I work a block from Ground Zero...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

…namely, at a 1920s-style building between Fulton and Dey on Broadway, with just the knife-thin Milennium Hotel between us and the giant grave, PATH station, construction site, etc. I’ll be there tomorrow morning, even though a few of my family members (who don’t live in NYC) think it’s foolish of me to go into work, being so close to a giant target and having to use the subway to get there.

I plan to wear a black suit and a flag pin in my lapel, and my company is having moments of silence at the appropriate times. I plan to come in early, having my ID handy, and take the subway to City Hall instead of Brooklyn Bridge, since my usual stop is directly under my building. I expect to hear the bells toll right outside my window, as we look right into the stone steeple of old St. Paul’s.

This morning we had Mass at my RC church at Columbus Circle, with the new 9/11 Memorial plaque dedicated next to the one for parishoners who died in the World Wars. I remember the first time I went to Manhattan after it happened was for Mass on Sunday the 16th, and how abandoned midtown was, with everybody in black and so quiet, flags everywhere, Saks and all the Fifth Avenue stores with their shades down hiding their displays, one solitary flag flying at Rockefeller Center with the rest of the poles empty. I remember losing my job and bouncing from job to job for two years afterwards, as nobody seemed to want to hire anyone permanently.

I also remember my grandfather dying on the night of September 12th, he never knowing what had happened, and burying him the next Monday, buying the last flowers in NY and having relatives drive thousands of miles because they couldn’t fly, and passing by three firefighter funerals at St. Charles; we left saddened but so grateful that we were able to bury a 94-year-old man who had died peacefully in his own bed, with plenty of time for us to prepare.

Tomorrow evening, I’m meeting a friend and we’re going to have dinner in Tribeca and then go to the river to look at the Towers of Light. In a way, I wish the day was over; it’s something I find draining, as Grandpa’s death and my career troubles burned it into my memory in a way I can’t quite get over yet.

Anyway, that’s how one New Yorker plans to spend her day–how about you? No politics, please.

2

To be honest, I hadn’t realized the date until I saw the news this morning. I’m in Baghdad and I’ll go to work. They’ll be explosions, but there are explosions here every day.

On 9/11 I was in Kosovo, just coming back from conducting some training to the UN office (I didn’t work for the UN, but was using their facilities) and the BBC was on. There was just crazy news coming out, about car bombs at the State Dept, etc.

At the time, my sister worked for the department of the navy in DC. They said a plane hit the pentagon and I said outloud to myself “my sister works there.” This Scottish woman I didn’t know and never saw again immediately handed me her phone and said: “call her right now.” I did and she was fine. She was driving across the 14th street bridge. She said she was the only car on it and that part of the Pentagon was on fire.

Later, I went for a walk in Prizren (a Kosovar city). People were lining up to give blood and they had organized an candlelight vigil in the city square. The next day, one of the Kosovo newspapers ran the headline: We are at War (Kosovars were very appreciative of the military intervention that stopped the Serbian aggression).

In my hotel room, I was trying to get some news in English on the satellite TV and they sent up this technician to help. He didn’t speak much English, but he asked if I was an American and when I said yes he hugged me and told me about how the Serbs had shot his father in the street in front of the hotel and that he would never forget what America did for his people. He was weeping.

It all seems so long ago.

3

My sister lives in Tribeca, and the Towers were a part of the landscape outside of their 5th floor apartment. Her hubby watched the second plane hit … not 5 blocks from the window.

My daughter just got back from a weekend with her Aunt in NYC. I know my sister and her hubby are just about doing their same, day to day week without really worrying much about 9/11.

Ya kinda got to know New Yorkers. :slight_smile:

Thanks for the stories … I remember my sis telling about how they were barred from coming back to their flat … but how could they not? They eventually slipped up the fire escape to their apt. Then she tells of a week of candlelit dinners, everyone from the building coming together to eat at evening meal. The men got a generator … somehow? … and dragged it up to the roof.

Those were priceless days … hours … I waited for postings from my sis that she and Hubby were alright. :slight_smile:
Good luck and God Speed, Mehitabel and Madmonk.

4

I work a block north of you, Mehitabel, and worked there on 9/11/2001. I’m sure much of my day will be punctuated by official observances today–very little chance of getting a whole lot of work done.

5

So long as the terrorists don’t get hold of the obvious weapon to attack a structure of that vintage, you should be safe.

As for me, I’ll be thinking about 9/11 as little as possible today. We’re never given a rest from 9/11, so why have a specific day to remember it?

6

I also work about a block from the holes in the ground formerly known as the Twin Towers (40 Rector St).

Life as usual.

My reactions 5 years ago were, in consecutive order:

•WTF? Have they lost their freaking minds? This administration is almost reclusive in its isolationism, what could they possibly think would be a beneficial outcome of pulling this?

• Well, I’ve been expecting and predicting something like this since 1978 or so, except that I figured it would be a small nuke. Well, here goes, everybody: freedom or safety, open state or closed state? Place yer bets.

I was lucky insofar as no one I knew personally lost a life in the disaster. Seems like ancient history now — all the emotional content I feel is wrapped up in the political penumbra as it exists 5 years down the pike. I’ll try to take a moment to walk by and give a serious contemplative thought on those who lost their lives there, but I could do without the upsurge in glurge that seems to have flourished this year. (Guess it’s just long enough that the dictates of good taste don’t prevent it?)

7

I used to work in Two World Financial Center in 2001. Right after 9/11 I worked at a client in the Woolworth building. You got a nice view of the devestation from there. Not to mention the entire neighborhood smelled like a cross between a tire fire and the after effects of clapping two erasers together.

8

Well, I got to work with no problems, although there were a few more cops in Brooklyn Bridge subway station. Most of the women where I worked wore black suits or skirts, fewer men did, although for some reason guys who were dressed casually wore a lot of black T-shirts and polos. People were quiet, and crowds moved around Ground Zero, with lots of folks putting their fingers into the mesh of the fences and starting silently, or entwining flowers or pictures into it. A few Jesus or conspiracy freaks were speechifying, and both groups were blithely ignored. A classical music quartet played, and family members stood near the Ten Ten firehouse and read excerpts from ‘Portraits of Grief’, the book.

We had a moment of silence at 8:46, with the bells tolling at St. Paul’s right outside the window. We could also hear a brief church service with a full choir singing for a while, and then, a few hours later, protestors shouting. It was all so American.

After work I went and grabbed a nice meal in a cute little bistro in Tribeca (the guy who I was supposed to meet having weaseled out on me) and witnessed a particularly glorious golden sunset over New Jersey. At sunset I strolled to the Hudson and watched the Towers of Light come up, as clouds drifted in and out of the beam in an azure sky. There were people strolling up and down the Hudson River Park just staring and thinking, couples holding hands, and parents pointing it out to their kids.

I crossed the West Side Highway into Spring St., hopped on the BMT, and went to Fifth Avenue where I got myself something I’d been craving and saving for for a while–a nice new Ipod Nano. I have and will continue to use it to listen to music written by females, Negroes, Jews, and homosexuals, and anybody else I damn well want to (a hearty Fuck You, Osama!). When I left the store and came up onto the Avenue, I looked down to see the Empire State Building with its red, white, and blue lights and, very faintly, miles away, the Towers of Light. I saluted them and my city and went home, safe and sound.