It started out as a beautiful day in early September 2001. The sun was shining as I stepped out of my Upper West Side apartment and walked the two blocks to the 2/3 subway station. Once on the platform, I followed my routine of walking from the subway entrance at the back of the train, all the way down the length of the platform to the front of the train. I stopped in front of the pillar that served as a landmark for where the third door on the first car would land when the train stopped. Some days I might miss the train while rushing down the platform to reach that specific door; other days I would compromise and jump in a middle car to get on my way. I didn’t compromise that day; I didn’t miss a train. I stood on the platform and waited until the train pulled into the 72nd Street station, and the third door on the first car opened just in front of me so I could get on board.
The music on my MP3 player – the “brick” I tucked into my bag each day, loaded with music – blared in my ears. I read my book on the half-hour train ride to lower Manhattan. At Chambers Street, I got off the 2/3 train and transferred to the 1. In the first car, this maneuver was a bit tricky, but worth it to arrive right at the station exit. The first car stops under the stairs to the Chambers Street station. To deter passengers, a steel railing ran along the center of the narrowed platform. I was among many seasoned commuters who braved the situation every morning. We got off the 2/3 train, dipped under the railing, and got on to the 1 train. For me, I was just going one stop to the Cortlandt Street station, which came out in the concourse level of the World Trade Center. This is where things started to get different.
Taken Out of Service
As we approached Chambers Street, I made my way to the door. Music playing from the brick I was carrying in my bag, I got off the train, dipped through the railing, and over to the other side of the platform where the 1 train was waiting at the platform. We got on, then an announcement came on that said the train was going out of service, and to get back on the 2/3 train. We all got off the train, dipped through the railing, and back on the 2/3 train. I couldn’t hear the announcement over my music, but things didn’t yet seem out of the ordinary. After stalling for a minute, another announcement said the 1 train would continue, so we all made our way back to the local train. The train pulled out of the station. By the time I emerged from the Cortlandt Street station into the concourse level of the World Trade Center, I realized the world had changed.
Once the train stopped and the doors opened, I was just across from the exit stairs. We spilled out of the train. As I climbed the stairs, my cell phone rang. My husband desperately asked, “Where are you?” It seemed odd, but as I responded that I had just gotten off the train, I noticed that the station was empty. The lighting seemed dimmer than usual – it was emergency lighting – and as I looked out into the concourse that was always teeming with commuters, I saw that it was empty; shops were closed with the gates down. Things instantly seemed off.
A Moment Before the Next Round of Chaos
“A plane crashed into the World Trade Center,” my husband said. I responded that I would call him back when I got to the office or somewhere safe. I worked across the street from the World Trade Center. I had no further details than that an airplane had hit one of the buildings. I thought it must be a small plane. But I knew that jet fuel was explosive, and had to take precaution. As I exited the building at the plaza, there was office refuse all over, everywhere. Papers, ceiling tiles, pieces of desk, some recognizable, other objects already shredded beyond what could be identified. It was an unimaginable amount of debris.
I decided at that point to just get out, and get across the street. I decided not to turn around to look until I was at least across the street – an illusion of safety. As I approached the row of planters that divided the plaza from Greenwich Street, I saw a young couple standing and staring up at the smoking hole in the tower. I yelled, “keep going, get out of here,” as I followed my own orders. The couple turned and took off across the street. That’s when I noticed cars driven up on the sidewalk and crashed into light posts, garbage cans, or any other sidewalk objects.
Once across the street, I turned around a looked up. I took a breath. Charcoal gray smoke streamed out of the building, into the cloudless blue sky. After that brief pause, I continued to the corner. Just as I turned onto Cortlandt Street, the second plane hit. It was louder than imaginable. I started running and screaming. I couldn’t hear my own scream. I could hear and feel pieces of shrapnel flying by me. I almost missed the entrance to my office building, and ducked into the archway into some degree of safety. Once inside, I boarded the elevator and pushed the button for the seventh floor.
Coming Up With a Plan
In the reception area there was a huddle of people from my office. I must have asked what the plan was. One of the senior members of the startup where I worked said, “We will wait here until they tell us what to do.”
I took a breath. Through clenched teeth, hands tightened into fists, I said, “They don’t want us to stay here, they want us out of the way,” I continued, “I am going in the conference room to call my husband and my father, and then I’m leaving.” I made arrangements to meet my husband at my father’s office in Herald Square, about the half-way point to home. When I left the conference room, the huddle in reception started walking to the stairwell to leave the building.
On the street, I grouped with my department manager – who was nearly blind – and another coworker from my department. While I lived on the West side, and regularly biked along the Hudson River down to the World Trade Center, we walked East to avoid the building, emergency crews, and danger. We were deep in the lower East side when we stopped at a diner to rest a minute. My colleague, Mike, and I were on the street in front of the diner when the first tower fell. We could see it happen, but were out of the wake of the dust cloud. Realizing the significance of the moment, I gripped Mike’s arm as I watched in horror.
We continued on our way. Around 14th Street as we cut West, we saw the people who succumbed to the dust cloud. Most were walking at a brisk pace. They were coated in a gray dust. There was little expression beyond desperation, dead stares, just an urgency to put distance between themselves and what would become known as Ground Zero. Another layer of horror set in.
I made it to my father’s office, where my husband was waiting. We spent a few minutes discussing the events, the plans, and drinking water. My husband and I set out to make it the rest of the way home. I tried to check email to find out what was going on with the company where I worked, and news from any coworkers. The servers were down. No email, no website to log into. It was days before any of that came back online.
It was months before we were able to return to those offices on Cortlandt Street. At first the workforce was disbursed in different offices and people’s homes. I had a fat DSL so I was able to take in a couple coworkers for a few days until office space was set up. Work continued, but with a numbness as this new reality settled in.
Twenty-Five Years to Look Back
It wasn’t until the Cortlandt Street station was restored and put back into service 17 years later that I realized I might have been on the last 1 train through the station. No longer living in New York, I saw video someone took from inside a train as it pulled into the station. It looked the same as it had. The tiles were the same, the signage. There were no changes made to the original station.
Later that year I was briefly in New York. I met a friend for lunch in that area. I wasn’t prepared for the feelings I experienced as I got on the platform. It wasn’t at 72nd Street, it was the Times Square station, but instinctively I knew where to stand on the platform like I had just been there the day before. At Chambers Street I made the same transfer. Pulling into Cortlandt Street Station, I was struck by how familiar, and how foreign, the scenery felt. The train stopped, the exit stairs were right across from me. What was strikingly different was that when I reached the top of the stairs I wasn’t in the concourse level of the World Trade Center. I was standing on the street. I was right at the memorial, fully finished. The last time I had seen it, it was the raw bathtub busy with construction workers operating heavy equipment to shore up the foundation and start building the memorial.
It is so hard to believe it was 25 years ago. It seems like longer, a distant memory, yet some parts burn fresh in my mind. Thoughts come back to me. When wildfires were burning in Canada a few years ago, the smell of the smoke triggered memories of what lower Manhattan smelled like for months after the attack.
As we reach the 25 year mark, I am surprised to see diminished compassion for 9/11. It’s in the past for so many people I talk to. The message the terrorists sent, that was received, may be dissolving. We can’t let that happen. It’s important to continue working to make sure this doesn’t happen again. It’s equally important to mediate the situations that made 9/11 happen, and try to resolve conflict, animosity, and unresolved issues so people don’t feel the need to resort to such measures. We need to remember 9/11 and other events, the ones the public knows about, and the ones the Intelligence Community is able to keep confined to windowless offices and covert exchanges. In this long memory, we can have hope that nobody will have to go through an experience like 9/11 in the future.
