Rembering September 11, 2001

I WAS THERE

THE FATEFUL DAY

It’s been 25 years since the unthinkable happened.

Hard to believe for those of us who were there.

For years, I thought about documenting my experiences that day, but I kept putting it off. Now, Substack has allowed me to put it in writing. This is more like a necessary catharsis for me. I hope you read it.

Many of those memories are still vivid.

I clearly recall September 11, 2001. It was a beautiful late summer day in NYC, and I had voted in the Primary election before going to my office. I worked at 250 Broadway, a big office building across from City Hall and two blocks north of the World Trade Center.

It was a Tuesday when we had our regular 8:30 AM project managers’ meeting. As the meeting was progressing, a co-worker friend came into the conference room and told us a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We assumed it was a small plane. Just before that, we heard a loud boom, looked out the window on the Murray Street side, but saw nothing. Loud unexplained noises in NYC are not unusual. With her announcement, my boss, Charlie, reacted by breaking his pencil in half – a sign to me that something was very wrong – and it was not just a small plane that had lost its way. We all quickly left the room to go to the Park Place side of the building where we could see the towers.

The sight was simply unbelievable. I liken it to seeing King Kong on top of the Empire State Building.

Seeing the towers – the tallest in NYC at the time – with flames searing through the north tower from floors 93 -98 – six floors was shocking. Each WTC tower had 110 stories.

As I watched, stunned, I saw the second plane come from the south and rip into the South Tower. OMG. My boss’s secretary was crying because her husband worked at 90 Church Street, adjacent to the WTC complex, which included five other buildings that were destroyed. We later learned firefighters had to access 90 Church Street to try to put the fires out. That building was inaccessible for several years.

I recall thinking about the extensive fire damage and how it would be repaired – and how the people would be rescued. Of course, that never happened.

It was impossible to process what we were seeing.

NO ACCIDENT

At that point, we knew that it was not an accident and something very evil was happening – but we had no idea what. Was this an attack on NYC alone; maybe the primaries – or was it something more? I left the building walking uptown with a coworker -- and so many other people were doing the same thing. We ended up at the architectural office of her friend, where we watched the tragedy unfold on television. We were able to look out the window onto Broadway and, shortly after, saw the South Tower crumble and fall, followed by the North Tower. We still had no idea what was going on.

While most of the people in the office were talking about what was happening, I recall one man who kept to himself at his drafting table, looking upset. But when the first tower collapsed, he began sobbing. It resonated with me because I recognized the deep connection between his career and the World Trade Center – a good, solid symbol of NYC and the US - collapsing.

At that point, we decided to leave the area – The debris from the “explosion” of the buildings collapsing did not come as far as our building, and we began to walk north on Broadway along with many others.

Some of my coworkers went across the Brooklyn Bridge and were affected by all the debris. It was chaos. Fortunately, they were safe.

We walked north to St. Vincent’s Hospital on W. 12^th Street (no longer there) to give blood. We met a very long line of people waiting to do the same thing. The hospital staff were outside waiting and had arranged many wheelchairs and gurneys covered in sheets – but few of the wounded ever came. It was unsettling.

They did not need our blood.

Then, from nowhere, a bus driver offered to take us to St. Claire’s Hospital further north, and also no longer in existence – but they, too, were not taking blood – same with the NY Blood Center on the Upper West Side. I eventually got to the 72^nd St. subway, which was running by that time, and made my way home – I was glued to the television for days. This was truly uncharted territory.

Because our office building was in Ground Zero, we were instructed to report for work at our Long Island City office, where we worked for two weeks before we returned to 250 Broadway. We were responsible for relocating the displaced staff and departments from 90 Church St wherever we could find space. This building needed major renovation, which took several years.

In these two weeks, I took a different subway to work. When I returned to 96^th St and Central Park West, to the subway I had taken every day, the man who ran the coffee truck saw me, got out, and gave me a big hug. Because he had not seen me, he thought I had perished.

RETURNING TO GROUND ZERO

When we returned to work at Ground Zero, I planned to get off the subway one stop further so I could walk west on Fulton Street to see the aftermath – I wanted to bear witness to the destruction. It was shocking. The World Trade Center was the tallest building for a period and represented the best of the United States and certainly of NYC. I recall going there for lunchtime concerts and shopping in the lower-level mall. In the 1980s, I worked for a design office in the south tower.

AIR QUALITY

No one knew what to do with the area where we worked. The terrible smell of chemicals - all the equipment, carpet, and furniture incinerated along with the thousands of people who died – a smell I hope never to experience again. Many of us took to wearing masks, although that probably did not help much. My coworker friend mentioned above developed Lymphoma – fortunately still with us – but several other coworkers died from different cancers.

I began to develop a loss of my voice – especially noticeable when I’d get to the office in the morning and if my phone rang, concerned that I couldn’t speak. I eventually went to the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary on East 14^th St, which was bought by Mt. Sinai in 2013. I never attributed it to WTC air since it began to bother me about five years later.

My condition (chronic/periodic laryngitis and cough) persisted, and a few years ago I saw that this was added to the list of WTC illnesses. I registered with a law firm and attempted to get early medical records, but it was impossible. At that time, MyChart did not exist, and I never thought of saving the early medical records. The law firm eventually decided not to take my case. I was not interested in a resolution – I just wanted to document that working in the area for 17 years most likely caused this issue.

SOME MEMORIES

- Mary Stokes (Mary Weiss from the 1960s girl group Shangri-Las) worked with our office and was on the way to a meeting. I recall her telling us how she saw the plane flying very low and crashing into the North Tower.

- A newsstand in the lobby of 250 Broadway run by a Sikh was forced to close. Because he wore a turban, he was mistakenly assumed to be Muslim. There was no understanding or forgiveness. The country had become very “patriotic.”

--Pictures of missing people who worked at the WTC were plastered all over the city, including public gathering spaces, official assistance centers, and healthcare facilities. It was disheartening to see this, knowing that most of them were gone but their loved ones kept hoping.

- We felt so helpless to learn that the NYC Fire Department suffered huge losses trying to rescue people in the towers. We brought food and treats to the local firehouse on the West Side, which also lost some of its members. It seemed so insignificant, but we wanted them to know how much they were appreciated.

-- Many of the stores on lower Broadway were destroyed; glass front broken; thick dust from the WTC covered everything. This went on for months and months.

- One of my co-workers wanted to photograph the WTC disaster and went to an upper floor of our building. He must have captured some devastating images because he told us he did not want to show anyone since he captured people jumping out of the windows. He also saw the pilots of the second plane coming toward the South Tower. I can’t imagine the fear and terror the people who worked at the WTC felt. I remember working there, and the floor plate was huge. I thought of a plane crashing through the building – and then deciding to jump out of the building to a certain death. It was mind-boggling.

- Giuliani at the end of his term was deeply unpopular. We did not need him to tell New Yorkers what to do. We knew. Whether it was giving blood, rescuing animals, or helping people who lost their homes, New Yorkers were there. Somehow, the media began to call him America’s mayor, and he became the face of a 911 savior.

- A few days after 9/11, I was walking on W. 94^th Street when something big fell and made a loud noise. I jumped – and the man walking in front of me did the same thing. Many of us were jumpy and on edge for quite a while after.

- We worried about the subways and what someone could do with poisonous gas. I recall waiting on the subway platform and seeing a few men who looked suspicious to me. Instead of waiting for the next train, I got into another car. Seems silly now.

- Sometime later, I was at Starbucks on 86^th and Columbus when I noticed someone had written on the bathroom walls. “Kill all the Jews.” Incensed, I complained to the manager, who felt she could do nothing. I then complained to the Anti-Defamation League. They contacted Starbucks, had them do sensitivity training, and had the bathroom repainted. All the manager or anyone else had to do was scribble over the comment – but they chose to ignore it.

- Many animal rescue groups were involved with rescue in the area during this time. I fostered a cat for City Critters named Vesey because she was found on Vesey Street, a block from the WTC.

- Someone I worked with at a prior job, who was always willing to help people, had worked at the WTC. He managed to get out of the building but decided to go back to help people. He never returned.

- As time went on, construction continued in the area, and the two reflecting pools were finally finished. They are in the footprint of the two towers and surrounded by bronze panels inscribed with the names of the 2,893 victims of this disastrous attack. When I finally got to see them, it was very emotional for me. They were exquisite. But it was distressing to see people taking selfies and laughing with no understanding of where they were.

NOW - 25 YEARS LATER

NYC releases 170K pages of long-hidden 9/11 documents on air quality risks — that show officials may have misled the public

NY Post - 9/8/26

“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said from City Hall, where he was joined by comedian Jon Stewart and other advocates for 9/11 survivors and first responders.”

Those of us who worked there from 9/11 to many years after breathed that air every day. We never trusted people like former NJ governor Christine Todd Whitman when she said it was safe. But what were we to do? In my case, I did not have the early medical records to prove my condition because it never occurred to me that it might be related to the toxic air — so I hope my present condition, which is not bad, is as bad as it will ever get.

Interesting Associated Press article by Deepti Hajela - 9/7/26

One attack, many Americas: Why 9/11 and its many griefs land differently 25 years later

Thanks for reading.