Eight Years

I've never really told my entire Sept. 11th story, mostly because it's a very long one, and given how fortunate I was to return to my Brooklyn apartment at 4am the following morning, I've never considered it too important to tell. But like everyone in America, whether you were in New York or not, it was a day that shook us all at our core. Ever since that day, I have planned to sit down and write how I witnessed the day unfold: from the conversations on the F train after the first plane hit, to the looks on the faces of my co-workers as they filed out of our building, to the absolutely eerie feeling of walking down Lexington Avenue at around 10pm and seeing not a soul on the sidewalks nor a car on the roads. Someday I will put it all down. But for now, I'd like to share the below photo. I took this outside the CBS building right as the first tower collapsed. I was standing beside about 500 complete strangers watching the big screens on the corner of Central Park. I'm always struck by the look on the face of the girl on her cell phone. I clearly remember a large hush go over the crowd as the building buckled. This girl heard the crowd and turned to the televisions.

2 comments:

OnlyAVision said...

Did you make it in to work that day? I'm trying to remember. My bus got to the Lincoln Tunnel only to find it was closed. (I remember thinking, "They don't CLOSE the Lincoln Tunnel??!" I remember Gurn made it in and was stuck until she finally got a ferry to Weehawken, walked up to my place and stayed there until they started running a few busses so she could go home that night. We watched out my window all day. So surreal. We couldn't get through to anyone on the phone, but we could email/IM people and tell them we were ok.

Chris Campbell said...

I was awaiting the elevator and as the doors opened about 15 people from my office piled off. That moment is an entire story alone. I had a quick chat with my friend Norman, which I'll never forget.