In the summer of 2000 I took this picture and put it on my front page. It is the bottom of a tubular bridge that connected World Trade Center Tower 7 to the main complex across the street.
It's gone now.

A year after I took the picture above, the corporation that I work for decided that it was time for me to be promoted. With no positions open in my current unit, they decided that the only way to move up would be to move to another one of our client units. To ensure that this was a good choice, I was to train for a week under the supervision of the director of one of our units in the World Trade Center. I was going to be working from September 10th through September 14th at WTC #7 on the top floor.

That monday, I reported to WTC#7 at 8am in a new suit. During the day I had a few opportunities to take a break and enjoy the view. From the 45th floor I took several pictures.

As I took these pictures I felt like a complete tourist. I thought, "Why am I taking these? I can see all of this anytime I want. Any day of the week."
That was September 10th.

I worked a long day that Monday, and the director there asked me to come in at 10:00 am instead of 8:00 am on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning I got up early and got ready for another day of training at the WTC. I got dressed in another new suit and headed to the train station. Given the time my commute took the day before, I figured I had left myself enough time to stop and get breakfast before I reported to work. The downtown E Train stopped at about 9:15 just north of the West 4th stop. I figured it wasn't a big deal. Delays happened all the time. After about five minutes, the announcer came on the speakers saying that there was a delay, and to please be patient. After about ten minutes, he came on to say that there was an accident ahead and that all the trains were blocked up. This still didn't seem all that irregular. I just figured, "broken down train ahead," which was common enough. Despite being somewhat irritated at the delay, I figured I still had plenty of time to get to work, though I might have to resort to getting a can of Nutrament, rather than pancakes at a diner. The train sat, delayed, for thirty minutes. At this point I was pretty pissed off, as I now had 15 minutes left to get to work, and would definitely have to get off the train at West 4th and take a cab the rest of the way, and even then, I would probably have to call them at the WTC to tell them I was running late because of the train, which seemed like such a weak excuse.

The train FINALLY pulled into the station at 9:45 and I hoofed it to the surface. I only had about five dollars cash, which wasn't going to cover the cab. I walked two stores down from the station, where I got money from an ATM at a grocery. The ATM had a "Smiley Face" icon doing a cartwheel to pass the time while the transaction was processing. This seemed contradictory to the two dollar fee that the machine charged per transaction. While the machine was churning, I tried to call the director down at WTC#7 to tell her I was running late. The call wasn't going through. This also didn't seem all that unusual. The machine gave me my cash and I started walking towards the street to catch a cab. I saw hundreds of people lining the street, facing south on 6th avenue. Even still, I thought it was all the people from the delayed train, scrambling to get a cab.

Then I looked down the street and I saw this.

Somehow it didn't seem real. And if it was real, then surely this would be repairable damage. The severity of the situation had still not sunk in. I ran into some of the people who I had worked with the day before, as I was walking downtown, still instinctively "reporting to work". They told me that everyone evacuated Building 7 when they heard the first plane hit. There were no announcements made on the intercom. They just left. They were all safe. About 5 minutes after I met up with them, Tower 1 fell. I didn't see it happen. I just saw the reaction on the people who saw it go. By the time I looked, all that was left was a huge cloud of dust and smoke next to the other tower. This had an immediate effect on my colleagues and they covered their mouths as tears burst forth from their eyes. After a few minutes the crowd let out another gasp as Tower 2 started to crumble. An old black man with a bicycle walked uptown through the crowd, facing away from the towers as he screamed, "I CAN'T BEAR TO LOOK!" I watched them burn. Then I watched them fall. It didn't seem real. Watching a mountain of dark grey cement cascading in every direction, I still had no idea how to feel. The only thing I was certain of, was that someone had done this intentionally. They had only done minor damage the last time. This time the bad guys had won.

I walked uptown. The trains weren't running at the West 4th station. I kept walking uptown, hoping that one of the stations farther up would be open. I kept trying to call my parents, but my cell phone wouldn't work. Every pay phone seemed to have a line of 20 people waiting to make calls, and I didn't have any quarters, so I kept walking. My parents had been going through a great deal of stress with my Grandmother's illness and my Mother was driving between Virginia and Kentucky picking up my Grandmother when it happened. By about noon, my cell phone, like almost everyone else's, was still dead. I decided that my parents NEEDED to know what was going on, since they knew I was supposed to work at the World Trade Center all week, and were surely freaking out. I was at Penn Station at this point, and I went down to see if the train was running, which, of course, it was not. I got quarters from the token booth and found a payphone that was not being used. As soon as I put in a quarter, a policeman yelled at me to hang up and  get out of the station. I kept trying to get a cab home, but they would ask me where I was going, and I would reply, "The Bronx," and they would just laugh at me and drive away. I stood in line for 30 minutes to get a payphone. The front of the payphone had instructions for dialing long distance, but it wouldn't connect long distance calls. I called one of my friends in town and she called my parents for me.

I continued walking uptown. The mood was quiet and somber as the dark cloud hung over Manhattan like some ominous figure, ruining the otherwise cloudless sky. I walked all the way to 96th street before a bus passed that wasn't filled to capacity. The bus carried me to 125th street, where everyone was dropped off to cross the 3rd Avenue Bridge into The Bronx. Even in The Bronx, the cabs would run right by me with no passengers. I finally caught a cab at 140th street, having walked about 110 blocks in business shoes and a three piece suit and starting to feel the sunburn on my face.

When I arrived home at about 5:30, I had about a dozen messages on my answering machine and my cell phone's voicemail. By the time I turned on the TV, Building #7 had fallen. As I called everyone back, I looked through the pictures I had taken just the day before. Though I did not personally know any of the victims of the attack, I felt like I had lost someone. I still don't know how to feel. I'm sure that I'm not the same person I was a week and a half ago. The question is, "Do I like the person I am now?"

To all the survivors of this tragedy,
Be Strong
Be Hopeful
Be Well
Be At Peace

Do Not Dishonor the Dead By Becoming Racists

Do Not Wait Until Tomorrow To Do Something Good For Others And For Yourself.

negativepositive
Sept 22, 2001