SEPTEMBER 11th…….MY MEMORIES

A decade. Ten years. 120 months. 3652 days. 84,648 hours. 5,258,880 minutes. 315,532,800 seconds since the day that most of us will never forget. I have moved across the country three times, gotten married, taken many trips, and attended several weddings and a handful of funerals. I have watched my friends have babies, and seen these babies grow into elementary school aged kids. So much has happened. But no matter how much time has passed, I will never forget the events of 9/11 because I lived in NYC and watched them transpire.

image: coforse

But, if you will, go back a day with me to September 10th, 2001. The night before the worst terrorist attack ever. It was a Monday night and my roommate at the time and very good friend, Stephanie and I were headed to our favorite sushi restaurant, Mori, on Park Avenue South as we had done so many nights before. We had our other bestie, Joey, and a guy named Jeff with us. Jeff, a friend of Steph’s from her hometown of Chicago, was staying with us in our Flatiron apartment for a few days.

Soon the sake started flowing, as it usually did on these sushi nights. Steph told us about how she did one of those Big Apple Tours on the double-decker buses over the Labor Day holiday, only a few days before. She laughed about how it was so much fun to be a tourist in her own city, especially a place like New York, with so much to behold. One of the places her tour took her was the World Trade Center. She told us how cool it was (I had never been) and how she went all of the way to the top of one of the towers to Windows on the World. In fact, she had done such a good job of describing this place, that Joey and I vowed to go to Windows on the World for drinks later that week. But that never happened.

Cut to a mere twelve hours later. 8:46 AM. Steph was already at work at her PR agency. I was in bed waking up. My phone rang. On the other end of the line was my then-boyfriend, Nick, telling me to turn on the TV right away, that a plane had hit the north tower of the WTC. Still in a post-sushi night/sake haze, I reached for the remote and flipped on the TV. As the CNN logo appeared at the bottom of the screen, I looked up to see the news that a jet airplane had hit the North Tower of the WTC. A strange feeling engulfed my entire body, kind of like I knew I needed to get up, but was temporarily paralyzed with what was going on in front of me on TV. “What happened? What happened?” is what I remember saying repetitively to Nick over the phone, as if his initial explanation wasn’t accurate or good enough. We went back and forth trying to understand what was going on. And then it was 9:03 AM, the time the second plane, United Airlines flight 175, hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

As soon as the second plane hit the towers, I felt the color draining out of my face. I felt really hot, like I had a fever, and the sweat just poured out of me. This cannot be happening! At first, I thought that the first plane hitting the towers was an accident, but after this, I knew it was no accident at all, but rather pure evil unfolding before my eyes.

I called Joey, with whom only the night before, I had made plans with to go to this exact place that was under attack. He answered and I said “On my God! Oh my God!” He said he had a clear view of what was going on, as he lived in Weehawken, NJ, across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan. After a few more minutes of us telling each other of how we couldn’t believe what was going on, we hung up.

I scrambled out of the bed and moved into the living room, where Jeff was still sleeping. I woke him up and turned on the TV as I explained to him what was going on. For the next several minutes, I sat riveted in front of the TV as the devastating events of 9/11 occurred. I tried calling my mother in Dallas, my sister Amanda who lived in Washington DC, and my father who was in a plane flying from Dallas to Washington DC, at the time of the attacks. To no avail. As you can imagine, the phone lines were beyond jammed with loved ones trying to call one another, people checking on their friends and family members in the affected areas. I just kept thinking about my poor mother who has three daughters, two of which lived in the cities that were under attack, and her husband somewhere up in the air, flying, not knowing if his plane was going to be one of those hijacked or not. She must have been so scared.

The terror was almost too much for me to handle, as news crews covering the catastrophe would show live video of people flailing themselves like rag dolls out of the windows of these massive  burning buildings. I felt my throat tightening, and my stomach hurt so badly.

Then the unthinkable happened. 9:59 AM the South Tower collapsed. My mouth hung wide open. I couldn’t believe it. And all that was going through my head was, I cannot believe how many people just died.

I grabbed my key and raced upstairs, my heart pounding out of my chest, to the roof deck on the 28th floor of my apartment building. And then the gravity and reality of the situation struck me. In my clear view and in plain site, only a couple of miles away from me was the black/gray plume of smoke touching the bright blue sky where the South Tower once stood. Next to that was the North Tower, still standing, but on fire. As my trembling hands gripped the railing of the deck, I looked around me. There were people, my neighbors, all around me lining the perimeter of our roof in various states of shock, disbelief, and sorrow. People were talking loudly, some were hysterically crying, some visibly in shock, and others had their heads in their hands. I remember the putrid aroma in the air so vividly. It was a scent that had never met my nose before. It smelled like burnt rubber and what I had guessed to be the stench of burning flesh. And then the tears came, rolling down my face as I stared at what was to be one of the most massive human graves in history.

I stood there for the next twenty-nine minutes. 10:28 AM the North Tower finally gave way to the horrific damage and fell to the ground. This was beyond anything I had ever experienced. Was this the end? The end of what? I didn’t know that only a few miles away across the river my future husband, David, who I would meet almost exactly two years later, sat and watched this awful chain of events happen from his office in East Rutherfored, NJ. I was also unaware of the fact that one of David’s good friends from high school, Dave Retick, was seated in first class across the aisle from head hijacker, Mohammed Atta, on American Airlines flight #11. All I knew was that my body felt extremely weak. And I couldn’t hold my head up. It just fell into my hands and then to the railing. As my face was wet with sadness, I peered through my fingers and set my sights almost thirty floors below me on the street. Coming up Park Avenue, it looked as though an army brigade was marching up the street. People, covered in white ash, were racing up the street, as if escaping from the depths of Hell.

By this time, Stephanie had met me on the roof. And I remember, there was a woman who lived in our building who was absolutely frantic. Her fiance worked on one of the upper floors of the WTC and she could not get a hold of him. She was hysterical, and was desperately trying to call him. She then became extremely sorrowful as she spoke of him to those who would listen, as if his fate was sealed. And then, as if from a scene of a movie, these two lovers were reunited in front of all of us on the rooftop, hugging and kissing, then collapsing to the ground. Just like the two buildings that I had just witnessed only moments before.

Horrified, Steph and I returned to our apartment. I turned on the shower and got in. And then I bawled. At this point, I still couldn’t get a hold of my family, and because of the devastation I had just witnessed, my mind couldn’t help but go in very ominous directions. My sobbing was muffled by the stream of the hot shower as I stood and prayed for my family, and for my mother and what she was going through not knowing the whereabouts of most of her family.

Soon after, Nick made his way to my apartment and said that he thought we should try to get out of the city and to his sister’s place in Greenwick, CT. I agreed. I grabbed a bunch of clothes and shoes and threw them into a suitcase. And then we headed out the door. It was 6 PM. After exiting my building and turning on to Park Avenue, I will never forget what I saw. Not a single taxi, car, bus, or person on Park Avenue, one of the busiest streets in all of NYC. Rather, there were dark green army tanks parked at each intersection all along the avenue, poised and ready to fire. You could hear a pin drop. The silence was only broken up by the roar of army fighter jets overhead  patrolling the skyline.

The trains were still running, and we got on the Metro North from Grand Central Station headed to Connecticut. After we sat down in our seats, I looked up and saw an older gentlemen in a three piece suit carrying a briefcase, covered head to toe in white ash. This forlorn soul entered the train car, stumbling, as if in a catatonic state. He sat down and cradled his head in his hands, as if he had nothing to live for. I broke down again. I couldn’t help it. We remained silent for most of the ride out, still in shock over the events of the day. And then we made it to Connecticut. Once we emerged from the train, we learned that many of the schools in that area had been transformed into makeshift orphanages. For the children, whose parents worked at the WTC, and had never picked them up that day. And that is how I spent September 11, 2011.

Fast forward to ten years later. I find myself back in this amazing city, covering Fashion Week and the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Our city has once again been threatened, and there are police everywhere-in the subway trains, in cars, and patrolling on foot. There are road blocks set up and bridges shut down.  I can hear sirens every so often, proving the fact that we are not totally safe. But even amidst all of this heightened activity, a strangely reassuring thing happened on the way out last night. One cab driver cut another one off, and the later shouted, “F&*k you!” out of his window. It is so good to know that, no matter what, some things never change. And the spirit of the people in this city will never die.

image: USAF photo by Denise Gould

For the families of the all of the almost 3,000 victims who perished at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and on flights 11, 175, and 93, know that your loved ones will never be forgotten. They continue to inspire us, and show how important it is to cherish one another. Their lives give  meaning to so many others. They are truly heroes.

What are your memories of 9/11? And what will you do to honor the heroes of that day?

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