9/11: 5 years onward
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- PonyBoy0
I actually have a great memory of the WTC...
... sometime back in the mid 90's...
... my friend Jay and I were wandering manhattan (... at about 4am) - and since I had never been to the towers, he took me there.
For about 20 mins we laid on our backs between the two towers staring up at the moon watching it move w/the earth's rotation until it had passed both towers.
- JKristofer0
wow matty.
- mrdobolina0
amazing stories, wow.
- mattyd040
yeah, it was some pretty heavy stuff. i still think about that man and pray that he is living a happy and fulfilling life (as hard as that may be) after being dealt that hand.
i am glad i didn't lose anybody very close to me and i can't imagine what it would be like to have.
- TheBlueOne0
I was living on 17th and 1st ave. with my fiance. I worked upstate and commuted by car everyday. I remember leaving that morning because I took the West Side Highway instead of the FDR, and I distinctly remember seeing the towers in my rear view mirror that morning.
I got to my office about fifteen minutes before the planes hit. I ran down to the corner deli, as that was the only place that had a TV, and already a huge crowd of mostly blue collar immigrant laboroers had all clogged into there. I saw all these guys, polish, mexicans, brazilians, italians, etc. Just staring at the screens, crying. Amazing. To this day I have never been more proud to be an American than right then.
I spent the rest of the morning trying to get my fiance on the phone - and when I finally got to her - she is a doctor at a NYC hospital, she said everyone had been called in and put on emergency status, but there was no injured coming in. Everyone doctors, nurses, etc. just standing around waiting..and no injured...that was heartbreaking to hear..
Luckily my brother and my best friend who both worked in lower Manhattan had been out drinking hard th enight before and where late getting to work..the planes hit before they even got out the door...
Trying to get back home that night into the city was a nightmare as well..and the sadness and numbness just permeated everywhere...remmber going down to Union Square over the following days to commisurate with everyone...
- kyl30
horridly terrible day but I was with who is now my wife. so somehow can keep perspective. It helped to be across the country in SF.
I was thinking earlier today that everyone who pays attention across the world has suffered some sort of post traumatic stress disorder from this. The whole thing is so sad. Words don't do it justice.
- Duane0
On 9/11 I was in the air on my way home from a press check for the Wolfenstein tins in Hong Kong. I anxiously watched the tiny blip of our plane move across the world map towards San Francisco and prepared my camera to take shots of the Golden Gate Bridge as we came in for a landing. As we began to approach the ground, I was confused to instead see lush green mountains and Air Canada. The Chinese couple next to me was excited to see San Francisco but I had to break it to them that this was not it. As it turned out, we were in Vancouver, BC. As we sat on the runway watching other international jets line up behind us, a fellow passenger got a phone call. It was his mother in New York saying that the WTC had just been attacked.
The news spread quickly through the plane while the stewardesses quietly handed out headsets to all of the passengers. The captain's voice came over the loud speaker asking us to tune in to the news. As I put on my headset, I heard news of the second plane striking the WTC. All of a sudden, the world turned upside down.
After sitting on the tarmac for four hours with no food or drink, we were finally allowed to debark. I was told all of my checked baggage would be impounded leaving me with no toiletries or clothes besides the shorts and t-shirt I was wearing and a bag containing teas and a tea set I picked up in China. At first, it appeared to be another day at another airport but slowly the building filled up with people. Lines 200 people deep were forming at all of the pay phones. We were directed upstairs, downstairs and no one knew what was going on. All of a sudden an announcement rang through the building stating that all of the people in the airport needed to leave to make room for the other international passengers that needed to debark. Confused, I was ushered out the door into a brisk BC evening.
A lady at the door says, "You can get on a van here and try to make it across the border to the US but we don't know if the border is open."
I stare dumbfounded.
She then says, "The other option is to get on this other van and head to a church in Vancouver to spend the night on a church pew."
Neither of these sounds very good to me. At the same moment, out of the corner of my eye I see a business man I met in the smoking lounge in the Hong Kong airport talking on a pay phone. I run over and overhear him finishing up a hotel reservation confirmation. I quickly ask him to see if there are any more vacancies.
He says, "There is one more room."
"I'll take it!", I exclaim.
The business man hangs up and offers that I share a ride with him to the hotel. Looking for a friend in this strange time, I take him up on his kindness. We run into a business woman from Singapore (also from the Hong Kong smoking lounge) and she is also heading to the same hotel. The car arrives, a limo no-less, and we all get in. The driver turns on a TV in the back of the car and I see what happened for the first time. I'm totally shocked. What's next? How do I get home?
I get to the hotel and check in for a night and then instantly head out to replace my toiletries. People from all walks of life are all over the streets due to the influx of stranded international passengers. There is a kindness and concern in everyone's face. I head back to my hotel and begin an endless stream of phone calls to see when the next flight out will be. Finally, I book a flight. After a long sleepless night glued to the TV and talking on the phone, I am anxious to get home to my wife and routine. No luck, the flight is cancelled. I extend my hotel stay by one more night and then head out to buy some warm clothes as the shorts aren't going to cut it in this weather.
This routine continues for 6 days, each day I get more and more desperate and concerned about how I'm going to explain paying for all of this. "Thank goodness it's a business trip". I begin talking with locals and other stranded passengers. Maybe we can rent a car and drive into the US? No, they are all rented. Maybe we can ride a train? No, it's booked for days. Maybe we can take a ferry into Seattle and then find transportation from there? Maybe we should all go in together and buy a car? The ideas run the gamut, but nothing really ever materializes - all the while, flights continue to be booked and cancelled. I wander the streets at night and talk to kind strangers. I see candle light vigils and people crying in the streets. It's all a bit much when you are by yourself.
Finally, I get some advice that flights are leaving from Seattle - it's just a matter of getting there. I book a flight for the following day with no idea of how I'll get there. I call everyone I know for help and finally, my father gets in touch with a distant relative who lives outside of Seattle who agrees to drive to Vancouver and pick me up. This kind woman drives hours to get me and then takes me to a long line of cars headed across the border into the US.
After waiting an hour, our turn with the border inspection arrives. The border guards search my bag alerting to the kraft paper wrapped bags of tea and the tea set. After a moment's panic, they realize what they are seeing and signal us to drive on through. We finally arrive in Seattle at the hotel I have booked next to the airport - there's no way I'm missing this damn plane. I go to grab my bag from the trunk of the car and am shocked by what I see. The border guards have left a 7" Buck Knife on top of my bag (apparently, the same knife they used to open my paper bags of tea)! These guys armed me on my way into the country.
I barely sleep that night and wake up early to deal with the bullshit at the airport. I walk into the airport and see a long line at the check-in counter that wraps around the corner. I walk around the corner and see that it wraps yet another corner. This continues and I find myself at the end of a mile long serpentine line of people. After a lot of waiting with confused, scared people we finally get on the plane and I eventually get home.
I've never been so happy to be home. That week and a half, I gained an appreciation for life and what I had that I never could have imagined. The smallest things seemed so impossibly uncertain in that time. My story really isn't all that interesting or dramatic - and certainly nothing as tragic as that of many on that day - but that day changed my life just as it did so many others. My story is just another story in the dense fabric of that day - another drop in a big bucket. It was a day that people everywhere seemed to come together. Cold stares on the streets turned into kind smiles and sympathetic glances from strangers.
9/11 is for me, now and forever a day of remembrance for all of those who lost loved ones as well as a day of thanksgiving for all that I have.
- kungfukid0
i think the whole world felt the shock of this tragedy I don't feel any direct effects but I did contribute to the disaster fund.
The one event in history that does affect me directly is the bombing of Hiroshima during the 2nd world war. 350,000 died since the bomb was dropped through radiation contamination or through immediate affects. This is why my wife will never have the chance to have babies.
I am not saying that either event holds priority over the other. One can hold a history book and say throughout this age of civilisation there are countless events showcasing barbaric human acts or naturally tragic disasters the effects of which are continuing as I type.
We should not forget anyone of them.
- Mal0
here are some photos that myself and Timajick took that day.
file:///Volumes/Deep%20Thought/M...
- kodap0
X xxxx xxx x xxx xxxxxxxxx .. xxxx xxxxxx xxxx Xxxxxxxxxxxx xx X Xxxxx.
Xxx xxxxxx Xxxxxxxxxx xxxxx.
Peace for all those who died and their families.
xxx.
- QBN0
Politicizing this topic will return undesirable results.
- tank0
i still don't get who could this another human being...
still very horrible.yesterday there was a plot uncovered of extremistis in the belgian army to plan racist attacks.
crazy news.
- kodap0
sorry
- monkeyshine0
for those on the east coast, do you remember what a beautiful day it was?
I remember walking to work (across the street from the trade center in boston) and being struck with how piercingly blue the sky was. Such a strange contrast.
All news websites were overrun, it was hard to get information. We borrowed a radio and listened to NPR and I remember them breaking and, thinking that they weren't on air, someone said in a paniced voice, "we don't really know how many planes are missing."
- TheBlueOne0
My inlaws are in town today from Japan, so we did all the usual tourist stuff, and they wanted to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.
The absence of those two towers on the skyline, especially from that vantage point still kills me. I had to stop and just stare at where they should be...
- Geith0
thanks tee and thanks for sharing your stories, matty and jk. i know 9/11 moved me and many of us in a deeply profound way that will stay will us forever.
- brokenimage0
i walked by the wtc recently. tourists were taking their pictures. it felt weird.
i've worked on the alliance for downtown ny's website for the past 2 years and there is definitely a lot more attention being paid to it on the 5 yr anniversary in nyc.
- Teeuwen0
^ up
- 67nj0
I feel devasted
but no more anger
periodQBN is right
- lowimpakt0
i was sweeping up the sitting room floor after a party when it came on tv. was with friends and my g/f.
felt fear