Seven Years On

Some days, September 11, 2001 feels like it happened seven years ago. Some days it feels like yesterday. The days when it feels like yesterday are days when something punctures the veneer I’ve put between myself and that day and causes sharp and instant pain. When I tell the story of how my wife and I spent that day, it always comes out chronologically for the first part, and then in random bursts for everything in the afternoon and the days and weeks beyond.

The slide show version of events that plays out in my mind always includes the same images. These are little pieces of the day that are lodged in my memory. They are more vivid for whatever reason. One is what I was wearing. Orange short-sleeve shirt, navy blue Dockers, a blue tie with red and yellow spots, brown belt, brown shoes. One day the following summer I put on the same outfit without thinking about it until I got outside. That day must have been similar to September 11 in terms of weather, and I noticed the brightness of the shirt. I don’t think I wore the same outfit again after that.

I remember those first images we saw when we turned on the TV that morning after hearing vague and conflicting news reports on the public radio station, WNYC, as we prepared to leave for work and school. And I remember immediately thinking we had to get our cameras and stop at the Brooklyn Promenade before getting on the subway. Which we did.

I remember walking west on Clark Street and the first thing we saw was all this paper flying through the air, white sheets of it fluttering against the blue sky. And then we saw the black smoke. I could hear helicopters in the air. When we reached the promenade, I remember the crowd that had gathered, people just staring in disbelief. And the sirens, you could hear them from across the river, echoing in the skyscraper canyons of Lower Manhattan.

I remember leaning on the railing with my camera, shooting the last of the frames of the roll I had in there. I remember the shade of the tree canopy as we stood and watched the smoke pour out of the North Tower. Then the second plane came in, and I remember feeling numb. I could hear people screaming, but it sounded like they were shouting through foam. I remember my wife asking where the plane went, and me responding that it went into the building.

And then I remember this overwhelming feeling of panic, an unreasonable fear that we were somehow a target, out there on the promenade. And then the jets came, and there were more sirens on echoing behind us in Brooklyn, and more sirens across the river. We started walking. At some point we encountered a crazy man preaching about the end of the world, and then we went home.

I remember calling my parents, forgetting the three-hour time difference, and babbling about how were OK, my poor mother having no idea what I was talking about. “Turn on the TV,” I said. And she did, and let out a gasp. I told her I’d call her later. Then I called my office, and as I was talking to one of my coworkers I heard a rumble. Then my wife called out from the other room, “I think the building just fell down.” She was watching TV.

After that, my memories of the day kind of blend together. We spent hours on the couch watching TV. We had to crank shut the casement windows of our apartment when the dust from the first tower’s collapse enveloped our neighborhood, and again when the second tower fell. Later in the afternoon we walked back over to the promenade, arriving just as 7 World Trade Center fell. We stood there for a while watching the smoke billow out of the street canyons across the river, and then as it crossed the East River we scurried home to close the windows again.

I remember at some point one of my wife’s professors stopped by and we all sat and watched TV for a while. Then the professor left, and it was just us. In subsequent days I remember singing songs on the promenade holding candles, and the impromptu memorials that sprung up all along the promenade railing. At the Montague Street promenade entrance there was a huge candle memorial, and the melted wax covered the brick pavers. I remember a neighborhood trip to the little fire house a couple of blocks away, home of Engine 205 and Ladder 118. They lost eight guys on September 11, and both the ladder truck and the engine were destroyed. Here’s a link to a famous photo taken by Aaron McLamb of Ladder 118 crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on September 11. It appeared on the cover of the New York Daily News. To me it’s one of the most powerful photos from that day. We used to see those guys all the time in the grocery stores around our apartment. Then one day they were gone.

For weeks afterward there was the smoke, and worse, the smell. It was this acrid odor of burning rubber, burning plastic, just burning everything. Well into the fall we’d have to close the windows whenever the winds blew from the Northwest. The grocery store near our apartment, a Gristedes, could only do cash transactions for a while because their credit/debit card com link was in an underground vault destroyed when the Trade Center towers collapsed. Eventually the store got it restored to a degree, but if you wanted to use you debit or credit card you had to have your items rung up, and then they’d walk you over to the one machine that worked, at the customer service desk, and you’d ring your transaction through there.

On September 12, I took the Lexington Avenue subway to work, as it was the only subway running to Manhattan from that part of Brooklyn. I remember rolling through the Wall Street and Fulton Street stations, and the platforms were covered with dust and debris and paper – everywhere sheets of paper. People on the train just stared silently out the windows as we crawled through those stations. Near where I worked, in the east concourse leading from 42nd Street into Grand Central Terminal, relatives of victims put up photos of their loved ones with “If you have seen XX, please call this number….”, hoping someone would see a photo and have some information. The photos and messages stayed up for months, even after it became apparent that no bodies were being recovered.

I guess that’s about it for tonight. Memories running thick today. Seven years on … hard to believe. Then again, it was hard to believe seven years ago.