I’ve posted the same piece  about being there for years, but on the 25th anniversary of the attack, I  have revisited it. 

My day in NYC on 9/11

It was a crisp, clear September morning, another beautiful early autumn day in New York. We were living in Jersey City and I would take the PATH train into the city for work.

I walked this walk every day looking skyward at those tall twin towers across the river directly in my sight. We lived nearly parallel to the WTC on the west side of the Hudson River and they were a compass point. 

Our street was clean and tidy, but the walk along the main street was littered and trashy.  I walked that morning, not looking at the cotton-white clouds strewn across the bright blue sky, but at the litter on the sidewalk, the empty, dented cans and bottles, the plastic bags whirling in the wind across the cement, the crumpled, greasy sacks of fast food, and the oily, iridescent psychedelic rainbows in the jagged puddles at every corner and crosswalk.

I realized later that my disgust and irritation at the debris saved me from seeing the first plane hit the first tower. The papers, the news, and the sources on the internet proclaimed the timing second by second, minute by minute of the deadly attack in the days and weeks to come.

I know that I was not looking up, I was looking down, walking mad about the trash. 

Running Late and Fate 

My commute on the PATH was Jersey City to the WTC and then a change to the subway to go uptown. Even though I was running late, that day I changed my route and waited I waited for the train to take me to 33rd street so I’d only have to make one change. 

I’ve thought about that quite a bit in these past years, not taking the train to the WTC. I could have been right in the middle of it.

By the time I changed to the subway and exited the station on 40th Street, the streets were buzzing with rumors, that a plane had hit the tower. I assumed it was a small plane, maybe a private jet.

Once in the office, it was clear something was wrong.

Cell phones weren’t working and internet access was spotty. Someone said the mall was under attack in DC, then it was declared the Pentagon was hit, then the White House. The host of my series, Epicurious TV on the Discovery Channel, Michael Lomonaco was the Executive Chef at Windows on the World. He wasn’t answering our calls and we did not know where he was. 

Evacuating Time Square

From the office, I called my now-frantic family to let them know I was okay. But, the offices were located in Times Square. If the US and NYC were under attack, Times Square might be next.

So, we walked down 25 floors of the winding dimly lit stairwell. It wasn’t far and it wasn’t because we were in imminent danger. It simply seemed like the sensible thing to do. No one had the desire to be caught in an elevator.

Manhattan on Lockdown

The bridges and tunnels were closed. The subway wasn’t running. Manhattan was under lockdown. I couldn’t get back across the river to Jersey City. I couldn’t go home.

I called my friend and she said to meet her at her apartment on the Lower East Side. 

I  started walking southeast from Midtown. People were huddled at cars with doors and windows open at street corners listening to the radio. The sound of sirens and the gnawing pull of fear were omnipresent. I saw one act of vandalism, someone breaking into a pay phone. It gave me chills. The concept of being in a lawless New York City was terrifying. 

At one point I could see the towers smoldering and smoking against the blue sky, and then at the next corner, when they would have been in sight again, they were gone. Just gone.

Lower East Side

As I walked South, people flooded North, escaping the downtown bedlam. I kept walking further south, then east. It was only three miles, but it felt like 100.

I finally arrived at my friend’s apartment on 5th Street on the Lower East Side. She wasn’t home, yet, so I took my shoes off and waited on the stoop. Seems like I remember now that my shoes were new and my feet were blistered. At the time it seemed unimportant and now, I am not certain.

My cell wasn’t able to call out, it was silent, but somehow a friend and colleague Faye was able to call me. She was my mouthpiece. She called my Mama to tell her I was okay. 

My friend arrived and we quietly walked up the stairs. We then watched the news, silently weeping, watching the horror, the live images, the flying shreds of paper, the dust, the people jumping to their deaths — trying, all the while, to keep the children occupied in the other room.

Leaving New York

Finally, at the end of the very long day, the news reported the PATH was reopen at 14th. I didn’t care about what might happen to me. I wanted to go home, I wanted to feel safe. My friend didn’t want me to leave. We kissed, we cried, and I started walking.  The lack of sound was astonishing. It was like a cavernous movie set. New York City, but without the people.

No more noise. No radios. No one is driving. No one honking. No one on the streets. No people.

The avenues were wide, empty, and desolate. An occasional car would pass armed with a bullhorn encouraging people to go give blood. I could hear sirens in the distance. It was dreamlike and surreal.

Union Square

I walked North through Union Square where two candles flickered, the very beginning of the massive combination of shrine and wall of missing person posters that eventually established itself on that spot. The 14th station was closed, so I walked further to the 23rd, which also closed, so onward to the 33rd. Finally, success. The station was packed. People were elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder, but you could have heard a pin drop. 

Everyone was muted and paralyzed in fear and shock.We crossed under the river to Hoboken because my regular stop, the Grove Street Station was closed.

As we pulled into the station evacuees from lower Manhattan stood mute draped in black plastic garbage bags. There was no white, black, or brown. I couldn’t tell the difference between anyone. Each person was covered in ash and grey soot, their eyes open wide with fear. 

I don’t remember how I got home from the station. It’s completely blank.

Aftermath

The pile burned for days and days. It smelled like burnt rubber, even across the river, when the wind caught the scent. The sirens blared up and down the West Side Highway for months when human remains were found the in the rubble. It was dismal.

I lost my job in the aftermath. (New York City lost an estimated 143,000 jobs per month in the first three months following the attacks.)

One day we came home to men in hazmat suits with a white windowless van swabbing the hallway.

Just one week after the September 11 terrorist attacks, letters filled with weapons grade anthrax powder were sent through the U.S. postal system. Our neighbor was Tom Brokaw’s assistant. Five people died and 17 others fell ill from anthrax poisoning after handling contaminated letters.

It was all so damn terrifying.

Months later, one afternoon, as I walked down 23rd street, tears running down my face, I realized I simply wanted to move home to Georgia, I was done.

I was not physically injured, I had no friends perish in the tragedy, but being in New York on that day changed my life forever.

I will never forget the feeling of that day. More than twenty-five years later, the memories remain, but so does the lesson: life is fragile, our connections to one another matter, and we should never take an ordinary day for granted.

Tell someone you love that you love them.

Virginia Willis