I was rollerblading to work at the zoo, as usual. I was on Sixth Avenue, heading uptown, somewhere in the 20s when I noticed everyone was standing around, facing downtown. I turned around and saw the smoke billowing out of the first tower. Like a lot of other NYC'ers, I assumed some drunk idiot in a twin-engine had flown into the building and my stomach dropped at the thought of the couple dozen people I imagined hurt or killed. After watching for about 5 minutes, I turned and continued skating to work. As I wheeled into the office, I said, "Hey guys, a plane hit the World Trade Center!" and one of my fellow actors said, "The other Tower's been hit, too." And that's when it fully hit me.
I got on the phone to call my family and let them know I was nowhere near the Towers and the rest of the actors trooped up to the main offices to watch on the only TV screen we have at work (no cable, so the reception was crappy). When I got up there, they told me one of the towers had collapsed and I couldn't wrap my head around it. Finally I grasped it, just in time for my friend to say, "There goes the other one" and like most of America, I saw the Tower collapse via TV screen, too.
I remember sitting under my desk and weeping, and I remember meeting my boyfriend (now husband) at the zoo after everything in the city was closed (around 12:30 we were sent home) and wandering the streets for a few hours, trying to find someplace to donate blood, but the lines were hours long everywhere and if you weren't type O, they sent you away. I remember watching the thousands of people heading over the Queensborough bridge as we crossed away from them and went to my best friend's apartment in the West 50's to huddle together and watch the TV. Later we trudged home, (keeping the windows shut because the smoke and odor was unbearable for a few days when you went outisde). The next day I hit the streets, frantic to find a few postcards with a picture of the WTC on it (little did I know, WTC images would become a veritable cottage industry. I can't bear seeing pictures of it anymore; it hurts too much).
Here's a poem someone emailed to me in the weeks afterwards-- about the buildings themselves (which were complained about and criticized from the moment they were built). I don't know the author.
They were never the favorites,
Not the Carmen Miranda Chrysler's
Nor Rockefeller's magic boxes
Not the Empire, which I think would
have killed us all if she fell.
They were the two young dumb guys,
Beer drinking
Downtown MBAs
Swaggering across the skyline,
Not too bright.
Now that they are gone
They are like young men
Lost at war,
Not having had their life yet,
Not having grown wise and softened
with air and time.
They are lost like
Cannon fodder
Like farm boys throughout time
Stunned into death
Not knowing what hit them
And beloved
By the weeping Mothers left
Even two years afterwards I would still exit the subway, look for the WTC to get my bearings, and then I'd remember and it would roll over me all over again.
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