It Was a Clear Day, Then

I didn't write about September 11th yesterday, on the 5th anniversary, although the media saturation, plus discussions, memoirs and tributes found all over the net did force me to think about what happened that day.

I've been trying to avoid the overly maudlin, or what I call "tragedy porn". It seemed as if there was a sort of diabolical glee in viewing video of the towers being hit again and again, or of CNN running their footage exactly as it unfolded that day.

I think most people will remember where they were and what they were doing on September 11th - for most Americans, the televised images were all they had and the only way they received the news and the story.

As a New Yorker, though, I did have a very different experience that day, so as I've already shed my private tears I'll write my more public thoughts here about September 11th, in no particular order.

It was an absolutely perfect morning - everyone agrees on and remembers that. The reason it surfaces in so many memories is that there are so few days in New York when the weather is that pristine and clear. The day was an anomaly for that reason alone.

The first plane hit a few minutes before I emerged from the subway station at Union Square. Unaware, I walked west on 14th Street towards 5th Avenue on the way to my office. By the time I got to the corner of 5th, there were small knots of people standing there looking southward. That section of 5th affords a perfectly clear sight down to the WTC (and for months afterwards the gap in that section of the skyline was like a blow to my heart). I saw a huge hole in the North Tower. Nobody standing there had really seen what happened, until one man said he'd seen an airplane fly directly into the building. Pilot error? Heart attack? Nobody seemed to know.

As I was crossing 5th I'll never forget seeing one of the first fire engines careening down 5th at 50 miles an hour and cheering the young firefighters on along with the crowd; realizing later that as one of the group of first responders, that truckful of young men are no more.

My office is located on the penthouse floor of a 17 floor building about 2 miles north of Ground Zero. As is natural in a penthouse, there are huge office windows - ours face south, and we have a rooftop terrace with eastern and southern views. There are no other taller buildings facing south, so the view of the WTC from the executive offices on 17 and the terrace were unparalleled.

Having seen through a floor to ceiling office window the second plane hit the South Tower, I can testify that the resulting fireball was so much more enormous than any camera lens or film can record; enormous panels flew off the building with the impact and the billows of black smoke coming out of the bulding were huge.

The entire agency swarmed the terrace all morning and we were there, watching, when the towers collapsed - the first at a little before 10:00 and the second a half hour later - I've never smoked so many cigarettes in such a short time. Many of my colleagues had friends and relatives who worked in the WTC. The mood was somber and frightened. We called local hospitals to donate blood; they'd had a rush of donors already, from others who wanted to help as we did, and so they told us not to come. What we could guess was that the hospitals knew they would have no survivors.

We lost phone service fairly early in the day; since Mr. FH works at night, I knew he wouldn't be awake before noon. Before we lost the phones, I left him a message to turn on the TV, that I was okay, that I would call if I could. The bridges and tunnels out of Manhattan were closed for many hours, so by the time the subway opened up again and I got home that night at 6:30, I was so thankful just to be able to see him. During the course of the late morning I'd been able to reassure my family living elsewhere in the States that I was alright, and he at home had been fielding calls from family in France, Morocco, and Algeria, reassuring them that we were okay.

That became a litany over the next few weeks - making sure everyone was okay.

Even though airspace over Manhattan was closed to commercial traffic, we heard the sounds of fighter planes circling the island all of September 11th and if I remember correctly they flew for at least a week. And I'll never forget the sirens; they were a constant sound all of the 11th and for days afterwards.

When the wind changed a few days later and the smoke began blowing eastward, the weather was still fine enough that all our apartment windows were still open - we live about 15 miles east of Ground Zero. The smell and the lingering smoke are part of the small things that can't adequately be described; the smell lingered in our apartment and the city and was very strong as far north as the Village (roughly a mile and a half north) and lasted until the middle of November.

Despite living here, I've never been to Ground Zero. Never will go, frankly, and I'm adamant about avoiding it. Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I worked briefly on the 93rd floor of the North Tower. I hated working in the building then. I don't believe going to the site now would change anything for me. I don't necessarily have to have an anniversary to remember; I do remember. It doesn't paralyze me but I it has affected me.

But I always remember it didn't happen to me; I'm still here - to write, love, laugh, argue, work, play. There are so many others who cannot say the same. They should not be forgotten.