World Trade Center
September 11, 2001 and Aftermath
I never thought that I could feel such a sense of loss over a bunch of office buildings.
But the World Trade Center was more than that. What many Americans may not realize, especially those who never visited the towers, is that the World Trade Center had more in common with a small city than with a simple collection of office buildings. Within the perimeter of the World Trade Center were hundreds of businesses, as well as government agencies, restaurants, late-night bars, a hotel, a 24-hour drug store, a parking garage, radio and television stations, banks, four subway stations, a magnificent central fountain surrounded by a broad plaza, and an entire shopping mall with dozens of stores selling everything from consumer electronics to clothes to chocolates. Tens of thousands of people worked in the World Trade Center every day, and tens of thousands more passed through it, as commuters, shoppers, delivery persons, patrons, and tourists.
For as long as I can remember, the World Trade Center has been a part of my consciousness. I grew up in New Jersey, and my father commuted to downtown Manhattan every weekday, via NJ Transit to Newark and then the PATH to the WTC. Even if I’d never visited there myself, the towers were still plainly visible from Newark Airport, from a large stretch of the Turnpike, and even from a lookout point in the Watchung Mountains near my home.
However it wasn’t until I moved to New York City that the towers really became a part of my life. I have lived in the shadow of the World Trade Center for four years, first in Battery Park City and then, for the last couple of years, on Nassau Street. I purchased half the stuff that I own at the World Trade Center: my wallet came from the Coach store; my clothes from The Gap, Banana Republic, and J. Crew; my watch from Watch Gear; my shades from Sunglasses Hut; and books and CDs too numerous to list from Borders. Nearly everything in my bathroom medicine cabinet came from the 24-hour Duane Reade. I visited The Greatest Bar on Earth and ate at Wild Blue, both on the 107th floor of 1 WTC (the north tower), though I never made it to Windows on the World. My local late-night bar was Tall Ships in the Marriott Hotel (also known as 3 WTC). The PATH station underneath the World Trade Center was my gateway to New Jersey, where my parents and many of my friends still live.
One of my favorite places to bring visitors from out of town was the Observation Deck at the top of 2 WTC (the south tower). The enclosed observation desk was on the 107th floor, and it wasn't too windy or foggy, you could take an escalator up to the roof. The view from the roof was incredible, but one thing always seemed a little surreal, which was that there was another building right up there with you. Everything else was far away, down on the ground. The World Trade Center had that arrogant, typically New York quality about it: Not content to build the tallest building in the world, New Yorkers had to build it twice.
Now all of this is a pile of debris at "ground zero."
Some people, usually people from California or Florida who have probably never even visited New York, who have suggested that the World Trade Center site be converted into a park or preserved as some kind of memorial. That might have been a good idea for the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, which was a drab 9-story government office building in a pretty ordinary American city. But the World Trade Center was thirty times the size of the Murrah building, a architectural wonder, and the economic anchor of downtown Manhattan. If all of downtown Oklahoma City had been destroyed, nobody would have suggested that all those millions of square feet of stores, restaurants, and businesses be replaced with a memorial. It's just as ridiculous to suggest that a memorial could take the place of the World Trade Center.
My hope is that the World Trade Center will be rebuilt as it was. I said as much in a letter to the New York Times, which was published on September 23. That may be impossible--nobody would want to work in a building that can reasonably be called a terrorist magnet--but if that is the case, I at least hope the new World Trade Center is as unique and awe-inspiring as the original.
On a technical note, I shot most of the pictures on this page with my Olympus C-2020Z digital camera, though for the ones in the Gradual Return to Normalcy section, I used the E-20N.
September 11, 2001
I was on vacation that week. I didn't have anything to do and figured that I'd spend the week hanging around the city. On Tuesday morning I was woken up by an explosion. I knew that it was an explosion even though I wasn't really conscious when it happened. Incredibly, the explosion that I heard was the second airplane hitting the south tower; I slept through the first.
I grabbed my digital camera and went outside. If I knew what was coming, I
would have headed uptown, but at the time, I thought that an accident had
occurred. Nassau Street was filled with people heading north, and I could
see smoke in the sky. I turned right onto Fulton Street, and I saw it.
The World Trade Center was on fire. A guy walking past me was wearing a
business suit but had blood on his hands; he said that an airplane had hit the
tower and that he had been thrown to the ground. Someone else said that
there had been two planes. Nobody seemed to know what was going on.
I made my way up Fulton Street, past buildings with broken windows, until I was
about a half a block away from the World Trade Center, and took this photo of
the burning towers.
About this time the police started getting in gear and herding everyone away
from the WTC. I held the camera over my head and snapped this picture as
we all retreated toward Church Street.
I went back home and called a few people including Izzy. I told Izzy that I didn't think that the buildings would collapse. The Empire State Building had been hit by a B-25 bomber in 1943, I told her, and it was still standing; they construct tall buildings with this possibility in mind.
After I had been home for maybe 20 or 30 minutes, I heard a noise outside that quickly built up to a floor-shaking roar. I thought that it was another airplane coming in, but almost immediately after that thought entered my mind, the radio announced that the south tower was collapsing. My apartment is close enough to the WTC that there was a very real possibility that the collapsing towers could damage my building. I decided that I didn't want to stick around to see how that played out, so I grabbed my cell phone and my shoes and ran out the door. As I ran out, the police ran in. They were evacuating all the buildings on the street and started pounding on the doors of the other two apartments in my building.
Outside was worse than inside. The cloud of dust was so thick on Nassau Street that the streetlights had come on, and I could only see about five feet in front of me. Particulate debris was raining from the sky and settling on the street like snow. At first I thought that the street was filled with smoke and that I wasn't going to be able to breathe, but then I thought that smoke would probably rise in the open air and not hang around at street level and that the stuff in the air was probably dust. I pulled my shirt over my mouth and breathed through it so as not to inhale too much crap.
I took refuge with a few dozen others in a parking garage around the corner from my apartment, but it started filling up with dust too, so I left there and headed Chinatown. I could barely see where I was going. I didn't have a destination in mind. After the tower collapsed, I became acutely aware that the attack might not be over, that there might be more airplanes on the way, and that there might even be other attacks planned. I wanted to get away from anything that seemed like a target.
Once I was into Chinatown, a mile or so from "ground zero," the air had cleared up enough that I could breathe normally. I spent the next few hours walking over half of Manhattan, trying to make phone calls, unsuccessfully trying to get back to my apartment, and catching up with Izzy. Finally, at around 11PM, I boarded a NJ Transit train at Pennsylvania Station and rode out to a friend's house in New Jersey, which would be my home for the next three days.
Aftermath
I didn't bring any cameras with me when I evacuated my apartment, so I wasn't able to take any more pictures until I was able to retrieve my digital camera on September 14.
These cars were apparently parked near the World Trade Center and were hit by
debris. The workers towed them to this spot at the foot of the Brooklyn
Bridge, where they were lit by the orange glow of the street lights.
This piece of paper landed on the extension roof behind my apartment. It
is a human resources form of some kind, partially burned and blown two blocks
away during the collapse. There is still trash like this scattered around
the downtown area. It's mostly been cleaned off the streets, but a lot of
it is still sitting on the roofs of buildings.
The New York Stock Exchange reopened on September 17. The first picture of
the facade of the NYSE with the large flag hanging on it was taken by Izzy.
The other photo is mine and depicts a group of journalists gathered outside a
police barrier, presumably reporting on the opening of the exchange. The
area around the NYSE continue to be a high-security area. No traffic is
permitted on any of the surrounding streets, and pedestrians are restricted to
the far side of the street.
This is a photo of the place colloquially called "Red Cube Plaza." Its
real name is Harry B. Helmsley Plaza. This is as close as you can get to
"ground zero" without a badge. The building to the left is One Liberty
Plaza, which was rumored to be in danger of collapsing, but which was only
slightly damaged and has since been reopened.
Pictures of the wreckage and the people working on the scene. The area
pictured in these photos, which were taken from different angles, used to be a
little park with trees and benches.
After the catastrophe, people started hanging flowers, letters, and poetry up on
walls, sign posts, and even police and fire vehicles. People are still
putting a lot of similar stuff up, especially on the fence around the restricted
area, but it appears to have slacked off just a bit.
This was a hazy day a couple of weeks after September 11, and I caught this
sight of the World Financial Center shrouded in mist and smoke. Now, two
months later, there are still fires burning at "ground zero," but for the most
part the stench that permeated downtown has gone away.
A view up Vesey Street from the 14th floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
On the left side of Vesey Street is the remains of the collapsed 7 World Trade
Center. On the right is the edge of "ground zero." You see that
short building in the upper-middle of the photo with the clock on the corner?
That's J&R Computer World. My apartment
is behind that building on Nassau Street.
Gradual Return to Normalcy
About six weeks after September 11, most of Battery Park City had been reopened
to the general public. This area in front of the World Financial Center,
normally hopping with skaters, bicyclists, joggers, pedestrians, and patrons of
the outdoor restaurants that surround the yacht marina, has been turned into a
street so that vehicles can travel between the northern part of Battery Park
City to the southern part without having to drive through the restricted area.
At least it's nice to be able to visit the water again.
Last updated November 21, 2001