Where were you 22 Yrs ago Today + Football
Mates,
While many of us can tell you where they were when 9/11 happened, it has now been 22 yrs since that attack. So tragic. So much has changed. Many of you knew someone directly affected by the attack, some of you were even there. And at this point, many were not old enough to remember the attack or even born yet. The years go by.
Back in the day I was in law enforcement and we played NYPD and FDNY in football every year. Great competition, but also some great camaraderie with opposing teams. So much in common, and the intensity of the profession and the bonding made those games very special. Some great stories from the day. Indeed, when we visited NY to play the teams we were treated like royalty and tourists at the same time. I have a vivid memory of visiting the towers just a few years before the attacks.
But the truly sad part was that nearly three dozen of the guys we played against on those two teams perished in the 9/11 attack. It was bad enough if we lost one guy to a shooting or some other calamity, but to lose 3 dozen to an attack in a single day was a scale we'd never dealt with. Brutal.
In 2003 when we played the NY teams we had a bag piper play 'Amazing Grace' before the games to honor the fallen. Not a dry eye in the stadium. All these years later I remember it well.
So, where were you when it happened? What do you remember of that day?
Tough day for many families. Blessings to them.
XM
September 12th, 2023 at 9:18 AM ^
I read your experience of that morning and thought "wow, mine was very similar." I believe you are correct. We probably were walking down the same street at the same time. It's amazing how many people we come in contact with or pass by during our daily lives. Some we interact with and most we don't. Each one of those people has their own stories and experiences. Your account is a reminder that the world can be a small place at times. Thank you for responding.
September 12th, 2023 at 12:04 AM ^
I had just moved in to my new house over Labor Day. I got up early to beat LA traffic on my new route from Redondo to Malibu. The radio station I listened to would normally re-run Howard Stern’s show. But on that day he ran long, reporting on the scene from New York. The radio stayed with his live broadcast. I started listening at 6AM pacific, or 9 eastern. I was still a bit sleepy, but I gradually figured out what was happening.
Based on the timeline, my memory is fuzzy on this, I must’ve heard him mention the 2nd tower being hit. He instantly changed from wondering what was going on to deciding we were being attacked.
About 40 minutes later, I reached work. Instead of going straight to my office, I went to the visitor lobby that had CNN on a TV. I watched their coverage for a half hour, just in a daze.
I remember discussing the attack with my boss. By that time, we had learned that the planes had been headed to LA. His wife worked in one of the few high rises in LA. We thought LA might be a target. It was only later that we figured out they chose those routes because the planes would be full of jet fuel. He was legitimately terrified, and rightfully so. We were all just so unsure of what was happening and what was going to happen next.
I remember hearing how 50,000 people worked in the Towers. When they collapsed, we were sure that tens of thousands of people had died. ~3,000 people losing their lives is tragic, but it could have been even worse.
September 12th, 2023 at 12:18 AM ^
Lived in the SF Bay Area. My son was less than a month old and started crying and it was my turn to get him. I was walking around the nursery with him on my shoulder trying to get him settled back down. The clock radio alarm eventually came on from our bedroom and I heard the news.
September 12th, 2023 at 12:45 AM ^
That day I was at work. Remember driving in, getting settled and hearing that a plane hit the first tower. Remember thinking "has to be a joke". From there I was scrambling for information and then went to the first floor cafeteria to watch the news. Many other coworkers had the same idea. Down there watched live as planes hit the second tower and the Pentagon. Only focused on the news the remainder of the day as well as the following day. Had also resolved that if I were needed in any capacity I'd go. Hearing the FAA shut down airspace over the US was surreal.
It's one of the few times in my life I've been shaken to the core. Enough that even today it is still a little raw.
September 12th, 2023 at 12:51 AM ^
I was in my second year of graduate school at UM. I lived in an apartment on Hill Street and woke up late for a class on North Campus. While I was getting ready to leave, a good friend from undergrad called me from Chicago and told me to turn on the TV, where I saw the news coverage in the aftermath of the first plane. Then…the second plane hit. Stunned silence from the news people. I watched the coverage in shock until after the towers collapsed. Then, I went to one of my later classes, but I’m not sure why. I just remember the feeling of wanting to do something “normal.” I was surprised that almost the entire class was there, but all the prof did was turn on the TV, and we watched more news coverage for the whole hour. Then, I drove back to my apartment and waited for my roommate to get home. I still vividly remember the dreamlike (or nightmare like) feeling of that day, the rest of that week, and then the weekend when all of the college/NFL games were cancelled. Also, walking around outside and not seeing any planes/contrails in the air. You don’t think about how strange that is until it stopped.
September 13th, 2023 at 6:19 AM ^
I was working at Detroit Metro Airport at the time. You are exactly right about the eerie silence. For an entire week you could walk out onto the ramp and not hear a sound, no aircraft engines, no tugs, no trucks, nothing, no movement whatsoever. I've never experienced that before or since.
September 12th, 2023 at 1:28 AM ^
I was about 60 minutes outside NYC, driving to an early lunch meeting with a friend/colleague on Floor 108 of the North Tower. We'd originally been scheduled to meet in his office at 8 am for a breakfast about one of the companies his investment group wanted to take over with my help (long story, not worth recounting).
Based on our change in plans, he was one of the few in his company that survived because he delayed driving in from Jersey that morning. If you go to the memorial, you can read all the names of the guys I knew (and liked) who were on Floors 107 and 108. About 25+ died. See Cantor Fitzgerald. See Weatherly also.
When I heard about it on my car's news radio, I first thought it was a hoax. After realizing it wasn't, I tried calling my wife back home to see if she knew anything more, but no cell calls were going through (they were blocked, reportedly). Also tried calling my mother who still lived in Brooklyn at the time to make sure she was home safe. No contact was made. Phones dead.
Turned around and drove straight home to both my sons' New England schools. Walked into both their classes (with zero objections from the staff) to hug them both, show them that I was okay. They both knew my morning destination and were watching "one of Dad's places" collapse into rubble on the school TVs. "My Daddy went there this morning to meet his friends". Teachers looked at me as if I was a ghost. Yeah, I hugged both boys. Went home thereafter, hugged the wife and then tried calling the wives I knew of my NYC colleagues: achingly hard phone calls. Bad day, bad week, all bad news.
I proposed to my wife at the subway stop at the Trade Center complex. Was married at the Vista Hotel (WTC 3). Rehearsal dinner at Windows On The World Restaurant. First night of honeymoon at that Vista Hotel. All of that is gone now.
I visited the site with the bride about 5 years ago. Read the names, looked for the various locales of our memories. Still sad about all that was lost that day.
Merde.
September 12th, 2023 at 2:00 AM ^
I'd recently moved to DC area from Manhattan in late 2000, having visited the Windows of the World restaurant at the top of the twin towers the last week before I moved.
So a few months later, living in Alexandria, VA at the time, I took the metro to K Street as I always did, working for the NASD, now FINRA. The metro always stopped at the Pentagon station on the way. Conductor says "Due to national security, the metro rail will not be stopping at the Pentagon." I found that quite odd and perked up. I asked an old lady near me and she said "Haven't you heard? An airliner smashed into the World Trade Center."
Highly alarming, but what did that have to do with the Pentagon I thought? Are we at war? So the metro always emerges from underground as it passes the Pentagon station, with Arlington Cemetery as the next stop. As we surfaced, the entire sky, and I mean the entirety of it, was smoke. I had never, ever seen a plume of smoke like that in my life. Only minutes before, the Pentagon was struck.
The metro continued on, got me to K Street, where I walked to the office only to find 20 people in the lobby staring at a tv screen showing the twin towers ablaze. The receptionist filled me in on the rest. I thought we were at war. That evening, when I learned it was terrorism, I realized warfare would never be the same again.
Two days later, a fellow Michigan grad friend called to inform me that my good friend Michael Baksh died in the towers. His first day on the job... Young guy in his late 20's with a wife and two children. I think of him and his family often and all of the things I've had the good fortune to enjoy in life that my poor friend was senselessly robbed of.
September 12th, 2023 at 2:01 AM ^
My wife and I both worked in DC at the time, but I had a doctor’s appointment on the DC-Chevy Chase line that morning. While I was getting blood work done, someone came in to say a plane had flown into the WTC. I assumed it was one of the tourist planes that had come close to the WTC by accident in the recent past. When my appointment was over, I walked across the street where there was a Starbucks so i could get some coffee and something to eat - I had fasted for the appointment - and decide whether to go into the office late or take advantage of the beautiful weather and hit the links. That’s when I really learned what was up and that made my decision easy - not going to the office or going golfing - head home and try to get a hold of my wife.
Meanwhile, phones were done, so there was no way to communicate with my wife who was in DOT’s HQ building. After the first plane hit, the senior lawyers went up to the General Counsel’s office to follow the news and decide whether to send employees home. While they were watching, the report of the plane hitting the Pentagon hit the news. Everyone in the office ran to the window which looked out to the Pentagon. My wife, on the other hand, grabbed her stuff and went done to the Metro station below the building. There were rumors that Metro had shut down; they proved untrue. We lived in Bethesda and the direct route home would have gone right under downtown DC, so she headed the opposite direction and eventually, for those familiar with DC, got off at the Tacoma Park station. Luckily, and almost unbelievably, there was a taxi driver parked outside of the station, who had been listening to tapes and was oblivious to what was happening just miles away. Finally she made it home right around noon, quieting my frantic concern.
Two postscripts:
— right around five PM, I got a phone call from the head of the agency where I worked, activating the phone tree to tell my employees that the agency would be open as usual the next day. So far as I can recall, the only agency that did not open as usual on 9/12 was, understandably, the Pentagon.
— at the time, my parents lived ~20 blocks from the WTC — but were on a cruise out of Manhattan to the Caribbean. My father had regularly followed the construction of the WTC, pointing out the progress, and two years earlier had taken the family to Windows on the World for an anniversary celebration. When the ship docked in Charleston, SC, a couple of days later, he finally was able to call me. I don’t think he got two words out before he broke into tears.
Phew, that was hard to type, but as someone noted about, there is therapeutic value to writing it.
September 12th, 2023 at 2:11 AM ^
Reading your story right after mine, we shared a similar orbit, and we were both blessed, and continue to be blessed.
September 12th, 2023 at 2:19 AM ^
I thought the same after reading them back to back.
September 12th, 2023 at 5:51 AM ^
I didn't realize MGoBlog primary ages are 35-55.
Interesting, but makes sense.
September 12th, 2023 at 7:07 AM ^
I remember being on the bus headed to north campus and overhearing someone mention a plane going right into a building. I don’t know why I remember that comment, but I had imagined it was a little biplane. We were sitting in class and the professor made an announcement that anyone who knew someone at the World Trade Center should leave and a handful of people rushed out. Then classes were canceled. This never happened at UofM because a law student sued the school for cancelling classes they paid for.
I went back to our house and watched the news and the planes crash into the trade centers over and over. The towers coming down. After a while we couldn’t take it. We went out on a beautiful fall day and played some football. Remember as others stating that some wouldn’t go to the game that Saturday.
September 12th, 2023 at 7:11 AM ^
Life: I was working as a pediatric oncology nurse at St. Vincent-Indianapolis. Collectively, our staff was aware of what happened. I do not recall there ever being any particular response elicited from us-individually or collectively. I do recall that, later, one of my colleagues reflected that the reason we were so "unaffected" was because every minute of our work involved staring death straight in the face. I believe this is true-working in that setting changes you-all the way to your world view...it still does, for me, today.
September 12th, 2023 at 7:29 AM ^
I was working at my first real post-college full time job in Ann Arbor. I was on my way to work and heard over the radio that a small plane had flown into the trade center. I thought it was a terrible thing but probably a small personal jet and an accident so I turned off the radio and finished driving into work. My coworker did not arrive that morning but I went about my routine and she eventually called and asked me if I knew what was going on. I said no and looked at the old school Yahoo front page at the time and saw that things were more serious. Then she ended up coming in to work and we listened to the coverage live on the radio. It was Peter Jennings and we heard the towers fall live. Then we went to my coworkers house and watched the coverage. I remember my dad calling me in disbelief. Definitely a morning I will never forget. I remember looking up at the crystal clear blue sky and being in fear. I am still wary of planes flying overhead at Michigan Stadium. It's going to be something that sticks with people forever.
September 12th, 2023 at 7:37 AM ^
I was at home on a day off from work when my wife called and told me about a plane hitting one of the two towers. I went downstairs and turned on the t.v. to see one of the buildings burning and smoking like it was mortally wounded. I could not believe my eyes. I wondered if maybe they were filming an action movie and this was turning into a 'War of the Worlds' kind of thing where people weren't aware a film was being made and we'd all laugh about it later. Then the second plane hit. Then the first tower collapsed to the ground. Then the second one. Shock and disbelief. Someone got us really good. Someone was going to pay.
September 12th, 2023 at 7:39 AM ^
I was working in the financial district about 10 blocks from ground zero
A buddy and I walked/ran down 41 flights of stairs to leave building, there was enough aash/debris in the street he stepped off 4-inch curb without seeing it , rolled his ankle. We walked about 90 blocks back to upper east side while buildings were collapsing . So much adrenaline pumping he says he didn’t feel any pain on the hour+ walk/run next morning ankle was ballooned up and throbbing, went to ER and they said he clean broke it at the curb.
4 things I won’t forget -
1. We had a big dog we used to let run off leash in Central Park early in morning way up around 96th street - every morning same group of big dog owners. We still all met everyday after - dogs had to run. But for the following week or so, even that far away, there air was filled with an acrid , burning asbestos type smell. Oh yeah and f16s were buzzing over at low height a few times a day in groups of 1/2/3
2. the sound of chirping alarm type noisemakers the first responders wore so that they would be more easily found if there was a collapse and they got buried . That sound was everywhere downtown for a few days, on all the news clips and reports etc
3. horribly for a couple days after first responders were using any refrigerated trucks they could find to recover remains - so there was no road traffic except fire, police, national guard and all types of refrigerated trucks from grocery chains, florists, fish mongers . Which made you sick thinking about it
4. Sadly that morning was a beautiful crisp , clear blue sky where you could see for miles, no smog or haze - perfect conditions for visual flying
September 12th, 2023 at 9:21 AM ^
Yes, I remember the smell about a week later, in Brooklyn.
September 12th, 2023 at 7:48 AM ^
A day, 22 years ago, I will never forget.
That day I was working as an aircraft dispatcher for a local car manufacturer. We had several aircraft flying domestically and two in europe that day. Immediately after the attack, the FAA ordered every aircraft to land at the nearest suitable airport with absolutely no exceptions. All aircraft were then grounded until further notice, passengers scattered at home and abroad, stuck where they landed. We spent two weeks trying to get everybody home.
September 12th, 2023 at 8:05 AM ^
Freshman year at University of Dayton. Was walking back into my dorm after my 8am class and thought it was weird that there were a bunch of kids in the lobby TV area. That never happened. Sort of shrugged it off and went back to my room and fired NFL2K1 on Dreamcast. Everybody on the floor lived with their doors open most of the time and my next door neighbor Jeff came over and said "dude what the HELL are you doing?" Flipped the TV on a little after the second plane had hit the South Tower and not sure I breathed for the next 3 hours. Being so close to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, the rumors naturally started to fly that Dayton was a target and such. Still so surreal to think back on.
September 12th, 2023 at 8:06 AM ^
Law school in Winston-Salem, NC. We were all very confused. Some professors continued teaching. Most of us gathered in the big "courtroom" and watched on a giant TV set up by the law school staff. Before long, I went home. My wife and I picked up our kids from school a bit early and we hunkered down as a family.
September 12th, 2023 at 8:47 AM ^
I was up at CMU . Woke up to my answering machine going off, it was my sister saying we were under attack. I answered and she was like stay away from governmental buildings and stuff. I actually went to my 6pm 3 hour class only to get to the parking lot and see a administrator telling people to go home.
September 12th, 2023 at 9:07 AM ^
I was presenting to a group of about 100 people over a breakfast meeting at a conference in Boulder, Colorado.
A colleague of mine told me a plane had struck one of the Towers, and being familiar with certain aspects of aviation, I assumed it was a small passenger craft - like a two or four passenger Cessna.
By the time my session was over - the second plane had struck. My mobile phone, at that time, was on an early CDMA network - which meant my phone had network availability whereas most other mobile phones were trying to access overloaded networks. My phone “went around” from person to person for hours as people contacted their offices to address the changes to their operational plans - going into Disaster Recovery (DR) or similar protocols. One firm had offices on 8 lower floors of one of the Towers.
We we’re collectively glued to the media for the remainder of the day.
I had a rental car - and, two days later - while the FAA maintained a closure on the US airspace - drove back to Chicago.
Planes basically return to earth in one of two ways - the way they are expected to - landing, with wheels down - or - the way they are not expected to. In that second category - there are two options - catastrophic incident in the air - or, the plane is “taken down” in a military fashion - probably with an air to air missile / weapon system. At that time, as USAF planes took to the skies - I wondered if / how many planes might have faced military engagement. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.
Hopefully, we’ll never experience anything like this again in our lifetime.
September 12th, 2023 at 9:14 AM ^
Thanks XM for putting this on here. Wasn't sure if anyone would do this so late in the day so I appreciate it.
My wife and I had just started dating a few months earlier. I was working tech support for a software company in Columbus (yes, I know, born at Beaumont and grew up in Utica, long story about how I got there; we eventually left for Pittsburgh in 2012). She went out shopping at about 8:45 AM at Meijer and didn't turn on the news at all before she left, thinking there wasn't much going on that morning. Someone in her checkout line mentioned something about a plane hitting the WTC and, like many of you, thought it was just some small plane. She then got home afterward to turn on the TV and saw it all unfold from there. At work, I think we heard some news around 9:30 about the two planes. One of my most vivid memories was trying to search online for ANYWHERE that had news about the attack that you could access. Keep in mind this was 2001, of course, but regardless the only site that I could even open for a while was the BBC news page where I finally got some more details. I eventually talked to my now-wife who told me about the second tower falling and I told her, wait, that thing just does not FALL DOWN. I couldn't believe it. Our company shut down around 2 PM and we all went home. We stayed at her apartment the rest of the day watching the news and just not knowing what to think.
The kicker for me personally, however, what else was happening around the time of the attacks. My parents (WMU grads) and my grandmother were flying from Dayton, Ohio to Hilton Head at 7:45 AM that morning. So, while this is all happening, they are in the air, eventually getting rerouted to Atlanta so they could land the plane. As they told me afterward, the captain first just told them they would have to circle the airport for a while, and then about 10 minutes later that they were landing NOW. They, of course, had no idea what was happening until they landed and got into the terminal to see all the news coverage on TV. Around noon my dad got ahold of my brother to let him know they had landed and were OK. By the grace of God, they were able to get a rental car and drive up to Hilton Head that afternoon when, as many of you know, cars were pretty much all gone by that point. No luggage and had to buy clothes when they got there, but the main thing was they were OK.
My Dad worked with a guy that was on the plane from Boston that was hijacked. He found out a few days later when it was confirmed he was on the flight. The whole thing is still hard to believe but I remember it every year on the anniversary. One of those things you'll never forget.
September 12th, 2023 at 9:34 AM ^
On my honeymoon.
September 12th, 2023 at 9:56 AM ^
It started as just another day at work for me. At the time I worked in a crummy basement office. It was already a claustrophobic environment and that was only made worse by the surreal news that was trickling in from the radio. You didn't know if there would be a world outside to go out to but it was out of my hands so I kept plugging away at whatever I was doing because almost anything was preferable to thinking about what had happened
Almost as horrifying, though, was hearing a co-worker say with a straight face that we might have to start looking into detaining people of Middle Eastern descent as a national security precaution.
September 12th, 2023 at 10:13 AM ^
I was living at my frat and came downstairs about to leave for my 9am class to find my roommate who's from New York watching the big TV and said "a plane crashed into the World Trade Center." As I watched with him for a minute we saw the 2nd plane crash into the other live.
I went to the class (History of Extremism in the Near East!!!) but the class was canceled before all the other classes because our professor was called to do TV interviews. So I came back to the fraternity, played a round of pool, and had all this nervous energy, so I went to the Michigan Daily. I was editorial, so I didn't have a set job to do other than show up to weekly editorial meetings and turn in my articles (on floppy drives--you didn't email documents back then) but I used to go by to help lay out pages and talk to news staff to gather stories, or to hang out with friends on the sports staff. This time I went because I was hoping I could do *something*.
That's where I spent my whole day. Most of the morning I was on the wire, pulling down information (and photos that loaded line by line) as they came in. We were in the basement--where sales works nowadays--using a whole bank of those old blue iMac G3s for this--I think four or five were AP and one was Reuters--and one of them was downloading a jpeg of the tower that turned out to be the falling man...so the first time I ever saw that photo it was revealing line by line and the moment we realized it was a person is stuck in my head.
In the afternoon we had a big editorial board meeting--another section was using the ed board room so this was the rare meeting that we had standing around or sitting on desks in the news room, and I ended up being the loudest voice advocating for retaliatory violence, but was argued down that this wasn't our precedent. People who had cell phones were passing them around so everyone could call their family members, so I called my dad (from someone's cell phone) to sort out my feelings on this. He knew people who worked in the tower--he was just starting his agricultural consulting business at the time and had Wall Street clients who were interested in adding ag businesses to their books--and he was livid; he was a man who got angry maybe four times that I ever knew him and one legendary time before I was born, but this was the angriest I ever remember him.
The editors wrote the actual editorial so I sat around upstairs and helped Chip Cullen work on his editorial cartoon concept and posed as lady liberty with her hands in her face for him for a bit so he could sketch it out. Then I went back down to see if I could work the wire some more but my spot had been taken, so I just kind of hung around picking up any job I could to be useful. We got pizza and then more pizza because anyone who worked for the Daily was wandering in throughout the day like I did, so I made a couple of NYPD runs. After the second one I took over an iMac and helped fix up some of the back pages in the paper that had articles meant for the front shoved back into them. The section editor would be on a machine laying out their new section lead and pass me disks with whatever they cut. IIRC one of them was McGwire saying Bonds' home run chase wasn't as big of a deal and I found a spot for it. Another was a page that had to get completely redone because the Rose Bowl ad got pushed back onto it.
It just felt good to have something to do. I'm the type who can't just be on the sidelines and watch this sort of thing unfold. When the paper got done and "zipped" the EIC was downstairs and initiated a large cheer. Weird that it felt like an accomplishment to get a newspaper out but in that moment I think everyone kind of felt how I did: this was something that had to get done and we did it, so yay.
I didn't go home until late, when my friends were unloading from their show--or actually they were unloading from not playing because their first show at the Blind Pig had been canceled, not for 9/11 but because they double-booked, but they stayed and watched the other bands perform and got a better date.
September 12th, 2023 at 12:57 PM ^
One of the most fascinating things I got to experience at U of M was a mini-course on the Iraq War my junior year in 2003. If I recall correctly, the course, a series of lectures at the RC in East Quad, started before the actual invasion of Iraq and finished after "Mission Accomplished" in early May. It's crazy to think that a war took place during that timeframe (although we all know it wasn't over by then but still, historically it's a unique footnote in my life). The class featured intel officials and NY Times foreign correspondents and I learned an incredible amount about Iraq, the war, terrorism and even the military industrial complex and corporations that had business interests in the war. It was like an intel briefing, once a week. It was amazing.
September 12th, 2023 at 11:00 AM ^
I was in my junior year at Michigan. I had just finished an 8am class and stopped in the Union for a snack. I saw a bunch of folks huddled by the TVs in the basement and wandered over to see what was up. No one knew what was happening, but someone said that a light aircraft had flew into the towers. I had a few hours until my next class, so I headed to my apartment near State and Packard. I distinctly remember enjoying the walk home, because it was such a beautiful day. By the time I got there, the second plane had hit. Two of my neighbors came over to watch on TV.
After an hour or so, I began the walk towards campus to my next class, when I ran into a friend from NJ. He was very shaken, having been trying in vain to contact friends and family who worked in lower Manhattan. I found out then that all classes were cancelled, so I invited him back to my apartment, so that he wouldn't have to be alone.
About seven of my friends somehow made their way to my small apartment and we all just huddled around the TV in stunned silence. As we were sitting there, my roommate walked through the front door, reading a copy of the Michigan Daily. I remember as he pulled down the paper from his eyes and tried to register the highly unusual sight of a group of people in his living room on a Tuesday morning. It became very clear that he hadn't yet heard the news. Simultaneously, everyone in that room explained to him that two planes had hit the WTC and one building had collapsed. He stood there in silence for a few moments with a perplexed expression and then said, "the Lions benched Charlie Batch."
I have a son now who is just becoming old enough to ask questions about that day. One of the things that's impossible to relay to him is just how inexplicable and otherworldly that day felt. It was so hard to mentally process-- and still is. My heart goes out to survivors and family and friends who lost loved ones and tremendous gratitude to all the first responders.
September 12th, 2023 at 11:02 AM ^
I was at Prince and Broadway, in SoHo, watching it all unfold from my client's cafeteria on the rooftop. The photo posted by OP was basically my view.
There was a little firehouse on the lower east side I used to pass on my way to LGA at the end of the week. There were always five or six young firefighters hanging around the entrance, laughing and joking. The following week when I passed that firehouse there were just flowers and wreaths that people had left. That image will be etched in my mind forever.
September 12th, 2023 at 11:05 AM ^
I was a U-M grad student, but I had an internship and had driven to Southfield that Tuesday morning.
I remember hearing on the radio about the first plane just as I was parking.
The office had a TV and soon everyone was watching CNN. I remember speculation that the Ren Cen or the Ambassador Bridge might also be targets.
By noon, the management closed the office and I remember it took me over three hours to drive back to Ann Arbor because roads were gridlocked.
I don't remember how long classes were cancelled, but professors used that time later in the week for us to just talk about what we were feeling.
Also, I remember already being sad that morning because I knew one of the Oklahoma State basketball players (Nate Fleming) who died in the plane crash in Colorado earlier in January, and September 11, 2001 would've been his 21st birthday.
September 12th, 2023 at 2:09 PM ^
Was in Toronto on businees the week before after doing the Circle K around Manhatten a week prior. The announcers mentioned a small plane hit a building and bounced off.
On 9/15 I arrived at the tunnel back home. Was greeted by armed guards with German Shepards. Went thru the questions on purpose of trip. Tired at 11:30 at night I made a great boo boo. Said if an Ameerican citizen the Canadian border gave me a free pass. So I said if I was to blow up the tunnel we would not be having this conversation. Off to customs for 2 hours getting grilled while my car was torn apart.
September 12th, 2023 at 4:56 PM ^
I was driving to work in Atlanta listening to the radio when they interrupted the music to talk about a breaking news story of a plane hitting one of the WTC buildings. At first, everyone speculated that it was a little passenger plane like the one that had hit the Empire State Building in the past. That was as far as they got when I pulled into the parking garage. Made my way upstairs and nobody was at their desks, instead huddling in various cubes or in a conference room watching TV. Turns out they now had video and confirmed it was a passenger plane that hit the building.
Once more of the story came out and it was clear it was a terrorist attack, people started going over to the windows, now fearful of more plane attacks.
I eventually called my then-gf (now wife) to wake up (she worked the night shift at the hospital) and turn on the TV. Nobody got any work done that day. Calls with clients were either cancelled or devolved into discussion about the attacks. It was a surreal day.
September 12th, 2023 at 6:21 PM ^
I was on a plane flying to New York LaGuardia
My office was about seven blocks away
September 12th, 2023 at 7:31 PM ^
I was actually in Manhattan. At that time I was in law school at UVA. My parents owned a condo in NYC so I went there, skipping classes for a few days to hang out with some college friends in the city. Had gone out the night before so I woke up around 10. Turned the TV on to the news. Decided to go walking towards the site, it was eventually cordoned off a few blocks before. One time I ever saw some streets in NYC completely devoid of traffic, saw military vehicles being driven on the streets. Makeshift memorials all over the city. I just walked all day. It was surreal. Smartphones didn't exist back then and digital cameras were rare. I wish I had my 35mm camera with me to take pictures. Its a day I'll never forget. My parents were frantic as cell service was down for most of the day. I ended up driving out of the city the next day.