Memories...
Click here for part 1 |
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I had to make a phone call
The police said, "Don't look," but I looked anyway. You know what I saw. Against a brilliant blue sky, the tops of both building were in flames, and clouds of black smoke were pouring out.
Since we didn't know anything except that a plane had hit, I thought, from the angle I was seeing it, that a single plane had hit the other building at a downward angle, gone straight through it, and hit ours. I didn't learn until some time later that the second shaking we had felt was a second plane.
I was numb. But I couldn't just stand and stare - the police were trying to get people away from the building, telling us to go over to Broadway. So that's what I did.
Then what? There were ambulances everywhere, but no injuries to be seen. (The serious injuries had already been moved to hospitals - the rest of us were either alive or dead.) There were thousands of people milling everywhere, trying to call on their cell phones, which were no longer working, of course.
We didn't really know what to do. People were talking to strangers in the street. Cellphones were down. Subways were down. We obviously weren't going back into the building. (That sounds silly now, but at the time the assumption was that the fire would be put out, and sometime soon we would go back to work in the lower part of the building while the upper floors were repaired.)
I was about seven miles from my apartment on the Upper East Side, still wearing my shoes with heels. Most of all, I needed to make phone calls, to let people know I was OK. I thought buses would be running on the First Avenue line, so I decided to head go in that direction.
Walking was difficult. My thigh muscles had pretty much given up, so every time I stepped down at a curb, my legs would buckle, and my back would jerk into spasm to stop me from falling. Then I would straighten up and keep going, one foot after the other. I found myself going to ridiculous lengths to walk down a wheelchair ramp at each cross street rather than make that three-inch step down.
I was still walking across town. I hadn't even started on the walk north towards home yet. Every phone had dozens of people in line. Finally, I got to a phone that had only four or five people waiting, and I got in line. The woman who had the phone was hogging it, pretending not to be aware of the people waiting, desperate to call their families.
Suddenly there was another rumble. Loud, long and threatening. People started to run.
Where I was standing, I couldn't see anything, and I hesitated. I really, really wanted to make that phone call. Then I saw the cloud of dust and debris coming, and I knew I had to move. I couldn't run - I could barely walk - but I walked as quickly as I possibly could, across the empty intersection, trying very hard to stay ahead of the cloud, which was slowly dissipating. We didn't know what had caused the cloud.
So now I was walking north, into an area of the Lower East Side and Chinatown that I barely knew existed. (And remember, I walk this city a lot!) Block after block, always looking for, first, a phone, and second, a shoe store that would sell me a pair of sneakers. My lovely black silk jacket was now covered with ash and dirt, and I had no idea what my hair and face looked like.
Aha! A phone. With no-one using it! No. It 's a non-working phone. But since I've turned onto a side street, let's head for the center of Chinatown. Maybe there'll be a shoe store there.
Another phone. This time someone's using it - it must be working. So I waited, and at long last, I could make a phone call.
I called Steve's machine and left a message. (I knew he'd be out that day. It took him a while to call the machine, but he did get the message.) Then I called the midtown office of our newly merged firm, and spoke to one of the few people I knew there. It turned out I was the first to call in. I named everyone I could think of that I'd seen outside the building - the office was acting as a clearinghouse for families calling for news.
She told me what had happened. Two planes had hit. One of the buildings had collapsed, she said. "You mean the top of the building?" I said. "No, the whole building. I don't know which one, though. I just know your building is the one with the antenna on top." I craned my head backwards, out of the phone booth, looked down the street, and could see one of the towers. "My building is still there - I can see the antenna."
A few more words, then I heard people around me gasping. I craned my head backwards again, and gasped myself. "What's the matter?" she said on the phone, "What's happening?"
"The other building just exploded," I said. (That's what it looked like.) "I've got to go." I hung up the phone, and tried to run, but it was back to walking quickly, one foot in front of the other.
This site was last updated 02/22/07
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