September 11, 2001
Image taken from Andrew Sullivan's Times Blog which I grew addicted to in the wake of 9/11.
The thing you need to know about me first and foremost is that I’m a native New Yorker and fiercely proud of it. I used to joke that I’m a New Yorker, not an American, and most of America would freely acknowledge the difference. (Hell, wouldn’t want to claim us for their own.) New York was where I was born, raised, and, except for a few years, where I have been schooled and have worked and lived. It’s where most of my friends and family are to be found, and I think if I lived anywhere else, I’d shrivel up and die.
I was out of state that day five years ago in law school. I remember waking up late-too late for my first class and knowing I’d be late for my second but not wanting to miss it. But even though I was late, there was no one in the classroom when I arrived. Just this line scrawled in chalk on the blackboard:
Due to the tragedy in New York City,
classes have been canceled
I knew classes wouldn’t be canceled for anything less than a “tragedy” that had been catastrophic. I remember running to the school Commons where they had televisions. The room was crowded, and there on the widescreen TV was a picture of the World Trade Center disintegrating before my eyes. Following that my mayor, Rudy Giuliani, was on at a press conference refusing to answer a question about how many had been lost, saying he feared the number was “more than we can bear.” The estimates were running to up to 20 thousand dead-that was how many could be expected to be in those buildings and the complex below that time of day. (The ultimate number, thank God, turned out to be much, much lower - 2,976 were murdered in the attacks that day.) I also heard the Pentagon had been attacked. My mother and aunt who lived in New York City were retired; it was extremely unlikely they’d been hurt, but I wasn’t very rational that day. Another close friend worked in the DC area. I feared for her too. I feared we were at war.
I went straight to a nearby payphone to call my family, my friends in New York City-but no calls were getting through. To my disbelief, I heard that the city was in lockdown: No planes, no trains would be allowed in. In fact, no planes were in the air throughout America. I next went to one of the kiosks that allowed internet access, and finally there I got some reassurance, some contact. My friend in Virginia was safe; her workplace had been evacuated. Another close friend who worked in the Financial District near the World Trade Center was fine. I was still convinced I hadn’t dodged the bullet. I had too many friends and family in NYC.
I was right. I remember the email from my friend Sean: "We’ve Lost One of Our Own".
John Perry, Esq. NYPD
I didn’t know John well. He was more an acquaintance than a friend. Someone I knew from common political/social circles when I had been an active Libertarian. Someone I debated and argued with-and flirted with (he was gorgeous) though I’m not even sure he noticed. Yup, he was a Libertarian, far more hardcore than I, yet a NYPD Police Officer. And a law school graduate with a passionate conviction in civil rights, civil liberties, a believer in non-intervention abroad and drug legalization. Square that circle. (And yes, he’d be appalled at what has been done in the name of the victims of 9/11 since.)
He was retiring from the NYPD. He had worked for years in Internal Affairs and a friend of his told me John had felt burned out and wanted to finally return to the practice of law. He was putting in his retirement papers that day at Police Headquarters when he heard about the World Trade Center and seeing his captain, volunteered to go with him to help. John refused to leave as long as there was anyone to be rescued and died this day, five years ago.
My mother says she could smell the acrid toxic smoke for a week after the attack even with the windows closed, and she lives well uptown. It was weeks before I could go home to New York City for a visit. When I did, there were still flyers everywhere begging for news of the missing. Our local firehouse contingent had been wiped out to a man as I learned when I took a walk and saw an impromptu shrine in front of the firehouse made up of a mass of flowers, candles, and stuffed animals.
Even weeks later when I visited, you could still hear above our skies at times the roar and whine of military jets patrolling and protecting New York City. For months you couldn’t enter office buildings in New York City without ID, see a movie and carry into the theater a shopping bag or knapsack, nor was our subway system back to normal. The city and state was plunged into deep financial troubles and many budgets frozen. That affected many people, including me-I had dreamed of a position at one of the city’s District Attorney offices, but they were hiring few or none in the wake of the attack.
Even two years later, I would see a shot of the World Trade Center on television or a movie and start crying.
I can’t writing this really recapture the shock, the grief, but above all the deep, deep rage I felt on that day and for many months. I remember one of the few things I read that brought a smile to my face that week. A column by Jonah Goldberg, "Rebuild It, Bigger" opined that the best memorial would be to rebuild two towers that could reclaim the title of the world’s tallest, and put antiaircraft guns on the roof top-Goldberg later quoted one of his reader's suggestion we call the new towers “Freedom and Unity, and let the terrorists figure out what the initials stand for.” That captured my feelings exactly.
There isn’t much trace of what we went through and felt in the landscape anymore. Our local synagogue is now surrounded by cinder blocks though. And on High Holy Days there are people outside there with flak jackets and machine guns. And there’s still nothing built on Ground Zero.
But we’ve survived, we’ve coped, and we've gone about our business. I was never prouder of being a New Yorker that day and afterwards. People ran, sure. But they were pretty calm and helped each other and afterwards, and for a long time, the flags came out and were proudly and defiantly displayed.
I even felt like an American. And for a while as if the rest of the country didn’t mind New York City all that much-Robertson and his cohorts notwithstanding. And despite bin Laden and his cohorts…
We're still here.