It was a beautiful, sunny and cool late summer morning in NYC. The sky was bright blue, without a cloud, and the air was dry and clear. (just like today, in fact) As I did every day, I took the train into Manhattan and walked from Grand Central to my midtown office. Just as I went through the door from the elevator lobby on the 39th floor to our offices, I heard my colleague Alex yell out "Holy sh*t!". As on most mornings, he and I were the first ones in the office.
I ran down to Alex's office to see what was wrong and he pointed out the south-facing window, from which we had a clear view of the top half of the WTC. Smoke was just starting to come out of a big gash in the north tower. He said "a plane just hit the building". I said "what, like one of the traffic report planes? That's a mighty big hole". He said "no, it was a a big plane, like an airliner." I couldn't really believe that a plane could run into the building; it was a clear day with perfect visibility.
We immediately fired up the computer and tried to find out what had happened, but within those first few minutes, it was impossible to get online in NYC. Another guy, Blake, arrived in the office. As soon as we told him what happened, he went to the law library in search of one of the TV's on carts that they had there, while Alex and I continued to watch out the window. The smoke became darker and thicker, trailing off to the east over Brooklyn.
While we were watching and wondering what happened, we suddenly saw a big fireball erupt lower down on the south tower. We hadn't seen the plane, since it came in over the harbor from the south, so we didn't know precisely what caused the fireball, but at that moment I realized that this was no accident.
Eventually, a TV was found and we learned what the rest of the country was learning. More and more people started to arrive in the offices. We all just stood in front of the windows and watched in dumbstruck horror. Many people were sobbing, and as each tower crumbled in turn, shrieks and gasps erupted from the crowd lining the windows, followed by more sobs and moans. There was virtually no talking.
After the second tower fell, people started to leave the office to get home. The subways were stopped, as were the commuter trains, and all the bridges and tunnels were closed to traffic, so people set out on foot. From our east facing windows, we saw massive throngs of pedestrians streaming out of Manhattan over the 59th street bridge into Queens. People were also jamming the avenues, all walking north.
I heard that they were taking blood donations at the blood center under the Citigroup building at 53rd and Lex. By the time I got there, the line was estimated to be 4 hours long. Someone told me they were also setting up to take donations at the Lenox Hill hospital, so I walked up there, but, again, the line was several times around the block. People wanted to do something, anything, to help. But, as we sadly learned later, they really did not need all that blood.
As I walked back to my office, I stopped to pray for a few minutes in one of the churches that had opened its doors. There were a couple of others who also felt the need to come in. Continuing on, I saw that people were gathered in knots on the sidewalk, clustered around cars listening to the radio. I saw the first of the people who had walked all the way up from downtown. Bedraggled suits covered in white dust, trudging slowly north, eyes down and looking numb.
A friend called and invited me to his apartment on 1st Ave (I couldn't go home because all the trains were stopped). We sat in his living room and watched the TV until we heard that the trains were running out of 125th Street.
When I left his building at about 5pm, the streets were deserted. You could have safely lain down in the middle of one of the avenues, it was so empty. There was not a cab in sight, so I started walking north on 1st Ave. A boy who said he was 13 fell in with me and we walked up the avenue together. He had been in school downtown and was walking home to Harlem. He had a million questions about what happened and who did it and why did they do it and how did they do it and why couldn't the military stop them. I figured he needed to process everything and just let him talk and talk. Really, all I could do was say "I don't know". But I don't believe he cared whether I could answer or not. He just needed to talk.
As I was walking on 125th street over to the station, I heard the roar of a jet engine overhead. I looked up to one of the saddest things I have ever seen -- a U.S. military fighter plane flying combat air patrol over an American city. I rode the train home in silence.
