September 11

I originally wrote most of this essay in 2006, on the fifth anniversary of September 11, so my daughters will have a connection with that event other than a page in a history book. (Though I have hundreds of images of the Towers, this is not my picture, I was pre-digital in 2001)

September 11, 2001

Where we live on Long Island, the Towers and the Empire State building were visible on the sky line. September 11, 2001 was a beautiful fall day, sunny, a little cool, with a cloudless bright blue sky. It was primary election day and I was poll watching at our village hall, when people coming in to vote started to mention that they'd heard something on the radio about a plane crash. Since the only TV was in the hall with the polling machines, and you're not allowed to have any news reports on during polling hours, I went home to get my little TV for the office. At home I switched it on just in time to see the second plane go in. The reports were very confused and soon we lost most of the TV and radio stations – their transmitters were on top of the towers. Frantic calls met "system busy, try again" messages. The primary was canceled and I drove up to our church about a half-mile along the shore line. Across the bay and over the trees on the far shore, a volcano of black smoke was rising from the funeral pyre into the bright blue sky.

At the church office, Father Kurt was calling all the families that he thought might be affected. We heard some stories of miraculous happen stance – one mother was on her way to a conference at the Towers, when she got a call that her son was sick and came home. Another was due for a meeting, but got sent on a last minute trip out of town. Other stories of relief - The village clerk's fiancée was on his way to work at One World Financial, but his train was delayed. My husband was at work in Queens and left home when it became clear that it was not a day for ordinary business. It took him hours to drive the 15 miles home. My sister-in-law was at La Guardia airport waiting for her plane for a business trip when it happened. She's a fast thinker and she raced out and got a cab to my mom-in-law's house. We didn't know where she was until she arrived at the door. She couldn't get home to Connecticut for three days.

Some were not so lucky. For one family at our church, Daddy would never come home. One of my fellow Trustees had two nephews who worked on the top floors. They didn't get out. The son of friends was in the building – he and a co-worker made it out only to have his friend killed in front of him when he was hit by someone leaping from the upper floors. A Transit Policeman who lived a few streets from me with his wife and two small children, was stationed at 42nd St. but commandeered a bus with four of his buddies to go and help. He didn't come back. His funeral was at the Catholic Church across the street from our house. A full honor guard filled the streets. His wife’s immense composure and honesty when she spoke at the funeral still resonates. She told how her initial reaction was anger – “Why did you have to go?” The squirling of the bagpipes and drums in that packed church provoked the primal senses, making the tiny hairs stiffen in response. I talked with one of the pipers who looked very tired. He said he'd been to over 30 funerals in less than two weeks.

In the days immediately after, things were chaotic. No one was quite sure how to help or where to go. Traffic was a snarled mess as access to the city was closed and then reopened with security checks. But there was also unexpected peace- no planes over head, people stayed at home, nighttime was filled with silence, unusual in New York. Two days after the Towers fell, the wind shifted and a delicate rain of ash and the smell of carnage came out of the sky. The third day we drove my sister-in-law back home to Connecticut. Going over the Throgs Neck Bridge, the skyline of Manhattan fills the horizon to the west. A plume of pale white smoke was still rising up from the crater and the buildings at the tip of the island looked like they were clustered around a fallen companion.

There was a tremendous sense of fellowship and empathy in the days following. Complete strangers came to each other's aid. Drivers were polite! The crime rate was almost zero. But as time wore on, it all reverted back to what we accept as normal.We've become inured to low flying planes – when the US Tennis Open is in town, the planes are rerouted from over the stadium to over our house. Arguments over 911 memorials, too modern, ugly, in the wrong place, have subsided. Our girls, who had not been born when the planes went in, will read about it in history books. If we are really lucky they will never understand the visceral fear created by a low flying plane, wonder if a morning commute will be the last act on earth, or experience the terror that was the object of that horrifying act. Or experience the outpouring of love and support and determination to rise from the ashes.

The Towers

Along with the lives that were lost, so were the buildings, icons on New York’s skyline for a short time. About the kindest thing that can be said is that they were not architecturally distinguished, especially since they were up against the detailed beauty of the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. There was some nice detail of soaring pointed arches at the base, but seen from a distance, as they most often were, they looked pretty much like someone had jammed two immense sticks of margarine on end into lower Manhattan. In some ways they personified New York’s attitude - all business and in your face, “You don’t like the way I look, Babe? Get an (expletive deleted) life!” But they hummed with life of thousands of people working and transiting through the office, shops and subways.

It was what you saw from the Towers that made them special. The restaurants and deck on the top floors offered amazing vistas and made for memorable occasions. Going for drinks with two friends to celebrate, watching the moon rise from above. Going with my mother as a culmination of her visit, seated at the window as the sun set and the glittering panorama of the city rolling away to the horizon. Even the bathrooms at Windows on the World were worth the visit - pink and white stone, mirrors and sparkling lights, an array of free toiletries, lotions, hair mist, since your tiny evening purse could not carry those luxuries.

The Towers became an integral part of erratic EKG spikes of the city skyline. They poked up in the background of thousands of images. When they were gone, they created a void, a negative space in the sky. My children don’t feel it, the Towers are not part of their visual vocabulary. But I still look for something that is gone, feel a small shock of surprise when they are not looming at the end of an avenue.