“Dude, your building is on fire.”
So said my roommate as he tried to rile me out of bed, that Tuesday morning. I rolled over and yelled, “Fuck off, I’ll go in when I go in.”
See, I had been laid off from my design firm in a hostile takeover on Friday, September 7, and on 9-11 we were suppose to be cleaning out our desks. Feeling no urgency to make the day easier for the assholes that just bought us out for our clients, I was sleeping in.
“No seriously, my dad just called, your building was hit by a plane.”
This got me out of bed in a shot, a chance to see an aeronautical disaster does not come along every day, and as a historian I wanted to see just one.
This wasn’t technically my building, but where all my clients were. We were in the Henry Miller building over on Williams street. But I had spent quality hours in that building, including an epic eight-hour meeting once with CEOs about the color green. I was sad to see it burning. I never expected it to collapse.
A group of friends and I sat on our roof in Williamsburg, and noticed another plane coming in rather low. My roommate and I shared a common worried glance. And sure enough, that plane found its mark on the second tower. I can still close my eyes and see the fireball appear on the other side.
It was then I knew we were under attack, and began to quietly wonder in a quiet huddle with my roommate that if they were clever enough to do this, were they also clever enough to get biological weapons on the planes too? It was a waiting game for the next two days to find out, wondering if the knots in our stomach were from stress or the onset of some horrific virus.
And of course, NYC and the nation wept. And though I have a photographic memory dating back to catching fireflies when I was 2, the one thing I cannot recall, no matter how I try, is the buildings falling to the ground.
I would only get one call that day, not from my wailing mom, who only knew from our conversation Monday night was that I planned to go there at 9am to pick up my stuff, but from client who wanted to talk about freelancing their projects to completion from my old company. But since they were in WT-1, they were calling to let me know that the meeting had been cancelled.
I replied, which I do remember clearly saying, “Really? Is it because the mother fucking buildings are on the ground? Is it because the buildings are on the ground? My God, the buildings are on the ground.”
Here is a song that was made that day, by The Dakota Smith, that I find captured all our moods as we watch wild eyed, as history unfolded before us:
Banana Full of People
The Dakota Smith
It was like peeling a banana, except it was full of people.
Never forget.
————–
My Top Five Favorite Things Today
1) Watch Britney Spears tragically ruin her career at the MTV Music Awards
http://www.mtv.com/o…
2) The Most Deceptive Sign in LA
http://www.laist.com…
3) 9MM vs. Katana Sword
http://vidbulge.com/…
4) French Prints Show the Year 2000 (1910)
http://reddit.com/go…
5) Perception of World by Americans
http://www.boredstop…
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for sharing your memories. The images are etched in all of our brains from the television, but for those of you who watched it live and knew people inside, I can only reach out with my humanity to send a deep breath and open hands.
“Really? Is it because the mother fucking buildings are on the ground? Is it because the buildings are on the ground? My God, the buildings are on the ground.”
that about says it all. ..
love the map, btw
…the ones most nearly true were those dealing with war, long distance transportation, and communications…or maybe the map warped my perceptions beforehand:}
I’m not a New Yorker, but one of my favorite authors/cartoonists, Art Spiegelman is. What he wrote in his book about September 11th, In the Shadow of No Towers stuck with me – this bit in particular. (I don’t have a copy of his book at hand, so I’m going to pull from its NYT review.)
Spiegelman felts he could never leave New York even when it is the focus of such terrible attacks. I do not completely understand the attachment people get for a place or country, but I think neither did Spiegelman before September 11th, 2001. As for me, I hope I never have to understand such an attachment or be forced to make a choice between staying or fleeing.
bet you never felt luckier to be laid off.
my ex took the kids to the ‘top of the world’ tour at the wtc on 08/24/2001, and we hadnt even developed the film by 9/11.
I was cleaning out a shed on the back of the property where I was living with a friend.
The property is surrounded on three sides by a vineyard of concord grapes, and on that day there happened to be a crew going through not far away, repairing support poles and such preparatory to a late harvest.
I heard the tractors shut off, and didn’t think much of it. Break time or something. Then I heard people screaming.
I came out to see what was wrong. The guy with the radio tried to explain to me, but he was a mess and had forgotten his English and most of his Spanish too. By that time some people had already left, others were crying, and others arguing over what to do.
Eventually everyone went home, and I went inside and turned on the tv. What came on was the scene at the pentagon, which we hadn’t heard about before.
I called my friend at work. He said, “everything will change now.”
Tower 2, 96th floor, Brooklyn Bridge