We are just 2 days away from the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001, a fateful day, along with all the images, sounds, and much more, forever engraved in my mind and the minds of many in the Big Apple and around the world.
In the past few weeks leading up to this Sunday, there have been, and will certainly be a plethora of articles, TV specials, interviews, etc., all focused on that day 10 years ago, what led up to that day, what occur ed on that day, and what has changed since. Yet for me, and in fact for many who have a connection to that day in more ways than one, this day remains special in different and unique ways to each one of us.
My recollection of that day has always begun with the initial realization that it was the 10th anniversary of my arrival in the US (I arrived at JFK Airport on Sept. 11, 1991), and as I was ready to tell my new colleagues (it was my second week of full-time work) that little bit of news, I received a short but succinct email from Vivian, who was entering her second week of full time work at Merrill Lynch, at World Financial Center, across the street from the Twin Towers. I distinctly remember her telling me I should rush to a TV and watch the news, as a plane had just struck the World Trade Center. Not being able to actually find a TV in our office in Midtown, I picked up my desk phone and tried to get more information from her, yet in the span of a few minutes, no one was answering at the other end (I later found out they began an evacuation not long after she sent out the email, and made it to safety rather quickly).
Most of the people in our office had rushed into one of our MD's office that had a direct line of sight to the Twin Towers, a few miles to the south of our office, as we watched one of the towers with smoke slowing rising from its upper torso, a second plane slammed into its neighbor, even though it was physically impossible to actually have felt the impact, but every one in that office shuddered and a few let out a gasp.
We spent most of that morning huddled in that office, looking at the burning Twin Towers south of our 18th floor office, and simultaneously watching close-up images on the TV on the wall. It felt surreal, it was surreal.
Eventually, without warning, one of the two towers started to collapse, amidst the gasps in the crowd, almost everyone inhaled hard and bit their lips. We were certainly in uncharted territories.
The rest of that day is somewhat lacking in details in my memory, I remember first being told that Manhattan was closed to traffic in and out of the island, and only in mid-afternoon, was the order changed to allow vehicles out of Manhattan. I remember driving home on the West Side Highway, peering into the rear view mirror at the huge cloud of smoke, driving north there were only a few cars, while emergency vehicles sped south on the other side of the highway towards downtown Manhattan.
Remembering these details brings back a sense of sorrow. The area that the Twin Towers sat were perhaps one of my most familiar surroundings in Manhattan. After all, our high school sits just a few blocks north of what became Ground Zero, and the mall under WTC was one of our favorite hang outs during the high school years. We were all used to the shadow cast by the Towers on our classrooms as we sat.
Much have been written about that day, from noted documentaries to government reports, yet nothing can replace the memories of that day. I had many friends who worked in or near the Twin Towers, and luckily the vast majority of them were accounted for and made it safely home on that day, but one of my high school classmates, along with her uncle, were two of the 2,606 people that perished around the WTC that day.
Despite the political implications that day has since brought, and all the changes countries, governments and our society have had to make as a result of the attacks experienced that day, this was, and will always remain an intensely personal day for every New Yorker, every person who had some degree of connection to that day, and those unique memories will likely remain, and perhaps evolve over time.
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