I have been living in New York City since the late 90s. From Michigan, I got a job in Long Island, but lived in Astoria, Queens. After a very brief stint in Long Island, I got hired by what was then called Smith Barney. Their offices were, and still are, although now part of Citigroup, at 250 West Street, also known as the West Side Highway, in Tribeca, Manhattan. From my office, I could see the World Trade Center. I avoided the Trade Center, and I would sometimes wonder, if they were attacked again, like they were in 1993, were they close enough to hit me? I knew they were a quarter of a mile tall, and didn't know the distance from 250 West, but I knew that they would be attacked again. The terrorists who tried in '93 said so.
After I left Smith Barney, I moved even closer to the Trade Center when I worked for a dot-com internet consulting group. Being a start-up, they moved 3 times during my tenure of around 2 years: I forgot the location of the initial headquarters, then we moved to John Street, and finally to the Woolworth Building. All of these locations were in the Financial District, downtown Manhattan. Although I never set foot in the towers, I did go into 4 World Trade, because there was a Borders bookstore, and also 7 World Trade, when Smith Barney merged with Salomon Brothers, who had office space there. The sadly defunct Century 21 store was directly across the street from the Trade Center, and discount shopping runs in my DNA, so you know I spent many hours there. Although I lived in Astoria, the towers were my backyard. I would frequent the Tuesday farmers' market that ran just outside the towers. It was magic: Pennsylvanian Dutch selling apples and pies in the shadow of these two megaliths wearing their bonnets and long gowns covered with aprons. Such an anachronism.
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| I tried to find a picture of the greenmarket at WTC from ANY OTHER DAY. I could not. This is 5 WTC on 9/11 with the farmers' market. They all got out. |
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| The Woolworth Building in happier times |
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| Another view of the Woolworth Building |
So, the morning of 9/11 in New York, as I'm sure you've heard, was a stunner. My boyfriend was free-lancing at Salomon Smith Barney, working at the 250 West Street building, and was in process to be hired as a full-time staff member. He was scheduled to head to the Human Resource department to sign the paperwork, at 7 World Trade. As luck would have it, the night before, he saw an interoffice envelope addressed to the Human Resources department on his boss's desk, so he just put the forms inside. This is how my boyfriend was saved. He was once an auxiliary police officer in the Bronx, and if he was closer, he might have mobilized. I was getting ready to go to my office. I was now working uptown at 7th Avenue and 57th Street. Just before I left, I heard the report of a plane hitting the Trade Center on the radio. Like most people, I assumed it was accidental. My boyfriend called at that moment, and I didn't let him speak. I told him to turn around and come back home. He did. I went out to vote: it was primary day. On the way down Astoria Boulevard, I knew that at the intersection of 21st Street, there was a clear view of the towers. When I saw it, I knew it wasn't an accident. I knew there were many, many casualties. I felt helpless and afraid. On autopilot now, I went to the voting precinct and voted. What else could I do?
When I was inside, a woman came in screaming that both towers were on fire. I said, no, I just saw them and it was just the one. Of course, when I went back up Astoria Boulevard, the truth was evident. She was right. Both towers were now struck. Panicked, I wondered if I should just call in. But, my boss was suspect of anyone calling out, and I didn't need him telling me that we worked miles from the Trade Center and there was no reason I couldn't make it. So I boarded the N train, the same train I took all the way to Church Street/Fulton Street when I used to work in the Financial Center. The train seemed to be fine, until we got to 36th Avenue, where it paused for what seemed like eternity. Mind you, the N train in Astoria is elevated, and we all could see the burning towers. I thought to myself, this is your sign to get off and go back, so I stood to exit, and at that moment, the doors chimed and closed. I rode it to 57th and 7th, with my final look at the standing towers at Queensboro Plaza.
In some ways, it was good that I made it to work, because cell phones were not working, so I couldn't contact anyone since I left my apartment. I got ahold of my mother and explained to her that I was not close. Then...
It was my co-worker who told me what I had feared for so many years, but I was still shocked when she said it. Absolute disbelief. One of the towers collapsed. We all left together. Now, we needed to know where to go. The subway was no longer running, and my boss lived on the east side of Manhattan at 97th Street. He told us to come to his place. We walked through the park, and I remember hearing planes and being again panicked. It was most likely fighter jets, which became common place after this. We saw long lines at pay phones and ATMs, and all along the way, people were listening to radio reports in large groups. When we made it to his apartment, we could see the people crossing the Triboro Bridge on foot. We also finally saw what everyone else in the world had already seen: the images of the planes hitting and the towers collapsing. I felt sick.
Eventually, my boyfriend, who, believe it or not, drove to Tribeca daily, picked me and anyone else who lived in Queens up. We drove everyone home and were back to Astoria by nightfall. We saw on tv that there were bombs going off someplace in the Middle East, and we decided we didn't feel safe in the city. We went to his parents' home in northern Westchester, crossing the Whitestone Bridge where we saw the smoldering remains. His parents had cats, to which I am allergic, despite having a cat at the time myself. I couldn't breathe, and I went to the ER for a nebulizer. I still get calls from agencies representing 9/11 survivors with lung problems as a result.
The next day I woke up and immediately hoped it was all a bad dream. Alas, it wasn't. We headed back to Queens, resolved to not let the terrorists win. In the weeks that followed, my boyfriend would patronize businesses downtown, smelling the horrible stench of death, sometimes ordering an entire ham from a deli, to keep those people afloat financially. Everyone did what they could.
The thing that stays with me about that day is my paralysis. I didn't know what to do. But, some people knew exactly what to do: the firefighters. When most of us stood around helpless, they bounded into action and ran towards the danger.
Two years later, almost to the day, I stood in a classroom in Queens on the first day of school, again not really knowing what to do. I knew the parents and the kids looked to me like I knew what I was doing, but I didn't. I had joined the Teaching Fellows, and was in front of a 7th grade homeroom, teaching them math and technology. This was how I gave back to the city that, like a family member, I muttered bad things about, but truly loved. My new coworker, a 5th grade teacher named Diane Fairben, who taught my students on 9/11, had a view of the towers from her classroom and knew that her son was down there. She watched in horror with these kids, not on a television, but from a window. Her only child, an EMT worker, died that day. His name was Keith.
To him, and all the other heroes of that day, thank you will never be enough. I am only now, 24+ years later, committing my story to the public. A friend from the Midwest who worked for Aon visited a few weeks afterward and wanted to visit the site, so I went on a cold and rainy day to see the wreckage. I ran a 5k to commemorate a firefighter and passed the pile. Aside from those two occasions, I have not been back to the site. I cannot imagine the pain and suffering of so many parents, husbands and wives, and children of the victims. I feel for them and for all who suffer, whether from war or natural disaster, or plain poverty and bad situations. I hope that my service as a teacher to disadvantaged students made a difference. I think it did. Many of my students went on to success. I played a part in that.
We need to realize, as Americans, that we are blessed. We have a good life. We have our ups and downs, but overall, we are privileged to live in a great society. I have been blessed. Thank you for listening to a traumatic event from my perspective, and know that I count myself as fortunate. Do what you can to help.
I'll leave you with this: when I grew up, there were very few children's programs. Saturday morning cartoons, Sunday night Disney movies, and PBS were about it. Once a year, the major stations would play "The Sound of Music", "Heidi" and "The Wizard of Oz. The programs on PBS were "Sesame Street", "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood", "The Electric Company" and "Zoom". At a certain point, I knew I was too old for that stuff, but, like a guilty pleasure, I continued to watch. If my schoolmates knew I was still watching Mr. Rogers, I would be the laughing stock of the 5th grade. But he was kind. He was teaching us what we were learning in Catechism: love your brother. And, like a modern prophet, he said, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." This is what Jesus was trying to say, what Allah was trying to say, what Buddha and all the prophets were teaching. God doesn't care if you eat meat on Friday or pork or cows. God doesn't want us kneeling and then standing in a particular direction. That's missing the point. God wants us to treat each other as you'd like to be treated; it's that simple. If 9/11 taught me anything, it's that there are good people in the world. More good people than misguided people. Let's all try harder to be those good people.
