Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

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.