Cabinet readers remember 9/11

Thursday, September 8, 2011

The twin towers rise above Battery Park in downtown Manhattan. The twin towers were destroyed Sept. 11, 2001, by terrorists. Susan Clark photo

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Bronze plaque honoring all fallen heroes is permanently displayed across from the World Trade Center site in New York City. Susan Clark photo

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Flowers, flags and mementoes honor the fallen firefighters at ground zero in New York City in September 2001. Submitted photo

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Demolition and rescue crews clean the area near the World Trade Center in September 2001. Submitted photo

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A father and daughter view the crater left by the twin towers at the World Trade Center site in spring 2002. Every day, people from all over the world visit the site. Susan Clark photo

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This steel girder, in the form of a cross and embedded in concrete, was discovered standing upright by demolition and rescue crews at the site of the twin towers in 2002. The girder will be on display at the Memorial Museum in New York City. Susan Clark photo

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Construction continues at the former site of the World Trade Center. Susan Clark photo

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A demolition crew cleans the facade off a building across from the World Trade Center site in 2002. Susan Clark photo

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The twin towers rise above Battery Park in downtown Manhattan. The twin towers were destroyed Sept. 11, 2001, by terrorists. Susan Clark photo

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Cabinet Press asked our readers to submit their remembrances and reflections on the 10th anniversary of the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

Always remember

I was working in a manufacturing plant Sept. 11, 2001, when the president of the company gave us some terrible news and asked us to come into the conference to view on television what was so horrific that I would never forget, ever. When I got home I told my wife to put on the news, and as she watched she broke down in tears as well as me.

You see, I was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. Being the eldest of eight children, I quit school to help support my family. At 16, my first full-time job was working for Gizze Tile. We built and repaired bathroom tile walls, floors and anything to do with all aspects of ceramic tile.

My job was called a mud boy. I would mix cement in a tub with a hoe and shovel it in a 5-gallon pail to the customer’s home, business or establishment.

Gizze Tile was awarded a contract to tile the walls and floors of several of the higher levels of the brand-new World Trade Center.

It was hard work yet awesome for me. I watched these huge towers being built from the beginning to the end – truly a New York sight to see. My heart heavy and sad, I never thought such a terrorist act could happen to us in this great country of ours.

I have watched every documentary since the beginning until now and hope this will never happen again to the thousands of people who died and to all the agencies who risked and gave their lives unselfishly to save others.

To New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, to all who died and the families left behind, you will always be remembered and in my prayers.

Nick Duquette

Milford

Haunting images

My name is Kate Nestor, and I am a 22-year-old college student. But on Sept. 11, 2001, I was a 12-year-old sixth-grader at Milford Middle School.

I remember exactly where I was when I knew something was very wrong that bright September day. I was walking from math class on the lower level of MMS. I walked past the teacher’s room and saw them (including my favorite teacher, the Judge) crowded around a small TV screen that was showing a view of the bright sky. That image still haunts me to this day.

I later was told by my social studies teacher that the twin towers had fallen, but I didn’t understand what that meant. Later that day, I realized the horrible truth: that two planes full of passengers had crashed into the twin towers. (I later learned about the other two planes.)

That day changed not only my life but those of my classmates, my teachers and my generation. We have witnessed all sorts of other horrible things since then, such as the Virginia Tech Massacre, Hurricane Katrina, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

But Sept. 11 is what my generation will know as its Pearl Harbor. There were no guns, Japanese fighter planes, sinking U.S. warships or soldiers. However, 3,000 people or more died that day because of violence from those of an enemy country.

I would like to end my statement with a poem I wrote that was published after the attacks happened. It has been rewritten to add more depth and detail.

CHAOS

Suddenly, I hear loud noises and a child screaming

I look up and people and the buildings are suddenly falling.

Trying to run away from the ashes and debris,

Come to me child, come to me …

Kate Nestor

Milford

I will never forget

My wife and I were at home on Long Island that day, about 25 miles east-northeast of ground zero. The New York City policeman who lived across the street hadn’t been seen nor heard from since shortly before 9 that morning, when he called his wife to tell her that his unit was heading in to lower Manhattan to join in the rescue effort. Then the towers fell.

His partner had called her mid-afternoon to see if she had heard from him, which she hadn’t. She was six months pregnant with their second child and was understandably agitated. All of the cell phone service in lower Manhattan was lost when the antenna on top of the tower came down, and people were mobbing pay phones just to let their families know they were alive. His wife came knocking on the door in tears around 7:30 that night to let us know that he had finally gotten a line out of New York and that he was OK. Although they didn’t know then, it would be another 27 hours until he saw home.

We had spent the day watching the footage of the plane crashes, the Pentagon, the field in Pennsylvania, the demise of the World Trade Center, and the ghostly yellowish shroud that fell across the Battery and New York Harbor. Earlier that day, from a hillside along the Northern State Parkway in Plainview, N.Y., we had watched firsthand as the towers fell. Now we sat thunderstruck as darkness fell and the death tolls rose.

No one was sure yet of the source of the attacks or if more would follow. All of the bridges, tunnels and ferries were shut down, and for the first time in my lifetime, Long Island was truly an island. While it never made the national news, the local outlets were reporting that the Coast Guard and U.S. Navy were not allowing boats out in the Long Island Sound due to the proximity of the submarine base and Naval Academy in New London, Conn., and the Millstone nuclear power plant and Hess gasoline tank farm located nearby. Suffolk and Nassau County Police had shut down the Long Island Expressway, except to emergency and government vehicles. We couldn’t have gotten out if we wanted to.

Sometime after dark, the major outlets were reporting that Midtown Manhattan was under lockdown and blacked out, not by a power failure but due to a threat that to this day I have never heard fully explained. They showed live shots of the darkened Empire State Building and surrounding blocks. For the first time that day, I truly felt frightened for my own safety.

The ensuing days and weeks were like a bad dream. Some days, the air was thick with a foul-smelling haze that left a coating of fine-particle dust on the cars. We heard tales of family, friends, and friends of friends. Everyone you talked to was or knew someone who was directly involved “at the Trade Center.” Most were survivors, some not.

The parade of funeral processions went on for months, through countless towns and traffic snarls. Most of the fallen were the heroic volunteer firefighters of our Long Island communities who had selflessly gone to the aid of their brothers in the FDNY, only to meet their own cruel fate. Thinking about it still brings tears to my eyes.

You can never get over an experience of this magnitude when it happens so close to home. With all respect, those who say they have fully recovered could not have been as directly affected by it. An attack on one’s nation or ideology is truly shocking, alarming and personal. An attack on the little section of the universe that you call home shakes you to your core. It’s the kind of thing that you never recover from; you just learn to live with it. Or not.

I WILL NEVER FORGET.

Mark W. Altner

Lyndeborough

Remembrance

I was working in human resources for Compaq (formerly Digital) on that beautiful New England morning of Sept. 11. I had offices in Stow, Mass., at the former Digital facility and a convenient satellite cubicle in Nashua. Although my HR responsibilities were at the group level, I did provide some minimal HR support to a small group in Nashua since my cube was in the middle of their systems architect unit.

As our group in Stow was trying to understand what just happened, a call came in for me from Mike, the director of the financial industry architects. Distraught, he told me that he was calling from California because he just received a call about the attacks and one of his employees, Jeff Coombs, was on American Airlines’ Flight 11. Mike knew Jeff was on the flight en route to a trade conference because Mike also had a reserved seat on Flight 11.

Mike was not on that flight because he had received a call from a customer in California over the weekend asking him if he could please come out early and meet with him before the conference. Mike, knowing the customer always comes first, left his family earlier than planned that weekend. Mike explained the situation to Jeff, and they made plans to meet up at the conference.

After we were given the official confirmation that Jeff was on the flight, we assembled an emergency conference call with Mike’s group. The conversation and feelings felt surreal to all of us – like this really didn’t happen and we were having this conference call in a dream. Later, I silently removed Jeff’s nameplate from the outside wall of his cubicle.

Other Digital/Compaq employees died on 9/11. Another situational incident occurred on an upper floor of the World Trade Center that morning. A group of five of our salespeople had a breakfast meeting to prepare for their later morning meeting with the customer on that floor. One of the salespeople spilled some coffee on his shirt, and he left the group around 8:30 to go back to his room to put on a new shirt before the customers arrived. He was just walking to the hotel where they were all staying through the glass tunnel connected to the Towers when he heard the crash, looked up and ran to the hotel before the debris collapsed the glass walkway.

There have been countless stories about people who were intended to be in the path of the terrorists’ attacks on that beautifully clear, blue sky Tuesday morning. I take solace in knowing that it is only a very small minority of residents of this planet who would pierce the blue skies with the evil hatred of clouds of black destruction. Almost every person wants to wake and look up to crisp, crystal-clear blue skies every day of their lives.

John Kramarczyk

Brookline

A sad day

I was driving in to work in Nashua and heard on the radio that a plane hit one of the Trade Center towers. It was a clear day, but I thought, “It happened to the Empire State Building … so OK.”

I got to work and said to a co-worker, “Did you hear a plane hit one of the World Trade Center towers?” She said she hadn’t. We eventually heard it was a bigger plane and that the tower was on fire. Another co-worker pulled up a live stream on his computer, and we watched.

I don’t remember when we first heard it was a 767 that crashed, but when we watched a huge explosion on the second tower, we instantly knew it was a terrorist attack. It’s strange how clear that was. We continued to watch as the towers collapsed one by one. I remember another co-worker breaking down in tears at the horror. We followed the news as Washington and Shanksville (Penn.) played out, wondering, “What’s next?”

Yet another co-worker got a phone call. In disbelief, he told us he had a friend on one of the planes that hit the towers. A sad day!! But every day is sad, as long as Americans are fighting and dying to keep us free. Their sacrifice puts everything in perspective.

Steve Wagner

Brookline

Reflection

WE WILL NEVER FORGET 9-11

There’s another choir in Heaven.

Have the screams turned into songs yet?

People put their shoes on that day

and went to work.

And died.

Coffee cup’s still in the sink.

Half a piece of toast grows moldy.

Somewhere, Fido howls for bones

and a pat on the head.

Master’s dead.

There’s dry cleaning

they’ll never pick up.

Birthday cakes, no more.

Never again, a “Honey, I’m home!”

Or the sound of their keys in the door.

Or the scuff of their slippers

crossing the floor, to say goodnight,

just once more.

They only did what’s right,

went to work.

And died.

They died at their desks

and died in the skies.

Some of them died while trying

to save lives.

They met their God amid

rubble and flame.

Or some other way.

Yesterday. 9-11-01

This too we will never forget.

Loretta Jackson

Merrimack

Loretta Jackson, a freelance writer, wrote this poem the morning after terrorists killed in cold blood some 3,000 citizens. It is shared here to commemorate the 10th anniversary of those terrorist attacks – because “we will never forget.”

Our Sad September Snow

OUR SAD SEPTEMBER SNOW

Morning broke once more, with pure and simple trust

We believed the door was closed, and the lock free of rust

But sadly, we were wrong. We were out there in the gale

Our ship did toss in a sea of tears, with torn and tattered sail

The planes, they came in low, streaking fast across the sky

They whistled past the structures, caught in the public’s eye

First one, and then the next, but a few minutes apart,

and in those tragic moments, they broke our country’s heart

The explosion seemed like fiction. The fire and the smoke

We all drew in the toxins, and gave a sickly choke

The buildings soon fell down. That scene we all remember,

when ashes hit the air, and it snowed in our September

Steel dropped like meteors. Glass like hot rain

We heard our brother’s screams, and felt our sister’s pain

Dear God, why did it happen? Dear God, what made it so?

Dear God, what brought our September this cruel and vicious snow?

Lord help us in our task. Lord help us in our prayer

Lord guide us to our friends who need our gentle care

Lord take us by the hand, and tell us where to go

Lord lead us through the blizzard of our sad September snow

Our family members are gone. With grief we hang our head

We place our hand to our heart, and mourn our country’s dead

But we owe them our pledge. They must see that we still thrive

We must show them and this world that justice is alive

This country is not lost. Our flag is still up high

Those things we love so dearly in truth can never die

Let wisdom be our compass, and someday we will know

how and why we suffered this gray and dismal snow

Time will not diminish it. The memory long will last

The image will still be there in years yet to be passed

And children in the future will read about this day,

when it snowed in our September, and the world lost its way.

9/11/01: We will never forget

Vincent Spada

Methuen, Mass.

Vincent Spada is a writer/author. He wrote this poem Sept. 12, 2001.

I will never forget

As long as I live and breathe, I will never forget.

The day … well, it seemed perfect. I still can picture almost every detail from what should have been a routine day. As I darted to my car to head out on sales calls, I breathed in the air and glanced at the sky. There wasn’t a cloud in it. If you got God on the phone and asked him to produce a perfect New England weather day, this was it. This was it. The picture, the feeling, the whole scene is burned in my brain.

But I had no time to linger and marvel at God’s handiwork. I beelined to Dunks, like I did every morning, buzzed in to get my coffee and plotted out my day. Got on the highway to go to my first call, rang up my husband at work to say hi and said ... wait. The radio just said a plane hit the World Trade Center. He seemed distracted – like he heard me but didn’t really HEAR me. I don’t think either one of us grasped the gravity of the situation. Who did? I immediately thought back to news stories I had seen on TV recently saying air traffic controllers were overwhelmed and it was only a matter of time before a tragedy occurred.

It must have finally happened, I thought. An accident. A tragic accident.

I called my parents.

“Do you have the TV on?”

“No, we’re just having some coffee. Why?”

“Turn the TV on. The radio just said a plane hit the World Trade Tower in New York.”

At that point, my parents, like all of the world who watched this unfold on TV, audibly gasped – I think I heard my dad hit the table with his hand or something, and then they relayed to me what went down. By the time I got to my first sales call, the entire waiting room looked like it had seen a ghost and the receptionist tearfully told me we were at war.

I’d yet to see any of it on TV and wasn’t sure I wanted to.

Inexplicably, searching for normal, I kept trying to plug through my morning, avoiding all TVs.

At my next call, they told me the first tower had collapsed.

In a morning, an hour, a minute, an instant … I knew, we knew, everything changed.

On one of the most perfect of days.

How do you wrap your head around the fact that mommies and daddies, daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, went off to work that day, just like me, but didn’t make it home? You grudgingly come to expect some professions are high-risk: firefighters, police officers, construction workers, soldiers, etc. But not number-crunchers, recruiters, restaurant workers, receptionists. They probably stopped at the same place they stopped 1,000 times before for their coffee and paper that morning. Maybe they mapped out their sales plan and route for the day. Or checked some accounting figures. Or worked on a business plan on the train ride in to the city, from a sleepy hamlet where they barely blinked as they chugged out of the station, inching toward a most terrible fate. Maybe, like me, they took an extra minute to mentally take note that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, to smell the air, to inhale the scene.

Maybe they took their kid to kindergarten that day and weren’t at work that morning. Maybe they were sick and called in. Maybe they were on a business trip to Chicago and weren’t at work in the towers or the Pentagon.

Maybe they almost took a job that was housed in the towers, but instead they chose a different company located in a different building because it was more money/better hours/better benefits.

Maybe they missed their flight.

Maybe they were lucky. And maybe they weren’t.

Approximately 3,000 innocent people were killed that day ... random victims of a hateful, insidious band of terrorists. Many more survived ... who knows why? Sheer luck? The grace of God? The hand of a courageous co-worker, firefighter, cop or stranger?

The hurt from that day is somewhat relative, for sure. Some lost everything ... some lost loved ones, neighbors, even multiple friends and neighbors. But we were all hurt that day. Whether we live in New York, D.C., New Hampshire or Oregon. And the hurt lingers.

It’s been 10 years, but it might as well have been yesterday. I will never forget.

So much has transpired in the past decade in my life. I have three children. I’ve since moved to a different house. My suits have been traded for jeans, my heels for Borns, my company car littered with sales paraphernalia traded for an SUV bursting with car seats, Matchboxes and mysterious sippy cups of unknown origin. My hair is a different color, my feet are two sizes bigger (see above ... three kids ... yeah … what didn’t grow? Oh, I know! My brain). Also? I maybe20poundsheavier butyouknowthatistheonething Iamnottotallyclearon.

But I’m still that young woman from that day.

And on Sept. 11, I’ll be in my kitchen, holding my coffee, and I’ll be right back there. I’ll see the sky, smell the air and feel the pain like it was five minutes ago. I won’t ever forget. I hope you don’t forget. As Americans, we owe it to those who died in our name to never forget.

It could have been us. But it wasn’t.

So what are we going to do to honor those daddies and mommies, daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, best friends and trusted confidantes?

At the very least? Don’t ever, ever forget.

Hug your kids. Kiss your husbands. Thank our soldiers, who often do a thankless job. Pray nothing like this every happens again. And remember that day – the way you felt deep inside – and never, never forget it.

Janet Frongillo

Bedford

Janet Frongillo is a writer, blogger and humorist. http://muffintopmommy.com. “Humor can be found everywhere.”

From the Currier Museum of Art

AURORA OF LOVE(inspired by Guido Reni)

Will you find the answer to life today?

Secrets and sunsets make the heart stand still.

Love’s gift is so difficult to convey.

Promises won’t keep, but you pray they will.

The world will change and more lives will end.

Time will wake you early from bed again.

You beg Cupid to stay true to your friend.

Angels send hope to the strongest of men.

From early love, marriage, children and death,

Rain may intrude and your towers may fall

Love will exist when nothing else is left.

Remember, your love will be worth it all.

Your soul is a sunrise of gold and red.

You know in your heart – before it is said.

Susanna Hargreaves

Formerly of Nashua

– Courtesy of The Currier Museum of Art, Manchester

Susanna Hargreaves is an educator, writer and mother of three. “I wrote this poem right after 9/11,” she said. “Like so many people, I focused on my loved ones, my faith and the comforts of the arts. Furthermore, something about the painting by Guido Reni comforted me when I saw it. Poetry is a way for me to capture the day and also get to the heart of my day. I was pregnant with my first child on 9/11 and had him Oct. 5 (nine days late). Though it was a difficult and confusing year, my sweet son was born in that year. There is good in the world.”

From the Currier Museum of Art

LEST WE FORGET

We remember precisely when we heard, what we saw:

An abomination in broad daylight in the very heart

Of the most advanced civilization ever realized!

New York’s colossal twin towers literally tumbling from the sky!

No Chicken Little cartoon, this –

No fictional cinematic mayhem to entertain –

No computer game in virtual time –

No saving awakening from a terrifying dream,

But a slow-motion unfolding of horror

Insinuating into our consciousness in real time.

Shocking, surreal, incomprehensible!

Like a developing negative, the graphic images come into focus,

Sharpen, cutting knifelike into our awareness.

We are gut-punched, our sensibilities savaged.

A paralysis of fear and vulnerability possesses us.

Then panic, as additional incidents are reported:

Washington D.C., Pennsylvania.

So many needlessly lost.

Any semblance of serenity and safety now mortally challenged.

Later, speculation as to who and why –

The slow shift to outrage,

And calls for retaliation and vengeance.

But more level heads prevail.

Raw emotions are channeled into immediate action.

Heroic professional responders rush to scenes of disaster,

(Many never to return)

And ordinary citizens, by the thousands, volunteer to assist.

Demonstrating unprecedented compassion and commitment,

A diverse American people coalesce into one vast, cohesive community –

Willing to front the dangers, to rebuild, to go forward with renewed optimism.

Indeed, the strongest steel is tried by fire!

Afterwards, it is said that two steel beams,

Criss-crossed and flame ravaged,

Pointed heavenward from Ground Zero –

A mute symbol proclaiming that freedom lives,

That basic human goodness will always trump cowardice,

That those thousands sacrificed, innocent victims and rescuers,

Did not die in vain.

Lest we forget, we are forever in their debt.

Dr. F. Patrick Grady

Peterborough

– Courtesy of The Currier Museum of Art, Manchester

Dr. F. Patrick Grady was born in New York. He is married to Kathleen, a registered nurse. They have two grown children and four granddaughters. He is an Army veteran and a retired doctoral-level psychologist specializing in children’s disorders. His interests include reading, writing, wildlife, kayaking and hang gliding. He has published a CD on parenting, a completed novel about child abuse, and numerous published articles and poems. He is a member of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire.

Currier Museum to mark anniversary

The Currier Museum will host a Sept. 11, 2001, 10th anniversary event at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 11, in collaboration with the Working With Words Collaborative. Authors will share their thoughts through poetry, prose, rap, lyrics, short scripts and video. The public is invited for the full-day event to listen and share their own thoughts. The event is free with museum admission. The museum’s Winter Garden Cafe is hosting a jazz brunch from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., featuring EJ Smooth on saxophone. The museum is at 150 Ash St., Manchester. For more information, call 669-6144 or visit www.currier.org.

Sept.11, 2001 – What I remember:

Cool, clear, crisp morning. Caught a train from New Jersey to get me to my office on Wall Street. The train took me from New Jersey to the train station underneath the World Trade Center. Got to the World Trade Center, took the escalators up to street level. Shortly after walking out of the building, I heard the very loud sound of a jet engine. Looked up just in time to see a bright orange ball of flame exploding out of the east side of the north tower. Most vivid, bright orange I had ever seen. Shiny pieces of metallic building facade splintered out in all directions. A moment after the explosion, the jet engine noise stopped, replaced by a metallic crunching sound echoing off the surrounding buildings, like a car crash.

Everyone paused for a moment and gasped, then almost at the same exact time, everyone started to run. Women screamed. I ran halfway across the park across the street, then stopped and looked back. A massive amount of paper rained down everywhere. Smoke was starting to billow from the tower, other debris began to fall. Everyone was running to get under some scaffolding nearby, so I joined them.

I decided to go to my office and let things settle down during the day, let them put out the fire, etc. I would go home that night when things were calmer. I remember an undercover police car with the flashing light behind the windshield swerving back and forth coming down Broadway. He turned down Liberty Street, heading toward the towers. I’ll never forget his face looking up at the burning tower. I’ll always wonder whether he made it home that night.

Walked to my building and headed to my office on the 25th floor. Only a handful of people were at the office. Could only see the south tower from my office window. South tower was clean and untouched, but smoke and paper were everywhere. Called my wife to tell her I was OK. I was covered in little bits and pieces of burnt debris. Headed across the floor to the bathroom to clean up and calm down. Heard a rumbling noise, and the building shook. Ran to the nearest window, where several people were pressed against the glass looking toward the towers. I rushed over and asked, “Another one?!” and the guys responded, “Another one just hit the south tower!”

They had seen it hit fly up the Hudson River and slam into the building. One of them was crying. I looked out and saw a massive hole in the south side of the south tower. Almost as wide as the building itself, several stories high. The fringes were burning. The explosion blew out part of the east side of the building as well. Debris, flames and smoke still were exploding out of the building. Shortly after, I saw a man clinging to one of the building’s exterior columns. He was holding on to the column from the outside of the building approximately 80 stories above the ground. The image of this man falling among the burning debris will never leave my mind.

We heard that the Pentagon had been hit too. The building safety director announced over the intercom that the building was going to be “locked down.” “If you want to leave, do so now.” A co-worker came rushing over and told us that another hijacked plane was in the air and they didn’t know where it was heading. Planned an escape with my co-workers. We’d steer clear of the Federal Reserve (down the block), the Empire State Building and definitely the New York Stock Exchange, which was directly across Wall Street from our building, fearing they could be the target of the fourth hijacked plane. We would exit using the back door onto Pine Street. It was a block closer to the World Trade Center, but it was better than walking out directly in front of the stock exchange.

There were many people out on the street rushing around. We headed east. Made it about halfway up the block when we heard a huge roar. Everyone looked up in all directions. I thought it was another plane. Which way should I run? Ultimately, I ran east, toward Broad Street. I briefly looked back as I ran and saw a massive gray cloud of smoke and debris rush down Broadway and turn the corner, coming up Pine Street right at me. I turned and ran faster. When I reached Broad Street, I had thoughts of turning to try escaping the debris cloud chasing me. But at Broad Street, I looked North and the cloud was coming at us from that direction too.

Everything went black. It didn’t get dark and then darker. It just went from light to black. I was standing on the sidewalk. My eyes may well have been closed. I literally could not see my hand in front of my face. The air was thick with soot and smoke. It became difficult to breathe. I tried to pull my shirt up over my mouth. Pulled a Kleenex out of my pocket and held it over my mouth and nose. I moved to my right to try to find the building that was there. Stumbled up a few steps and felt the glass wall of the building. There were around 10-14 people there with me. A woman was screaming that she couldn’t breathe. Others were yelling “Break the glass! Break the glass!” Someone was kicking the glass front of the building, but it wasn’t breaking.

Got harder to breathe. “OK,” I thought, “I’ll make my way down the few steps to the street and feel my way out of here.” I walked into a column trying to get to the steps down to the sidewalk, walked into a handrail at the steps and walked into a guy standing still on the sidewalk before I could even take a step. It was black. I realized I would never be able to walk out of there, especially since breathing was becoming more difficult. I made my way back up to the building, felt my way into a corner. Took a couple of whacks at the glass. I stopped and turned around, listened to the people around me, tried to keep my eyes open – the soot was blinding – and tried to breathe without sucking in more soot. My throat started to feel like it was filling up with soot.

That was the low point of the day for me. A panicked, indescribable feeling swept over me that this was where I was going to die: with a bunch of strangers, under the overhang of a New York high-rise. I thought about my pregnant wife and 2-year-old daughter. That’s a feeling I’ll never forget.

I don’t know how long that feeling lasted – couldn’t have been long. I heard the crash of breaking glass somewhere near me. Someone had busted into the building. I felt my way along the glass and eventually saw the shadowy figures of people ducking through the broken glass panel of a revolving door. Someone had broken through the glass of the revolving door, and it was actually revolving. Crushed glass was slowing the movement of the door, but I pushed through. The building was vacant. I tried to spit out as much soot as I could and clear my throat. Smoke and soot was pouring through the hole knocked out of the glass revolving door, and the building was starting to fill with smoke. I went to a loading dock area and went into a glass security booth and closed the door, trying to get as much air as I could.

After a while, I went back out to the building lobby to look outside. I saw the figures of people moving up the street. They were leaning forward like people walking in a snowstorm against the wind. It looked like a nuclear winter, or the result of a volcanic eruption with ash raining down. But people were moving, so I ventured outside with my filthy Kleenex over my face and headed east. I remember that there was a man standing on the steps of a building holding a huge bottle of water (the kind from water cooler). As stunned people walked by, covered in soot, he held the water so they could splash some on their face. I hope he wasn’t still there when the second tower collapsed.

As I walked east, it was like a scene out of the movies. Everyone was covered in soot. A garbage truck had stopped, and the driver and another man were helping a woman who had been lying on the street. I saw many people opening their cars so strangers could get in and get some air. I passed a store where a man was handing out paper towels and water to passersby. As the air began to clear, I turned north. I got to a point where several people had stopped to look over at the twin towers. There was only one left. The south tower was gone. The north tower was engulfed in smoke. It was then that I realized that the smoky cloud I tried to run away from was caused by the collapse of the south tower. It was incredibly demoralizing, looking at the one tower standing there.

It seemed like just a few seconds later that I saw the massive antenna sitting atop the north tower tilt as the building beneath it began to implode. Moments later, there was just a big cloud of smoke. I continued walking north as fast as I could. At first everyone around me was covered with soot as I was, but as I walked farther people began to stare. I was gray from head to toe. At some point, I caught a glimpse of the Empire State Building. I didn’t know what had happened to the fourth hijacked plane, but at least I knew it didn’t hit the Empire State Building. I could see F-15 fighters were circling overhead.

Eventually, I walked over to the West Side of Manhattan to find a ferry back to New Jersey. All the bridges and tunnels were shut down for fear of another terrorist attack. The only thing crossing the George Washington Bridge was a steady parade of fire trucks from New Jersey racing down to the World Trade Center to help. I found a ferry, but the wait time was seven to eight hours. Once the ferry docked in New Jersey, passengers were told that anyone who was within 10 blocks of the World Trade Center site would have to go through a decontamination shower, so I got in line for a shower. The authorities had set up a tent behind the train terminal for decontaminating us. Men in white biohazard suits herded us through one at a time. With my briefcase in hand, I walked through two men with fire hoses first, then another man with a shower nozzle on the end of a pole. After being drenched, we were given a few paper towels and sent off to our trains.

I climbed on a train headed for home. As we pulled out of the train station, I took a look back at Lower Manhattan. Where two proud skyscrapers once stood, there was now a massive plume of smoke. Unbelievable. My pregnant wife, Sylvia, was waiting for me in tears at the train station. Never been happier to see her in my life. Never felt luckier to be alive.

I feel like I saw both the best and the worst in people that day: the worst in the terrorists that took so many innocent lives, and the best in the brave firefighters and police officers who risked their lives for the innocent.

Erik Anderson

Bedford

A memoir of Sept. 11, 2001

A Memoir of a 29-year-old woman living and working in Downtown Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001.

It was a warm September morning with not a cloud in the sky. I took the subway downtown to the Bowling Green Station. My office building was at 1 New York Plaza, located next to Battery Park. I worked for Goldman Sachs in the research department. I arrived at work every morning at 7:30 a.m.

It was a regular Tuesday morning until about 8:50 a.m. I received an internal e-mail saying one of the World Trade Center towers had been struck by a plane. People started to gather, and we walked to an empty corner office where we had a view of the World Trade Center towers. We were all shocked to see 1 WTC with a large hole in it, smoke pouring out and papers flying everywhere. My co-workers and I discussed various reasons how this could happen. We all thought it was strange since it was a clear, beautiful day. After a few minutes of talking, I heard some screams coming from the office next to us, and the next moment I saw a huge fireball engulf the second World Trade Center tower. My first thought was, this is not a coincidence. We are being attacked. I had a sudden fear that my office building could get hit as well. One New York Plaza is about 10 blocks from the World Trade Center towers and sits along the waterfront near the Statue of Liberty. My co-workers and I quickly left the corner office, gathered our personal items and ran to the closest emergency exit stairway. We had to trudge down 47 flights of stairs. We were all quiet while we descended the stairs with a million thoughts and fears running through our heads. I was concerned about my roommate, who worked in 1 WTC. I knew, however, that she normally reported to work at 9:00 a.m. She must be OK.

Once we reached the lobby, we congregated outside to make sure everyone was OK. Not knowing what to do next, people decided to form walking groups to go home. Some people headed to the Brooklyn Bridge to walk to Brooklyn. I was with some people I knew who were going to the East Village, close to my apartment. As we were walking, people were trying to communicate with loved ones via cell phone. Nobody’s phone was working. The network was down. The streets were crowded with people mingling on the sidewalks, outside of stores and restaurants, not knowing what to do. As we continued our walk, someone mentioned that he thought the towers would fall because he thought the steel would not be able to withstand the heat from the jet engine fuel. I believed the person and thought it sounded logical, and the notion was terrifying. Not knowing exactly where we walking, we ended up in the City Hall area, which is close to the World Trade Center towers. I heard some loud rumblings, and as I looked behind me I saw that 1 WTC was crumbling to the ground. Piles of dust and debris came barreling through the streets toward us and chased us down the street. As I ran away from the debris, I prayed, realizing that I might die in the next few moments if I became buried under the rubble. I kept running, and a few moments later the dust and debris stopped chasing me. I had made it out of the area safely. Someone was watching over me, and I felt relieved for a few moments. I lost most of my walking group by this time. I continued walking north to my apartment. About 30 minutes later, I heard more rumblings and watched 2 WTC crumble to the ground. This time, I was far enough away to remain safe.

I finally got home around 10:50 a.m. I turned on the television and saw that the Pentagon had been attacked. A flood of fear came over me again. My roommate came home a short time later. We cried and hugged, happy that we were both OK. She had not been at work yet when the attacks happened. I finally spoke to my parents, who live in Pennsylvania, around 3 p.m. I told them I was going to try to come home to Pennsylvania the next day. I was still very afraid, thinking there could be more attacks coming. I slept with the lights on that night.

I was lucky to get an Amtrak train to Philadelphia on Sept. 12 (the only public transportation running out of the city). I didn’t have to go to work since all of the office buildings south of 14th Street were closed for an extended period. I felt a wave of relief after I left the city Sept. 12. I stayed with my family through the weekend and tried to heal from the most horrific day of my life. The memories are difficult, but here in Bedford, N.H., thankfully, Downtown Manhattan, 10 years later, is fading into a dream.

Doreen Schneller

Bedford