September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001, was twenty-three years ago, but I can remember, as if it were yesterday. 

I was walking from my building in Tribeca to my workplace in Manhattan’s financial district, the sky was as blue as could be, and the air was dry and crisp.  It was a perfect September day, gone was August’s heat and humidity. "This is a picture-perfect day!" I thought to myself, while Duke Ellington’s album 'Afro-Bossa' played on my MP3 player, and I quickened my pace.  When I reached my place of work at One Chase Manhattan Plaza, I paused for a minute, to look at Jean Dubuffet’s 40-foot sculpture titled, "Group of Four Trees" (It’s still there), went in the building and took the elevator to my office on the 57th floor.



Most mornings at work, started with my assistant Diane and I, drinking very strong coffee, gossiping, laughing, talking office politics followed by more coffee.  We heard a commotion down the hall, and I said to Diane, "The Traders started getting wired early today."  Diane laughed and said, "Yeah, those sociopathic coke heads!" we both laughed, and continued talking.  We were interrupted by John, the mailroom guy, who stuck his head into my office and said, "The World Trade Center is on fire!"  We jumped up, and went to the west side of the floor, where there was a spectacular view of the twin towers, that was just fifteen-hundred or so feet away.  I could see fire and black smoke that was emanating from the far side of the building, so I couldn’t see what had actually happened.  One of my co-workers said, "They’re saying a plane hit One World Trade Center!" At the time, I thought it was a small plane, and had no idea we were in the middle of a terrorist attack.



After watching the scene for a few minutes, Diane and I went back to work, as we had a meeting in half an hour, and we needed to have our pre-meeting meeting.  Ours was a world of quantitative analysis, with its mathematical models, statistics, and risk management.  In the financial world we are known as "Quants" and I was the Global Director Of Quantitative Research.  Now and then, I wondered how a Hippie like me, who my husband described as, "Looks like Barbie, smokes like Marley" ever got there.  But nevertheless, there I was.  Actually, this was a dream job for me due to my love of pure mathematics.



While Diane and I were preparing and planning for the meeting, we heard an almighty BOOM!  The whole building shook, and the lights went down and then back up.  We went back to the West-facing window, I looked out the window and saw all this metal and paper flying around like a surreal snow globe.  The lights went dark again, as we walked back to my office, where I changed into my sneakers, grabbed my shoulder bag and cellphone, and headed for the stairwell with Diane and John the mailroom guy in tow.



In the stairwell, people were filing down the stairs in two rows, fire-drill style.  Some were in shock; some were crying.  When we reached the first floor, we walked out an emergency exit, where I looked up, and saw paper was flying everywhere.  When I looked up even higher, I saw a fireball coming out of One World Trade Center.  A Policeman was pointing and yelling, "Walk east away from the towers!"  John, the mailroom guy, told the officer, "My girlfriend is in One World Trade Center!" then screamed her name, "REBECCA!" and ran towards the twin towers, this was the last time I ever saw John.  I turned to see how Diane was, she was crying, and said to me, "People are jumping out of windows!" I grabbed her arm and pulled her in the direction the policeman was pointing to, and screaming at us, "C’mon ladies, get the hell out of here!"



In the air was a smell of hot metal, burnt plastic, burnt fuel, and concrete dust (that smell lasted into early December 2001). A man, walking towards us, said, "One of the towers just collapsed!" A few minutes later the dust cleared, you could see the light again, but that light didn't last.  When the second tower came down later, the same thing happened again.



Even though I know the streets of the Financial District like the back of my hand, I was completely lost.  With the noise, dust and smells, I couldn’t think straight.  I kept looking for the twin towers, to use as a "North Star", but they were no longer there, and my brain had difficulty processing this.  I pulled Diane, who had now completely shutdown, to which I was pretty sure was north, and back to my home in Tribeca.  I just wanted to get home.



As we walked, we came across an abandoned bagel cart, which had soft drinks in a bin that was attached to the front of it.  All that was in the bin were bottles of iced-tea.  I grabbed a bottle, rinsed out my mouth, washed my ash and dust covered face with the iced-tea, and drank some.  I grabbed another bottle and gave it to Diane, who did the same.  With my eyes no longer burning as bad, I looked at my cell phone, which had no service.  Further, up the block we saw a pay phone, that had several people waiting to make a call.  While we were waiting to make a call, a man walked up to the pay phone, shoved a woman who was making a call out of his way, knocking her over, he then hung up the phone, and made a call.  I decided we should keep walking.



The further North we walked, the less dust was in the air, I could see better now and realized I was only a few blocks from home.  A walk that usually took twenty-five minutes took just over two hours.


Years later, we learned that the Bush administration had deceived us about air safety.  In 2006, an EPA scientist named Cate Jenkins said that agency officials had lied about air quality and that they knew the dust contained asbestos and disturbingly high levels of metal toxins.  New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman admitted, "We didn’t want to scare people working in the financial district" [Thank you so much - Ed.]



Jerry, my husband, was the love of my life and my traveling companion on this long, strange trip called life.  In 2010, he was diagnosed with a post-9/11 cancer, as were (and still are) first responders and many people living south of Canal Street in Manhattan.  Jerry passed in 2012, at the age of sixty-four.


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