[gloco]

I just walked into work at 8:40am on the 25th floor of 3 world financial center, a few minutes later, the north tower was hit. I still had a piece of plain bagel in my mouth, quickly spit it out and just stood there in horror watching papers and debris falling out...i never felt so freaked out in my life before. A few hours later as i walked home i saw some burned office paper a few blocks away from my house. I got home and turned on the tv to see the towers fall for the first time.

That really freaked me out, my neighborhood was dead silent except for the passing fire trucks and police cars running through.

 

[Sol_Zhen]

Woah. That's pretty intense.

 

[Duncan]

I was in the business district of London (Canary Wharf) when the news of the first tower being hit came into my meeting... I was just sat there in disbelief... at first it sounded like a tragic accident, all of us were trying to log onto news websites, but all of them were overloaded... time passed, and the news filtered through of the first tower falling, and then... for some strange reason we were all evacuated from the building (the tallest building in London, right near London City Airport)

The level of hysteria was all too apparent, people running, people shouting and screaming... even though London was obviously unaffected by what happened, all of the cell-phone networks were just giving busy tones when you tried to call out... Manic, is the only word I can use to describe it

Although a very different version of events from this side of the Atlantic, hopefully my memories are still insightful

 

[Vertigo-1]

I was waking up for class, going through morning routines...and when I jumped online, Duncan MSNed me saying how sorry he was for us in the U.S. I asked "what for?" and he told me "The World Trade Centers are GONE!" So I flipped on the TV and radios, and sure enough...there was the carnage, or what was left of it by then. It left me shocked for a while...it was as if doomsday had finally arrived.

 

[Duncan]

Quote:

Originally posted by Vertigo-1 ...Duncan MSNed me saying how sorry he was for us in the U.S. I asked "what for?" and he told me "The World Trade Centers are GONE!"...

That was about 4 hours after the event if memory serves me correctly... strangely (although maybe understandably) I can remember almost all of our MSN conversation that day...

 

[kerelybonto]

The first I heard of the attacks was in my 9:15am Russian class, when someone who had caught a couple minutes of news before rushing to class briefly mentioned that a plane had hit one of the towers. None of us thought anything of it, thinking it was a small plane that had accidently run into the building.

Then I got back to the dorm, where everyone had CNN on and their doors open. By that time, the second plane had hit and it was obviously no accident. I sat around and watched the towers collapse, saw the disfigured Pentagon, saw the charred Pennsylvanian field, heard the reports of a car bomb on Capitol Hill, and thought it was all very strange. I went outside and looked across the Potomac, past Rossyln, at the smoke rising from the Pentagon.

Very strangely, living in Washington and attending a school that draws heavily from New York, I don't know of anyone that died in the attacks. One of my friend's brothers had not gone to work at the Trade Center that day, a seemly very common occurrance that makes one wonder how many people in New York regularly skip work. One of our school's professors and her entire family were on Flight 93. I didn't know her. It all seemed very far away, even the smoke spiraling upward across the river.

My birthday ended up being the National Day of Remembrance and Mourning.

kerelybonto

 

[john_jcb]

My son was in Normandy visiting the WWII sites. He said that he was the only American where he was. Everyone was watching the tragic events unfold on TV. He had no idea what was actually happening beyond the obvious as it was all in French. He tried calling his sister, my wife and I unable to get through. He said he sat their stunned as each tower fell. When the people in the cafe finally realized he was American they were very nice and supportive trying to explain what was going on. We have friends that live in Southern France and after we got hold of them they had him stay their for 10 days.

I was standing in front of Management giving the monthly status report for my projects. Someone came into the room and said what had happened. For a time we all crowed around a TV in the lunchroom watching. No one worked much that day and we went home one by one.

 

[mbriant]

I was in my regular restaurant having breakfast with my business partner like we do every day. The first plane had just hit and everyone there was watching the restaurant's televisions. As our waitress was bringing us up to speed on the tragic "accident", the second plane hit. My partner and I spent the morning there watching the rest of the tragedy unfold.

This morning we sat in the same restaurant, watching the anniversary coverage with same waitress and cook. Hard to believe a year has passed.

 

[williamgoody]

I went to the city the previous night for the Yankee game and met a friend of mine at his apt in Battery Park City. The game was rained out so we stayed at the apt and watched movies. The next morning we had breakfast at the Au Bon Pon in the mall under the WTC. At 8:30 we left, He to his job (his office was in the south tower, me to go work out in the NYSC around the corner. No sooner did I lock my locker and hit the bike, which was in front of the window overlooking the towers, when we heard the loud boom of the first plane hitting. Five minutes later we were told to evacuate, as the fire alarm (not related) went off. I went outside and watch the fire and smoke pour out of the north tower. I was looking up when the second explosion happened (I didn't see the plane actualy hit it from my vantage point). Everyone came pouring into the lawn outside of the towers when the police and fire dept showed up, and we were all asked to move across the street and up Broadway. I just kinda stood there and watched when the 1st tower came down, then I ran into a pizza parlor when it got all black. I saw two men coming down the street and I opened the door for them, then it really became pitch black and all you could hear was the loud crash and these piercing whistles. It turned grey and everyone in the pizza parlor left, with me and these two guys standing there just taking it in when we heard that loud rumble again and saw the black cloud reappear. So we took off and ran up broadway with everyone else. I finally found my friend at about 1:00 and the four of us just kind of wandered around the downtown just taking it all in.
I had the pleasure of having my friend as a house guest until he could get back to his apartment. All we did for about 4 days was watch the news, with the exception of going to that Friday vigil in the village.
Fortunately the only other person I personally knew got out with only a broken leg. But I still feel some sense of loss, as I used to manage the Godiva Chocolatier in the underneath mall up until around two months previous to the attacks. I know it's silly but...

I just got back from the city, after having lunch with those two guys, and dinner with my friend.

Gloco, I give you all the credit in the world. Sometimes I still just have to sit there for a minute and just shake my head. even today.

Peace, Love, and Respect for everyone.

 

[HighwayStar]

I guess I didn't post this earlier as I feel a little strange about this. Immensely luckly and perhaps a little guilty. I work on Washington Street three blocks from where the towers stood and my wife worked directly across from the towers at 90 Church Street. We were on vacation both that week and the week prior and had just returned Sunday evening the 9th. Her 6AM shift specifies a 9AM lunch and she would have been right out in the thick of it. I can't even put my feelings into words when I think about if she had had to work that day.

Tuesday morning I was sleeping in and my wife was getting ready for an appointment she had. Hearing news of an aircraft crashing into the WTC on the radio she came running into the bedroom and switched on the television. I sat up, threw on some clothes and could not believe what I was seeing. Especially when speculation was that a small aircraft possibly a Cessna type had impacted the building. I moved out to the the living room and turned it on there as my wife left for her appointment. I sat in shock as the second plane hit and found myself transfixed in front of the television. It was like watching a horror movie but my mind knew this was news, reality, but I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Over the course of the next hour I must have ran downstairs to the street six times to see the plume of smoke pouring into the air, to somehow convince myself what I was seeing was real. To confirm what I was seeing on television was real. Then the first tower fell. You all know the events from there. My wife returned in tears sometime after the second tower fell. We watched well into the night.

My coworkers, one of which is my cousin, all got out alright but had a traumatic time of it. They were in the office when the first tower fell and she relayed having gone to the restroom and (this on the fifth floor of a closed air conditioned building) seeing her footsteps outlined in some kind of dust on the floor in the hall upon returning. They left the building and were hit by the debris cloud generated by the second tower's collapse. She and a couple of others were scooped up by a passing police car and deposited on the West Side where they then began the ordeal of trying to leave the city. My cousin ended up walking up to and across the 59th Street Bridge where she had a family member pick her up. We all worked from home the next couple of weeks, waiting for power and phone service to return. When we did return, my cousin remarked outside the building that her legs were shaking. I can't imagine the fear she must have experienced and could only try and reassure her that she was safe.

We use to stand outside the building and were constantly asked by tourists where the WTC towers were. We'd smile and just point left where they jutted up to the sky in plain view, all they had to do was look up to see them. We used to get a kick out of that. For the next several months we had a direct view of the rescue/recovery operations and endured a smell I can't describe. The fires in the lower levels burned for 100 days.

All I can say is I hope we never see anything like this again. Like my parent's generation who knew exactly what they were doing and where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated, I will never forget the morning of September 11th 2001. I don't think anyone will.

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally posted by williamgoody Gloco, I give you all the credit in the world. Sometimes I still just have to sit there for a minute and just shake my head. even today. Peace, Love, and Respect for everyone.

Thanks, you too! As i was reading your post, i started thinking about the duane reade that was right by the escalators leading outside. As well as the Godiva place on Nassau street. That's the thing i can never forget; the layout of the mall and walking west on Vesey street every morning.

 

[williamgoody]

Gloco, I know what you mean. I use to have so many people I would get together with meet me at the Verizon cellphone kiosk above the Path station. I just can't get over it.
I'll also never forget going to the vigil in the W. Village. We rode the Path in from the Newark train station and we could see the hole in the skyline with the smoke STILL reching the sky, we couldn't get over that, even though we watched on TV. Everyone on the train were all just so sad and looked of despair. There were all the people of different decents, races, going their seperate ways, all with the same feelings of despair. Nobody said a word the entire trip. And the village looked like a warzone with pictures of the missing plastered in all the windows and on all the poles. So sad....

 

[HighwayStar]

Quote:

Originally posted by gloco Thanks, you too! As i was reading your post, i started thinking about the duane reade that was right by the escalators leading outside. As well as the Godiva place on Nassau street. That's the thing i can never forget; the layout of the mall and walking west on Vesey street every morning.

Gluco,

Man, reading your first post, I'm glad you made it out alright. I can't imagine.

And yeah, the mall. I bought a book in Borders and sneakers at the New Balance outlet on Sunday the week before.

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally posted by HighwayStar Gluco, Man, reading your first post, I'm glad you made it out alright. I can't imagine. And yeah, the mall. I bought a book in Borders and sneakers at the New Balance outlet on Sunday the week before.

I'm surprised that so many people made it out that actually worked in both buildings. I still have the whole WTC implanted in my head, so its kinda hard to look at this empty pit and place where everything once stood. Weeks after, i was working on Wall Street and hated every minute of it, it was so depressing being down there and the constant train stopages due to false alarms really drove me nuts.

 

[williamgoody]

Just a random thought but can you imagine the people who work in the reopened Centuty 21 dept store, what they must be going through? The store literally overlooks the site.