History Lesson

There are some questions parents dread answering. Usually about where babies come from, or “the talk”, or about drug use. I’m not looking forward to the question about where I was on 9/11.

It started out like any other Tuesday. The sky was blue – not a cloud to be seen. It was one of those crisp, late summer days that make Manhattan sparkle. I remember the sky vividly, for some reason.

I made it to work almost on time, got my coffee and checked my emails. My boss had scheduled a meeting to discuss the budget for the following year so I was gathering my paperwork for that. One of the admins, Bob B., was excitedly talking about a plane having hit the World Trade Center. I thought, hmm must be a small plane, maybe the pilot had a heart attack or something, I’ll see if anyone wants to walk over at lunch and look.

We were in my boss’s office when there was a loud boom and then papers and smoke started fluttering by his window, into the East River. And the sirens. All the sirens – it was non-stop. (We were near one of the fire stations and were used to hearing the sirens, but this was different). At that point, our admin, Yolanda, was fielding all kinds of phone calls from people who were trying to reach us. She came in and just rattled off everyone who had called for us. My boss’s daughter, D, Peggy’s boyfried. My boss said, ok, just go call everyone and tell them you’re ok.

I tried getting on the internet to see if I could find out what was going on. The connection was the slowest I’d ever seen, and I then tried calling my dad (since he was retired) to ask him what was going on. His phone was busy (later I find out he was answering calls from relatives in different states asking about me), so I called D (I got his voice mail when I tried earlier). When I reached D, he was almost in tears. “It’s a terrorist attack, you have to get out of Manhattan”. What did I tell him? Stop believing everything you read on the internet.

At that point everyone was milling about, trying to look out the windows. The fire alarm went off and everyone was to evacuate. For some reason I took the stairs. When I got outside, everyone was standing around waiting to see what we should do next. We couldn’t see the Trade Center because our building was south and east of the towers (one block up from the ferry terminal). Most of my friends/co-workers urged me to leave. “We won’t be going back in to work today”. So I started to walk to the subway.

When I got to the corner, there was a police officer directing traffic. I asked him if he thought the subway was still running. He suggested I walk up to the City Hall subway station, as he wasn’t sure. So I start walking up Water Street, and stop at one of my agent’s offices on William Street. I could see the towers at that point, and thought to myself, it’s going to take some time to put out that fire. I was in the elevator to go up to my agent’s office, and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go up in the elevator (I was planning on using her phones to call to tell people where I was and what I planned to do).

I got back outside and just started walking again. When I got by City Hall, there were barricades up already and the police officers just kept yelling “Keep moving! Don’t stop! Keep moving”….I still had no clue what was going on. There were so many people walking north – everyone from business people in suits to the “runners” from Wall Street with their coats still on. I think I was near Chinatown when everyone paused because we heard an awful sound. We turned around to see the first tower collapse, and everyone on the street just burst into tears.

The rest of the morning was just a blur. The one time I did get through to D (on a payphone) he kept saying, “take a taxi to Grand Central”….I had to tell him that traffic was gridlocked and there were no taxis to be had. And the fire trucks…all the fire departments from Westchester were on their way downtown…I couldn’t believe I was seeing the Larchmont Fire Dept, the Mamaroneck Fire Dept and others just streaming downtown. When I got to 14th Street I could hear the fighter jets up above (finally!).

I kept walking, walking, walking, until I reached Grand Central. I caught the first train that was leaving and asked D to meet me at the station near where he worked, to first cancel my doctors’ appointment for that day, and then re-schedule it for later.

The reason I dread the question? Because I will have to tell C she was with me that day. I was seven months pregnant.