Thoughts on the Day
I think I need to address what today is, both for myself and for my LJ friends. I grew up in northern New Jersey but, really, I feel like a New Yorker-I lived only 15 minutes away from NYC and spent a great deal of my time there as I grew up. As a suburb, my area of NJ only existed as it did (and only continues to exist as it does) because of its’ proximity to NYC. Thus, as NYC defines NJ, NYC defined my childhood; thus, NYC has clearly helped define who I am.
As a New Yorker, I feel a responsibility to share my experience of 9/11/2001 with people who aren’t from here, or who don’t have a similar experience to mine. The events of that day had a huge impact on the entire world, but that impact was acutely apparent in the New York metropolitan area. I don’t want to say that the events of that day had a stronger effect on NYC than on the rest of the country, or even the world; but I do think that those of us who were here have a different experience of that day, and, in some cases, an understandably more traumatizing one. This is based on our understanding of NYC as “home,” as a part of each of us, and upon the physical proximity we had to the events of that day.
First, I’d like to give you some context-some of this information is obvious to many, but some of it was sort of glossed-over by the media with the assumption that everyone in the world had an understanding of the geography and nature of New York City. I’m not assuming that, if one is not from here, then he or she doesn’t know this information; but I do find it necessary (or worthwhile) to explain this background so that you all can better understand my personal experience of the day.
The World Trade Center was a group of buildings where many important financial, architectural, corporate, legal, and governmental firms and offices were based. I would argue that every single New Yorker knew at least one person who had to go there, if not on a regular basis, at least once each year. Also, the two tallest towers defined the skyline of lower Manhattan. That skyline could be seen from a great distance-and where one couldn’t see the entire skyline, one could always see the towers. From the tree house in my backyard in New Jersey, I could always see the towers. When driving over short hills in my tree-filled town, you could always see the towers in the distance. From tall buildings in Manhattan itself, from the Brooklyn Bridge, from any borough or neighborhood in New York City, New Jersey, and even Long Island, the towers could be seen. They defined the landscape of the area, both visually and ideologically.
On September 11, 2001, I was a junior in high school. Every morning, my dad would drive me to school on his way to work as a doctor in a NY area hospital. That drive was about 5-10 minutes long, during which we could see the towers for about 3 minutes. The morning of 9/11, my dad drove me to school as usual. I got there at 7am, and went about my day. When the first tower was hit, I had just gotten into my Religion class (I went to an all-girls Catholic high school). People started running out of classes on the opposite side of the hallway (where they saw the plane hit) and into my classroom (where the windows faced the wrong direction to see the buildings). Finally, the teachers got control over everyone and got us into our proper classrooms. We turned on the TV to see newscasters scrambling-they hadn’t really realized what was going on yet; not all the channels were working, and of the ones that were, only some had interrupted the normal programs to air the news.
No one knew what was going on, we were all scared and confused-but most of us were frustrated, because we had so little information. Very many students had parents who were working in those buildings; most had friends or family members who were, at the very least, in the area. Some students knew that BOTH parents were definitely in the first tower. As anyone could imagine, we were all sort of freaking out. To keep control over the students, each teacher responded differently. My Religion teacher turned the sound off on the TV when the first tower fell (on air)-the newscasters knew nothing at the time and it was just making us more afraid to hear all the screaming and fright in the newscasters’ voices. Then, she told us all to pray. I was raised to think that G-d doesn’t exist; so praying, for me, seemed futile and ridiculous. Instead, I ran through a list of all of my family and close friends, and wrote down the names of all the people who could have been there, should have been there, and were definitely there. I had about ten names on that list.
At the end of that class, everyone was somber and confused-we still had no information, most of us had been watching the TV to see the first tower fall. My next class was Chemistry, and that teacher responded to the panic by enforcing normalcy-she taught. She told us that, in times of crisis where no action could be taken, all we could do was resort to routine for comfort…and it kind of worked. At the end of that class, our principle came over the loudspeaker, as she always did, to make announcements. She told us that, somehow, planes had been flown into two of the buildings, and that they were falling down. They didn’t know why it happened, they didn’t know who did it; the only thing they knew was simply that it happened. We were told that planes were flying overhead, but to not be scared-they were “our planes,” they were protecting us from the threat of “more bombings, further attack measures.”
Then, the principle continued to speak, and it was one of the most disturbing events of my day. She read out a list of names, both students and teachers at the school, who had to report to three different places. Later, I learned that the three places were as follows: one for the students whose family members were missing (the largest list), one for the students whose family members were confirmed to be dead or hospitalized, and another (the smallest list) for people whose family members called the school to say that they weren’t there-that they were fine.
Several of my friends were called to one or more of those places, and I remember being jealous of them because at least they knew what was going on-I still had no idea. The rest of the day we were allowed to go wherever we wanted to. No classes were taught. Ministers, counselors, and doctors were arriving to help people who were freaking out the most. I remember feeling isolated-I didn’t know how to feel, I didn’t know what to think, I just knew that I couldn’t let myself be scared and that I had to be very alert. I found myself thinking: “Don’t go to the top floor, if a bomb hits, you’ll want to be in the basement, near an exit.” I found myself detaching from everyone around me, and making compulsive lists of the missing, dead, injured, and living-taking stock of the situation, gauging the loss.
Then, the school was designated as a bomb shelter, and people from the neighborhood started showing up seeking shelter. The chapel-usually an empty, unused space-was full of students, teachers, and random people who came to see safety, or comfort. When it was finally time to go home, we knew that bombs were not going to fall and that the attack was over. We had to sign out with a counselor before getting on the bus, or before our parents could take us home. The bus ride home was horrific-the sky was black, and where we usually saw the towers, there was merely an ominous cloud. I remember wondering how it was possible for the sky to be that dark at 2PM. I remember thinking that it looked like it was snowing-but it was really just ashes. Then, I remembered reading descriptions and first-hand accounts from Holocaust survivors who also experienced the same kind of snow. I remember thinking, “Is this the beginning of the next world war?”
When I got home, my Mom was there. She seemed like a zombie and she hugged me so hard it hurt. I gave my lists to her, asking her whom she had heard from, and we concluded that only one person wasn’t yet accounted for; my cousin Edgar had been working across the street at an architectural firm, and no one knew where he was. His father was at home in Queens cleaning the entire house in frenzy, and his mother was sedated.
My father was volunteering in the ER of his hospital, treating patients with minor problems who had managed to get out of Manhattan-most people couldn’t get out, as the officials closed the bridges and tunnels to all traffic. Later, we learned that Edgar had walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and gone home; we finally heard from him when he got back to his apartment at around 6PM.
At about 4PM, my dad got home, and he was a mess. The first thing he did was to make a drink; then, he went upstairs to his office and started flipping through old albums. When I saw him next, he was sitting on the couch crying, staring at one page in the album that he had been looking for. I sat next to him, and saw that he was looking at pictures he had taken in front of the towers as they were being built in the 1970s. Over the following weeks, I saw him place pictures from the newspapers of the towers falling in that album, next to his pictures of the towers being built.
He cried for about a half hour, and then told us that he was going to volunteer at the hospital he had worked at for ten years-a hospital that was in Manhattan. My mom was scared, as was I, but we both knew it was the right thing for him to do. However, police had closed off the city and wouldn’t let him in-they didn’t know what kind of an attack it had been, and were worried about biological and chemical threats.
The next day, my dad got the anthrax vaccine so that he could volunteer. My mom and I weren’t allowed to be near him until the vaccine was no longer a threat to us (apparently there’s a minimal risk of giving others anthrax from contact, or something). Finally, he was able to go and help, and he came back traumatized. He wouldn’t talk about it; he would just come home and get drunk. Then he’d get up, go back, and do it all over again. Later, he said that it wasn’t the injuries he saw that upset him; all the serious injuries had to be addressed by hospital doctors rather than volunteers. What really traumatized him, however, was the endless line of family members and people who had obviously been there looking for their missing wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, lovers… He saw people who had no reason to hope, but came back every day, looking for their loved ones.
It was horrific.
I didn’t go into Manhattan for about a month, which was unusual. My dad would drive us up to the George Washington Bridge, and then decide to go to Hoboken (New Jersey) instead. There was always an excuse, but I think he just didn’t want my mother or I to see our destroyed city up close.
Eight students at school (out of 800 total students) lost both of their parents on that day. Many more lost one parent, a brother, sister, uncle, or aunt. Every day for months, I expected to look at the skyline and see those towers; but, as the cloud faded and the snow stopped falling, I came to realize that I would never see the city clearly again. I would never look up and orient myself by virtue of those towers; I would never see “home,” as I knew it, again.
Now, years later, I remember what home used to fee like before, and I see it as it is now. New York is a city of defiance, as it always has been. We refuse to change how we live our lives, regardless of the alert color of the day. After 9/11, it’s almost like we have nothing to be afraid of anymore, as if there’s nothing to really lose. But, at the same time, for a while after the towers fell, it seemed like one small mistake could be the end of the world, as if it could be our total unraveling. We all had such tight control over our emotions, that a little slip could mean just losing it in the middle of the day.
So, to respond to the questions of many friends, I’m fine. Today, I’m a bit distracted from life things by thinking of the past, present, and future-but I’m just fine. Sometimes, though, I worry about the 13 year old I babysit, who only remembers wondering how it was snowing in Brooklyn (less than a mile from the towers) during a hot September day-she thought it was a snow day.
As a New Yorker, I feel a responsibility to share my experience of 9/11/2001 with people who aren’t from here, or who don’t have a similar experience to mine. The events of that day had a huge impact on the entire world, but that impact was acutely apparent in the New York metropolitan area. I don’t want to say that the events of that day had a stronger effect on NYC than on the rest of the country, or even the world; but I do think that those of us who were here have a different experience of that day, and, in some cases, an understandably more traumatizing one. This is based on our understanding of NYC as “home,” as a part of each of us, and upon the physical proximity we had to the events of that day.
First, I’d like to give you some context-some of this information is obvious to many, but some of it was sort of glossed-over by the media with the assumption that everyone in the world had an understanding of the geography and nature of New York City. I’m not assuming that, if one is not from here, then he or she doesn’t know this information; but I do find it necessary (or worthwhile) to explain this background so that you all can better understand my personal experience of the day.
The World Trade Center was a group of buildings where many important financial, architectural, corporate, legal, and governmental firms and offices were based. I would argue that every single New Yorker knew at least one person who had to go there, if not on a regular basis, at least once each year. Also, the two tallest towers defined the skyline of lower Manhattan. That skyline could be seen from a great distance-and where one couldn’t see the entire skyline, one could always see the towers. From the tree house in my backyard in New Jersey, I could always see the towers. When driving over short hills in my tree-filled town, you could always see the towers in the distance. From tall buildings in Manhattan itself, from the Brooklyn Bridge, from any borough or neighborhood in New York City, New Jersey, and even Long Island, the towers could be seen. They defined the landscape of the area, both visually and ideologically.
On September 11, 2001, I was a junior in high school. Every morning, my dad would drive me to school on his way to work as a doctor in a NY area hospital. That drive was about 5-10 minutes long, during which we could see the towers for about 3 minutes. The morning of 9/11, my dad drove me to school as usual. I got there at 7am, and went about my day. When the first tower was hit, I had just gotten into my Religion class (I went to an all-girls Catholic high school). People started running out of classes on the opposite side of the hallway (where they saw the plane hit) and into my classroom (where the windows faced the wrong direction to see the buildings). Finally, the teachers got control over everyone and got us into our proper classrooms. We turned on the TV to see newscasters scrambling-they hadn’t really realized what was going on yet; not all the channels were working, and of the ones that were, only some had interrupted the normal programs to air the news.
No one knew what was going on, we were all scared and confused-but most of us were frustrated, because we had so little information. Very many students had parents who were working in those buildings; most had friends or family members who were, at the very least, in the area. Some students knew that BOTH parents were definitely in the first tower. As anyone could imagine, we were all sort of freaking out. To keep control over the students, each teacher responded differently. My Religion teacher turned the sound off on the TV when the first tower fell (on air)-the newscasters knew nothing at the time and it was just making us more afraid to hear all the screaming and fright in the newscasters’ voices. Then, she told us all to pray. I was raised to think that G-d doesn’t exist; so praying, for me, seemed futile and ridiculous. Instead, I ran through a list of all of my family and close friends, and wrote down the names of all the people who could have been there, should have been there, and were definitely there. I had about ten names on that list.
At the end of that class, everyone was somber and confused-we still had no information, most of us had been watching the TV to see the first tower fall. My next class was Chemistry, and that teacher responded to the panic by enforcing normalcy-she taught. She told us that, in times of crisis where no action could be taken, all we could do was resort to routine for comfort…and it kind of worked. At the end of that class, our principle came over the loudspeaker, as she always did, to make announcements. She told us that, somehow, planes had been flown into two of the buildings, and that they were falling down. They didn’t know why it happened, they didn’t know who did it; the only thing they knew was simply that it happened. We were told that planes were flying overhead, but to not be scared-they were “our planes,” they were protecting us from the threat of “more bombings, further attack measures.”
Then, the principle continued to speak, and it was one of the most disturbing events of my day. She read out a list of names, both students and teachers at the school, who had to report to three different places. Later, I learned that the three places were as follows: one for the students whose family members were missing (the largest list), one for the students whose family members were confirmed to be dead or hospitalized, and another (the smallest list) for people whose family members called the school to say that they weren’t there-that they were fine.
Several of my friends were called to one or more of those places, and I remember being jealous of them because at least they knew what was going on-I still had no idea. The rest of the day we were allowed to go wherever we wanted to. No classes were taught. Ministers, counselors, and doctors were arriving to help people who were freaking out the most. I remember feeling isolated-I didn’t know how to feel, I didn’t know what to think, I just knew that I couldn’t let myself be scared and that I had to be very alert. I found myself thinking: “Don’t go to the top floor, if a bomb hits, you’ll want to be in the basement, near an exit.” I found myself detaching from everyone around me, and making compulsive lists of the missing, dead, injured, and living-taking stock of the situation, gauging the loss.
Then, the school was designated as a bomb shelter, and people from the neighborhood started showing up seeking shelter. The chapel-usually an empty, unused space-was full of students, teachers, and random people who came to see safety, or comfort. When it was finally time to go home, we knew that bombs were not going to fall and that the attack was over. We had to sign out with a counselor before getting on the bus, or before our parents could take us home. The bus ride home was horrific-the sky was black, and where we usually saw the towers, there was merely an ominous cloud. I remember wondering how it was possible for the sky to be that dark at 2PM. I remember thinking that it looked like it was snowing-but it was really just ashes. Then, I remembered reading descriptions and first-hand accounts from Holocaust survivors who also experienced the same kind of snow. I remember thinking, “Is this the beginning of the next world war?”
When I got home, my Mom was there. She seemed like a zombie and she hugged me so hard it hurt. I gave my lists to her, asking her whom she had heard from, and we concluded that only one person wasn’t yet accounted for; my cousin Edgar had been working across the street at an architectural firm, and no one knew where he was. His father was at home in Queens cleaning the entire house in frenzy, and his mother was sedated.
My father was volunteering in the ER of his hospital, treating patients with minor problems who had managed to get out of Manhattan-most people couldn’t get out, as the officials closed the bridges and tunnels to all traffic. Later, we learned that Edgar had walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and gone home; we finally heard from him when he got back to his apartment at around 6PM.
At about 4PM, my dad got home, and he was a mess. The first thing he did was to make a drink; then, he went upstairs to his office and started flipping through old albums. When I saw him next, he was sitting on the couch crying, staring at one page in the album that he had been looking for. I sat next to him, and saw that he was looking at pictures he had taken in front of the towers as they were being built in the 1970s. Over the following weeks, I saw him place pictures from the newspapers of the towers falling in that album, next to his pictures of the towers being built.
He cried for about a half hour, and then told us that he was going to volunteer at the hospital he had worked at for ten years-a hospital that was in Manhattan. My mom was scared, as was I, but we both knew it was the right thing for him to do. However, police had closed off the city and wouldn’t let him in-they didn’t know what kind of an attack it had been, and were worried about biological and chemical threats.
The next day, my dad got the anthrax vaccine so that he could volunteer. My mom and I weren’t allowed to be near him until the vaccine was no longer a threat to us (apparently there’s a minimal risk of giving others anthrax from contact, or something). Finally, he was able to go and help, and he came back traumatized. He wouldn’t talk about it; he would just come home and get drunk. Then he’d get up, go back, and do it all over again. Later, he said that it wasn’t the injuries he saw that upset him; all the serious injuries had to be addressed by hospital doctors rather than volunteers. What really traumatized him, however, was the endless line of family members and people who had obviously been there looking for their missing wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, lovers… He saw people who had no reason to hope, but came back every day, looking for their loved ones.
It was horrific.
I didn’t go into Manhattan for about a month, which was unusual. My dad would drive us up to the George Washington Bridge, and then decide to go to Hoboken (New Jersey) instead. There was always an excuse, but I think he just didn’t want my mother or I to see our destroyed city up close.
Eight students at school (out of 800 total students) lost both of their parents on that day. Many more lost one parent, a brother, sister, uncle, or aunt. Every day for months, I expected to look at the skyline and see those towers; but, as the cloud faded and the snow stopped falling, I came to realize that I would never see the city clearly again. I would never look up and orient myself by virtue of those towers; I would never see “home,” as I knew it, again.
Now, years later, I remember what home used to fee like before, and I see it as it is now. New York is a city of defiance, as it always has been. We refuse to change how we live our lives, regardless of the alert color of the day. After 9/11, it’s almost like we have nothing to be afraid of anymore, as if there’s nothing to really lose. But, at the same time, for a while after the towers fell, it seemed like one small mistake could be the end of the world, as if it could be our total unraveling. We all had such tight control over our emotions, that a little slip could mean just losing it in the middle of the day.
So, to respond to the questions of many friends, I’m fine. Today, I’m a bit distracted from life things by thinking of the past, present, and future-but I’m just fine. Sometimes, though, I worry about the 13 year old I babysit, who only remembers wondering how it was snowing in Brooklyn (less than a mile from the towers) during a hot September day-she thought it was a snow day.