Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit DiscussionIn a time of the spring, old paths are obscured and new growth begins.
The weekend before the attack, I was working, as usual, for one of New York’s mega-law firms on the 59th floor of the North Tower. I have no particular memory of that weekend. It was uneventful. Probably, at some point, I wandered around alone on one of the four floors that the firm occupied and availed myself of the view. I left work on Monday morning, at about 7:30 AM.
Next day, Tuesday, I got up to go to a 12-step meeting that was a few blocks south of the World Trade Center. The meeting, which was my home group at the time, met from 7:30 to 8:30. Usually, from there, I went to my current job, which was teaching ESL at a private school about a mile north of the Twin Towers. However, my hours had been cut, so I wasn’t going to work. So, my wife argued with me about the meeting, and I ended up not going.
Shortly after 9:00 AM, a friend of my wife’s called her to tell us a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I think she said “a small business jet.” I was concerned but not overly upset. During WWII, a fighter-bomber had hit the Empire State Building. I turned on the TV, and it was immediately obvious that this was no small plane. Shortly after, my wife and I went outside to the nearest street corner, which was line-of-sight to the towers. Along with hundreds of neighbors, we watched the huge plume of smoke for a few minutes, and then we went back inside. On TV I saw the second plane hit, and immediately realized that this was some kind of a terrorist attack. We went out again to watch but nothing much could be seen because of the smoke.
A few minutes later, on TV, I saw the South Tower fall. I refused to believe my eyes. We went out again and I swore I could see the tower hidden in the smoke. We went back inside and saw the North Tower fall. We went back outside. Soon, we were aware of crowds of people walking north away from the site, covered with dust. It took us a moment to realize that these were people fleeing the disaster. At one point my wife and I helped a tall, well-dressed old man, in his seventies, who stumbled and almost fell in front of us. As we caught him, he sobbed: “I feel so guilty!”
The next few hours were a nightmare of police cars, fire trucks, helicopters, etc. The fall of the towers was played over the air over and over again. At one point, my wife and I walked over to the local hospital, St. Vincents, with the idea of giving blood. There was already a huge line. Standing by the emergency room entrance were several dozen teams of paramedics, nurses and doctors, each with a gurney, ready to receive the survivors who never came. I could see the pain and fear on their faces as they stood there with those empty gurneys. We went home after awhile.
In the late afternoon, I determined to volunteer to help. I walked along the West Side Highway along with a bunch of construction workers who had been working on a building site in mid-town. We went through several lines of police to reach a location about a quarter mile north of WTC 7, which was still in flames. At that point, there were thousands of people milling around: local residents, people like myself who wanted to help and construction workers, paramedics, etc., who had genuinely useful skills.
After awhile, it was evident to me that there was nothing I could do personally. I watched WTC 7 being slowly engulfed in flames. It was obvious it was going to fall soon. I’m not a morbid type, so I walked home slowly as it got dark. I passed through Greenwich Village as I walked. The bars were full, but I was amazed that some people seemed to be relatively calm. As I walked though my neighborhood, Chelsea, people were already setting up the little shrines with candles that were all over the City for the next few months.
At home, my wife watched the videos of the towers falling and the streets filled with debris over and over. After awhile, I stopped watching. We eventually fell asleep at some point early in the morning. It was a bad day: a very bad day.




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September 11th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Doesn’t anyone want to share their own memories?
David
September 11th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Pretty much, I saw it on TV, I called extended family to see that those in NYC were OK, I hugged my kid, I thought, “Oh, shit.” Other than that, I think six years of wallowing in 9-11 memories has been enough, at least for me. You asked.
September 11th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
No. I was in the Middle East teaching ESL. I was coming home from visiting my friends in a refugee camp and saw it minutes after it happened on CNN at a barbershop. I went to the internet cafe to email my family but they called me on my mobile as I was composing the email. I saw three more Americans I thought were out of town who were also emailing. Another friend who lived out of town came into the capital and let herself into my apartment with the spare key, then we walked around a little bit at night, getting the feel of the “Arab street”. Arafat was on TV donating blood he said for the people in New York. They showed some dancing in the streets in the West Bank, then they showed Arafat with the tubes in his arms. Blood has very big mojo over there. No more dancing. The next morning people kept inviting me into their shops where they had CNN going pretty much full time. I would read the crawl for twenty minutes as they said how sorry they were about New York as if I lived there or something, then had their kids fetch tea for me, then I would move on.
I’m tired of the whole thing.
So where were you when Kennedy was shot?
September 12th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
From Iroquois:
“I’m tired of the whole thing.”
Sorry if you are, but many are not, especially while Bush’s war, that he started with 9/11 as an excuse still rages. Maybe after the US troops get out of Iraq, maybe after the bullshit stops, we can start the fundamental healing.
David
September 12th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
You go right ahead, then, RED DAVE, let me know how that works out for you.
The Palestinians have got their martyrology down to an art form with their intifadas. New martyrs every week, so the public never gets tired of the same old, same old. We definitely need a new terrorist attack if we’re going to maintain the fevered pitch necessary to prolong the Iraq war and the accompanying salary continuation plan for Halliburton et al.
In the meantime I’m going back to the business of the nation’s fundamental healing–for the JFK assassination.