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Mar. 11th, 2002 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aribWell, it's been six months since the events of 9/11. I've written about some of my feelings, but I haven't actually recorded my experiences yet. I'd like to do that now, while the impressions are still relatively uncorrupted in my mind.
davened (prayed,) ate a quick breakfast and checked my e-mail. On my way out the door, at around 8:50, WNYC, the local NPR affiliate, reported a plane hitting one of the WTC towers. My first thought as I left my apartment was "What a horrible accident, I hope everyone's okay." A similar thing happened in the 1940s at the Empire State Building, so I assumed it was something along those lines.
Class ended at 9:50, as usual. No announcements were made in-class, but that's fairly normal. As I stepped outside of Furst Hall, I saw my friend David, heading in the opposite direction.
"Hey Dave, did you hear anything about that plane that hit the World Trade Center?" I asked.
"Um, yeah. One plane hit one tower, another plane hit the other tower, and a plane hit the Pentagon." He replied, with a small nervous laugh.
I remember my response as being short, and to the point.
"Dave, you're shitting me."
David directed me to walk up the block to Amsterdam Ave. (a North-South facing street) and look downtown, which I did.
All I could see past midtown was a huge, climbing pillar of smoke.
I pulled out my celphone, and tried to call home. I was able to get a signal without any problem, but couldn't get a call to go through. My voicemail indicator was flashing every few minutes to signal me of a new message, but I couldn't call in to check them.
I ran to my apartment, turned on the radio, and tried using my landline to call out. I could only make local calls, so I called my grandmother, and aunts and uncles to see that they were all alright. I eventually hit on the idea of using a net2phone card to call long distance.I was able to reach my folks, but I couldn't get in touch with Crystal, my then-girlfriend. A quick trip online to #callahans was able to recruit someone (Blanche, IIRC) to call her, and let her know I was okay.
After that, I took my cellular and walkman, and went for a walk over to Belfer Hall. a 20-story lecture hall/office building and, because of the elevation of our neighborhood, the highest point in Manhattan.
Along with someone else, who I don't know, I made my way to the roof and, while listening to the radio, I saw the second tower fall.
I don't really remember much of the rest of the day in any sort of concrete order. I remember watching TV at Hanan and Deborah's, I remember talking with friends. I remember finally getting in touch with Crystal either later in the morning, or early afternoon.
I was never scared. Shocked, definitely shocked, but never scared.
I remember how, late in the afternoon on the 11th, I caught myself thinking in Hebrew. I'm multilingual, and more-or-less fully fluent in Hebrew, but it's not a language I think in unless I've been speaking it for a few hours. However, most of my terminology for dealing with terrorism are in Hebrew. (things like "suspicious object," "bomb threat," etc.)
The rest of the week is also mostly fragmented memories. I had class the next day, which pissed me off until my Social Psych of Evil class, which gave me a chance to analyze the goings on.
On Thursday I went down to the armory on 25th and Lexington to file a missing persons report for Liam, a Callahanian. A phonecall to Rose told me that his family already filed one, but at the time, I felt like I had to do something.
Some friends of mine were at the armory giving out food and water to the people waiting on line. They were a little shocked to see me,but understood why I'd go down there. That was the closest I ever got to the area referred to as Ground Zero. The air was noticibly grey, and had a horrible smell to it. Thick, dark, burnt and cloying, it stuck to the roof of your mouth.
The rest my impressions arereally just isolated memories. I remember Rose calling me, and I just listened to her as she talked things out. I remember wishing for something more I could do, other than just sitting on my butt with a phone in my hand.
Perhaps the one image that will always stay with me happened on Friday of that week. My friend Avi is a dyed in the wool New Yorker. He's lived in Brooklyn most of his life, and is probably the closest friend I have who embodies this "New York spirit" that people talk about.
All week, he'd been knocking himself out working for student government, and making sure everyone else was alright. On Friday, it finally caught up to him. I walked into the lobby of his dorm and saw him sitting with some friends, holding a teddy bear, and crying.
I'll never forget that, ever.
In all, I was really lucky. Personally, I was physically unaffected, and all of my family that worked in the towers were able to escape, or weren't at work that day. Only two friends of mine lost loved ones. That's two too many, but still, things could have been much worse.
Eventually, things returned to some semblance of normal, but I'm going to carry these memories for a long time.
davened (prayed,) ate a quick breakfast and checked my e-mail. On my way out the door, at around 8:50, WNYC, the local NPR affiliate, reported a plane hitting one of the WTC towers. My first thought as I left my apartment was "What a horrible accident, I hope everyone's okay." A similar thing happened in the 1940s at the Empire State Building, so I assumed it was something along those lines.
Class ended at 9:50, as usual. No announcements were made in-class, but that's fairly normal. As I stepped outside of Furst Hall, I saw my friend David, heading in the opposite direction.
"Hey Dave, did you hear anything about that plane that hit the World Trade Center?" I asked.
"Um, yeah. One plane hit one tower, another plane hit the other tower, and a plane hit the Pentagon." He replied, with a small nervous laugh.
I remember my response as being short, and to the point.
"Dave, you're shitting me."
David directed me to walk up the block to Amsterdam Ave. (a North-South facing street) and look downtown, which I did.
All I could see past midtown was a huge, climbing pillar of smoke.
I pulled out my celphone, and tried to call home. I was able to get a signal without any problem, but couldn't get a call to go through. My voicemail indicator was flashing every few minutes to signal me of a new message, but I couldn't call in to check them.
I ran to my apartment, turned on the radio, and tried using my landline to call out. I could only make local calls, so I called my grandmother, and aunts and uncles to see that they were all alright. I eventually hit on the idea of using a net2phone card to call long distance.I was able to reach my folks, but I couldn't get in touch with Crystal, my then-girlfriend. A quick trip online to #callahans was able to recruit someone (Blanche, IIRC) to call her, and let her know I was okay.
After that, I took my cellular and walkman, and went for a walk over to Belfer Hall. a 20-story lecture hall/office building and, because of the elevation of our neighborhood, the highest point in Manhattan.
Along with someone else, who I don't know, I made my way to the roof and, while listening to the radio, I saw the second tower fall.
I don't really remember much of the rest of the day in any sort of concrete order. I remember watching TV at Hanan and Deborah's, I remember talking with friends. I remember finally getting in touch with Crystal either later in the morning, or early afternoon.
I was never scared. Shocked, definitely shocked, but never scared.
I remember how, late in the afternoon on the 11th, I caught myself thinking in Hebrew. I'm multilingual, and more-or-less fully fluent in Hebrew, but it's not a language I think in unless I've been speaking it for a few hours. However, most of my terminology for dealing with terrorism are in Hebrew. (things like "suspicious object," "bomb threat," etc.)
The rest of the week is also mostly fragmented memories. I had class the next day, which pissed me off until my Social Psych of Evil class, which gave me a chance to analyze the goings on.
On Thursday I went down to the armory on 25th and Lexington to file a missing persons report for Liam, a Callahanian. A phonecall to Rose told me that his family already filed one, but at the time, I felt like I had to do something.
Some friends of mine were at the armory giving out food and water to the people waiting on line. They were a little shocked to see me,but understood why I'd go down there. That was the closest I ever got to the area referred to as Ground Zero. The air was noticibly grey, and had a horrible smell to it. Thick, dark, burnt and cloying, it stuck to the roof of your mouth.
The rest my impressions arereally just isolated memories. I remember Rose calling me, and I just listened to her as she talked things out. I remember wishing for something more I could do, other than just sitting on my butt with a phone in my hand.
Perhaps the one image that will always stay with me happened on Friday of that week. My friend Avi is a dyed in the wool New Yorker. He's lived in Brooklyn most of his life, and is probably the closest friend I have who embodies this "New York spirit" that people talk about.
All week, he'd been knocking himself out working for student government, and making sure everyone else was alright. On Friday, it finally caught up to him. I walked into the lobby of his dorm and saw him sitting with some friends, holding a teddy bear, and crying.
I'll never forget that, ever.
In all, I was really lucky. Personally, I was physically unaffected, and all of my family that worked in the towers were able to escape, or weren't at work that day. Only two friends of mine lost loved ones. That's two too many, but still, things could have been much worse.
Eventually, things returned to some semblance of normal, but I'm going to carry these memories for a long time.