September 14, 2001

Follows is a somewhat long and detailed account of my experience. In brief, I am well though I have seen horrors. Life will go on, faster for some than for others. May we have the strength to love more than to hate. 

Also, Thursday [9/13] I was rushed out of an interview by the staff of Kelly Services as the building next door, Grand Central Station, had received a bomb threat. We rushed frantically down the elevator, across the street, and ran about 12 blocks before stopping. Then I had lunch at a quiet cafe.
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Wednesday, September 12, 2001

I smell it. I reek of it. I itch of it. The smoke of 200 plus stories of collapsed, exploded, and burnt building. The ash of concrete, steel, and things I'd rather not put words to. Being in New York during these trying times has been a heavy experience. I don't think it would add anything to relay to you any facts or figures. Instead, I send you news that I am well, so fortunate to be alive and that I am watching the reports rather than on them, and to tell you my human story of the Day.

I came to New York City, the city that never sleeps, to be a part of it. I came looking for work. I came for a week. I found one day of wonder and two of horror. I arrived safely Sunday night, made friends with a flight attendant and we even traded numbers to stay in contact.

Monday, I went to a staffing agency where I stayed most of the day, on the verge of being interviewed for positions or being placed into positions. I applied to 20 or so more jobs online and called 10's of others. It was a good beginning to the week. I spent the evening chatting with my German hostel-mates.

I woke up around 9:00am or so Tuesday, a Black Tuesday, only yesterday! I had an appointment at another staffing agency to go to and an interview with Kaplan Testing Services in the evening. On my way downstairs, I passed a crowd around the TV. Some planes had crashed into the twin towers, they were smoking. They thought it was a terrorist attack.

Outside, the subway was closed, the trains not running. I got a free pass for "blocked service" and took a bus packed so tightly I really got to know the other riders. The driver told me he wasn't going to the end of the route, so I figured I'd just walk the rest of the way. We discussed the terrorism en route. Nothing could prepare me for what was next.

The bus stopped at Times Square at around 10:30, and I entered a shocked crowd of people watching those two large television screens. Then I saw the crash, the explosion, the collapse. It was so horrible, so surreal, the sky was such a perfect shade of blue. Yet, somewhere on the horizon, behind the buildings, there was smoke covering a massive rubble.

A man from a news crew said it seemed to be the work of bin Laden. I stood and watched the screens for a long time. Absorbing the coverage, shuddering at the enormity of the thing, still not quite getting it. I thought only the top floors had collapsed. The young Brooklyn DA next to me corrected me and the thing became only that much more worse.

I wanted to buy a camera to record my experience. To record history. What else was there to do but remember? I found a Radio Shack a block over, came back, took pictures of the crowds, the monitors, and began my dazed walk towards the staffing agency I had been at yesterday. They had free internet. I wanted to know what was happening. I couldn't stand still any longer. 

People were everywhere on the streets going in every direction. The cell phones were out. Some said they were still receiving calls. I waited in line for a pay phone and called my mom at work. They said she was at home with the rest of the family. I assured her I was okay.

The next streets over gave me my first glimpse of what I had previously seen only on monitors. My eyes on 42nd street looking south saw a mostly vacant street with a background of clouds that were not clouds. There it was. The disaster before my eyes. It looked just like a large fire. I took a picture. At the next street I took another picture. 

You might be asking what's going through my head? I can only tell you what I remember-- and that is that I wanted to remember what I saw and to find out what I was seeing. In retrospect I was shocked and confused. I walked to the building, 420 Lexington, sweating and straining over my shoulder case which was growing heavier every moment. 

A woman with powdered hair passed me. 'What an odd fashion', I thought. I watched her as she passed, wondering what that powder was. Then I saw 200 stories of soot and ash and grief and despair covering the back of her body. There it was. History in the form of a business woman.

I am not trying to rationalize this, I see it both ways. I saw her there as a person and as a symbol. Everything that day symbolized history to me. This letter is my experience of that history.

The staffing building was closed, not letting me in. I didn't understand why they wouldn't let me up. I just wanted to go to the staffing agency. It really hadn't sunk in yet. 

I don't know what time it was then. I was getting hungry but most of the restaurants were closed. I stopped by Kelly Staffing a few blocks north, for some reason I forget, to tell them I had come in, wondering if they were still working. They weren't.

And I just wanted to go home. I tried checking my voice mail at every pay phone I saw. They just weren't working. I walked north a few blocks till I found a bus stop. I waited. Buses kept coming, full, not stopping. I walked south. I walked back west looking for a different busline. I saw a firetruck going the wrong way on a mostly-empty one-way street. I met a guy who used to work in the World Trade Center who had just been transferred to midtown today. He couldn't contact anyone. I met a man who told me a story of a man whose friend called him from the World Trade Center to tell him a plane had just crashed into it. The man didn't believe him. He couldn't see a gaping hole in that American icon. He couldn't see the flames, smell the smoke, or hear the screams. His friend, who knows where he is? I heard a guy explaining the story to a friend on the street. "They shot the World Trade Center with missiles." I turned and corrected him 'planes'. He said they were missiles disguised as planes. In pain at the severe denial of this poor man, I cried out to him "they were passenger planes, commercial aircraft, people were on them!" and I turned and kept walking. I am sure my words fell on deaf ears. I was waiting for the northbound bus, the only transportation working. It was nearing 5pm and I did not know how it was so late, but I was very hungry and tired. I watched bus after bus pass by, not in service. A preacher on the corner tells me to draw near to Jesus. I wanted to slug him for exploiting this tragedy for his own religious agenda. I kept silent. My parents called, maybe I called them, and for $1/minute, we had a long conversation just to talk, and be okay. I took a cab north. I needed people, so I went to JTS. I listened to the radio. I became an expert on all the current opinions on the news, educating my cabbie who had just begun service. Two buildings were down, we don't know who did it, if there are any survivors, they weren't in the buildings and other facts. At JTS, I found a friend's father and then the friend. I was exhausted. He gave me cookies and I checked the news online. The New York Times webpage was just one story. I found another friend, and spent the day recovering and watching minute after minute of coverage, repetition, stories, and more footage.

We went out to the 15th floor at Barnard to see the smoke. Over 100 blocks away you could see it, a terrible aerosol on the horizon. We entered a church for a vigil, found a friend from Israel and went to an interfaith vigil at Bnei Jeshurun. On the way back, I became very "perky", as if everything were behind me. Was I in denial or was I just tired to the intensity of the emotion of the day. Was that all yesterday? It becomes hard to remember. We stayed up, glued to the screen, eager to learn more, to understand what had happened and how. Four flights hijacked, rerouted, crashed, and no on did anything! Impossible! Someone must have known. Was there a conspiracy? I called everyone I knew. I had a horrible headache and slept. 

The next day, I watched more TV, heard more of the human stories, of the politics, of the theories, allegations, accusations, and sensationalizations. I checked out of my hostel, said goodbye to my German friends and moved into my friend's spare bedroom. I needed space. I needed people. I needed friends. I called Kelly, of course they were closed and on a skeleton crew. They and the rest of the world hope to be back on track tomorrow. But we all know, we are on a different track. We do not live in the same world. I made an appointment.

I ate and slept and chatted and went out and ate and reek of smoke. The wind has shifted today. What was before on the horizon is now a burning building, a campfire, cinders, a respiratory irritant, a tragedy in the air. I couldn't breath it. I didn't want to breath it and don't want to. We have closed all the windows. We are checking emails and calling friends and going out and making plans, but the TV is always on.

Some people tell amazing stories. There is a huge government conspiracy. A man in the tower survived the crash. The targets were much bigger and the plan more massive than was actually occurred. A woman walked 50 blocks in heels to get home. Others walked miles in their business suits in the hot sun. What does one believe? Another building has fallen. That makes three. A fourth is falling here. And we watched the screams and dust and falling concrete and hear the stories. That we know.

Everyone is touched in there own way. My story is nothing. I'm just another guy who wandered around and watched TV. I laughed at President Bush every time he came on TV, criticized the media for every idiotic statement and use of air time it made. What else can I do? We are helpless to change history. All we can do is picked up the pieces and promote peace. How good and how pleasant to dwell together as brothers. If only we would be brothers in love and not in hate. How do we confront such hatred? Do we turn the other cheek or blow its brains out? I do not believe in God. I do not believe in divine judgment or retribution. I believe that we must make this world safe together. I believe we are liable for our own actions and have an interest in the state of our fellows. The world is in our hands to fix it and make it whole.

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Here's some 9/11 pictures I took.

911-1-TS
911-2-TS_lookup
911-3-TS_signs
911-4-TS_signs
911-5-TS_signs
911-6-TS_camera
911-7-TS_signs
911-8-TS_signs
911-9-empty_streets
911-10-dusty_woman
911-11-empty_streets
911-13-closed_mta
911-12-chrysler
911-14-streets_dust
911-15-bomb_scare