector Street, directly across the street from the World Trade Center. It was a bright, sunny morning. I remember noticing how bright and sparkly the World Trade Center looked in the morning sun.
Walking to my office and settling in, I was busy at my desk when I heard a loud crash. It must have been a construction crane collapsing, I thought. Those things happen. But then came another crash. Someone turned a radio on, and we learned what had happened, and that a plane had also crashed into the Pentagon and that another one had crash-landed in a field in Pennsylvania.
We all assembled in the Help Desk room at the office, which was in the front overlooking Maiden Lane. We were gazing down Maiden Lane, watching the second WTC tower burn, when all of a sudden we saw it collapse. A cloud of black smoke rolled down Maiden Lane like an avalance, and everything turned pitch black and remained so for about five minutes.
When light finally began to penetrate the smoke, it looked like it was snowing. Ash was falling from the sky, coating everything. One of our workers, a bit late that morning, came in from the street completely covered in ash.
We closed the office. My apartment was in Brooklyn. I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and hitched a ride on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to as near to my apartment as we could get.
The office was closed for about a week. When it reopened, I had to take a different subway line into Manhattan, as the Rector Street station on the line I usually took was badly damaged. Police were in the station, checking IDs and inspecting bags. The acrid smell of destruction was strong in the air and remained so for weeks.
It was months before I could even bear to glance in the direction of what used to be the World Trade Center. I could not watch any reference to it on television.
Hard to believe it was 25 years ago. I remember it as clearly as if it just happened this morning.
Today is the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
I was there.
I was working at a law firm on Maiden Lane, which runs east-west through Manhattan's Financial District. Our office was more toward the eastern edge.
I had gotten off the subway that morning at Rector Street, directly across the street from the World Trade Center. It was a bright, sunny morning. I remember noticing how bright and sparkly the World Trade Center looked in the morning sun.
Walking to my office and settling in, I was busy at my desk when I heard a loud crash. It must have been a construction crane collapsing, I thought. Those things happen. But then came another crash. Someone turned a radio on, and we learned what had happened, and that a plane had also crashed into the Pentagon and that another one had crash-landed in a field in Pennsylvania.
We all assembled in the Help Desk room at the office, which was in the front overlooking Maiden Lane. We were gazing down Maiden Lane, watching the second WTC tower burn, when all of a sudden we saw it collapse. A cloud of black smoke rolled down Maiden Lane like an avalance, and everything turned pitch black and remained so for about five minutes.
When light finally began to penetrate the smoke, it looked like it was snowing. Ash was falling from the sky, coating everything. One of our workers, a bit late that morning, came in from the street completely covered in ash.
We closed the office. My apartment was in Brooklyn. I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and hitched a ride on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to as near to my apartment as we could get.
The office was closed for about a week. When it reopened, I had to take a different subway line into Manhattan, as the Rector Street station on the line I usually took was badly damaged. Police were in the station, checking IDs and inspecting bags. The acrid smell of destruction was strong in the air and remained so for weeks.
It was months before I could even bear to glance in the direction of what used to be the World Trade Center. I could not watch any reference to it on television.
Hard to believe it was 25 years ago. I remember it as clearly as if it just happened this morning.
Comments
I was at work that day, and recall catching very brief glimpses of the news coverage on the TV in the Ambulance Station crew room. It wasn't until I reached home that evening that I began to fully realise the enormity of what happened.
A few days later, I attended a service in our Cathedral to commemorate not only the civilians who had died, but also the police, emergency workers, etc., who had also died.
Perhaps astonishingly, FatherInCharge makes no mention of the anniversary whatever in his news sheet for this week, but I have remedied that on Our Place's website (which I edit)
The meeting didn’t happen; we all just stood in the lobby and watched the television in the corner, with all the hotel staff and other guests.
MMM
It was open today for prayer. I went in and, inter alia, gave thanks for all our American Shippies.
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Though we were in Canada, we'd come from the US and needed to return there for our flight home. But how? There was traffic queued for miles at the border crossing. However, there was a small ferry out of Kingston to an island, and an even smaller one to the US shore. From Albany, we needed to fly to Chicago to catch the Edinburgh flight - a connection we made with minutes to spare.
At 17, I didn't really know what the Twin Towers were; the only New York skyscraper I knew the name of was the Empire State Building. So when someone said the World Trade Centre had been destroyed, I didn't have any reference point to pin that to. I then spent the evening watching the playbacks on the BBC.
Looking back, it marked the end of the 'long decade' of the 90s which was the more formative decade of my youth, having started with the fall of the Berlin Wall when I was 6.
Friends of my sister had a lucky escape. They'd travelled across the Atlantic to New York for their wedding anniversary. They were due to have breakfast at Windows On The World, which was right above the first impact point. But having arrived in America the day before, they'd gone out for dinner and the place that they went to gave them food poisoning. So, spending the night awake with D & V, they skipped the breakfast appointment, as well their planned trip to the viewing platform.
We had been in New York in July 2001 with the Belfast choir, and we'd been given books of tickets to a few of the tourist attractions, including the World Trade Centre. We hadn't had time to use them all, and when I was back at work, a colleague, Justin, said he and his girlfriend were going to NY in September. I gave him our remaining tickets, including for the WTC, and he was very chuffed.
The day after the attacks, I suddenly remembered about it and thought, "I hope Justin wasn't using those tickets yesterday! ". A couple of weeks later, he came into the office, having finally got a flight back. I asked him where they'd been that morning, and he said they'd been planning to go to the WTC, but had missed their intended bus. They'd got the next one, but the driver got a message about the attacks, and they had to abandon their plans.
They saw the second tower fall as they were being taken back to the bus terminal.
I'm still horrified at the idea that a well-intentioned gesture (I had no further use for the tickets) could have had disastrous consequences!
The coworker outside was trying to reach her aunt who worked in the Towers. She did manage to get out safely.
The library didn't open that day, they sent us all home. As I crossed over the bridge again, I could see the smoke plume and that's when it actually hit me people were dying there. I have a friend who was at the time a NY firefighter, and I realized he could be dead. (he wasn't there til after the collapse, I found out later).
I picked my sixth grade daughter up from school, and had to tell her what had happened as the school didn't tell the kids. I think it was one of the hardest conversations I ever had.
I had just gotten to the office after an early morning meeting with a small spiritual formation group from church. Very little work was done that day; most of the day was spent gathered around a tv, listening to the radio (which I always had on in my office, tuned to the local NPR affiliate) and/or following the news on our computers.
Our children were almost-4 and 9 months old at the time. They were held a lot that night.
I watched on TV until I had to go to work, and when I got there, the senior minister was opening the big front doors and told me to make a big sign saying "Open for prayer" -- the only time we opened like this in the 23 years I worked there. We watched TV all day at work, stopping only for things that could not wait. I had to take the newsletter to the post office that received bulk mail, where a guard stopped every car entering the lot to ask the purpose of the visit and to write down license plate numbers because post offices are federal facilities. I had piled up the bags of mail on the sidewalk outside the church and then distractedly driven off without them, so I had to go back to the church and return with the mail. Fortunately the guard was sympathetic when I explained why I was back a second time.
I will add that I will never not be angry that the US response to the attacks was the "War on Terror," militarization of the police, and increased warrantless domestic surveillance. George W. Bush told us "they hate us for our freedom" so we killed hundreds of thousands of people directly and millions indirectly and handed over some of our own freedom. The attacks were horrific, and we had the sympathy of almost the entire world, and we squandered it. 9/11 was on a Tuesday, and I heard the first joke about it on Thursday: Q: What's the five-day weather forecast in Afghanistan? A: Two days.
The first plane had hit shortly before, and as I looked at the TV I saw the second fly into the building, believing I was looking at some war film until I heard a news reporter's voice, and someone in the room said 'this is real, it's happening now in America.
We were then ejected from the resident's room and had to continue normal duties, all very stunned.
I remember we were all crowded round the departmental admin's computer because it had a web browser. The BBC news site wasn't working, so someone had the bright idea of going to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation site. That worked, so we saw it all on there. The company head office was in Canary Wharf, and they were evacuated in case that building was being targeted as well.
I knew a friend of mine was in the US on business about then, and he'd mentioned the possibility of going to New York for a few days before flying back that time. I was scared to email/text him in case I got no answer. A couple of days later he texted me to say he was ok. He'd decided in the end not to go to New York that trip, so flew out the day before.
I heard the news on the radio, so turned on the TV and saw repeat broadcasts of the planes flying into the towers.
Our family was going on a holiday to Italy in the weeks after the attack. We noticed there were very few Americans in Italy. We were meeting friends from England to share accommodation, and they thought their flights might be cancelled, though that did not eventuate.
The next morning when I delivered the community papers practically every other house had an American flag hanging near the front door. We Americans do love our flag, you know.
My husband said that everyone in work stopped working and gathered round a television.
What was more interesting was the way our then PM subsequently jumped on the Middle East war bandwagon…
A few days later, I remember our local firemen going round town with an enormous American flag and a bucket, collecting for the NY firefighters.
Like @ruth I am angry at the response from Bush and others. There was talk in the first days of a different response to the 'war on terror', and I as hopeful there would be a different approach. Then it turned into the usual bomb countries and make everything far worse.
15 Saudi Arabians,
2 of the UAE
1 from the Lebanon
1, the ringleader, from Egypt.
People vary within any country, but I don’t think any of these countries are on the USAs list most untrustworthy nations.
I had forgotten this. We had a firemen standing at intersections, collecting money in boots from people in stopped cars.