Piece of Ash

I had been living in NYC for a little over one month.  I got  on the 4/5 train before 9am from Brooklyn to Manhattan for a job interview.  At the Broadway/Lafayette subway stop in lower Manhattan, I left the underground to transfer to the Lexington train uptown.  When I exited on to Houston Street there was chaos on the street.  I noticed the fire engines and police cars first, then the unmarked cars with lights and sirens all heading downtown.  Then I noticed the people running, one of them yelling that a plane hit the World Trade Center.   I moved down the street half a block and the trade center came into view.  There was a huge gash and smoke pouring out of the building.  Like most people, I assumed that a small plane must have accidentally hit the tower.  I stood there for a few minutes considering what to do and then left, assuming that I still had to make the job interview.  I got on the 4/5 train uptown, buzzing with chatter about the accident.  At the 14th street station, someone got on the train and yelled that another plane had hit the second tower and we were under attack.  I got off the subway at the 42d street station and called my cousin back in Brooklyn.  He told me he was watching TV and that the Pentagon had just been hit as well and that there were reports of additional planes in the air.  I went across the platform to get to the downtown train back to Brooklyn and made it halfway between the 42nd and 34th street station when the train stopped and lights went out.  I was in the first car and could see light from the 34th street station around the corner, but we weren’t moving.  The conductor came on the speaker after a few minutes and informed us that all trains were being stopped due to an incident at the trade center.  We waited in the tunnel until they moved us to the next station to let people out.  When I got out of the station at 34th Street everything above ground was a confused scene.  All traffic had stopped, people were standing in the middle of the street listening to radio reports from cars stranded in the masses.  There were reports of additional crashes, reports of more planes in the air and rumors of a plane heading for the Empire State Building (which was a few blocks from where I was standing).  We had a clear view of the burning towers, and that’s all that people were watching.  At this point, a few people started screaming and we saw the first tower collapsing. It was the most surreal site to witness.  A tower that had looked so immovable and central to the NYC skyline was collapsing on itself in a silent, dusty explosion.  There were gasps, screams and cries all around me.  I stood with everyone and continued watching for half an hour until the second tower fell.  During this time, I ran into a friend of my uncle’s and he told me to follow him to his coworker’s apartment.  From there, I reached my uncle and decided to spend the rest of the day with him at his 22nd street apartment.  (All trains, tunnels and bridges had been closed, so there was no way to get back home).  While walking to my uncle’s apartment, I started catching people walking uptown with dust-covered suits.  There was a flat look on most people’s faces.  I didn’t see a lot of shock or panic…just disbelief.  The most memorable reaction was when I reached the outside of my uncle’s apartment and saw a woman completely covered in grey dust, weeping in a man’s arms.  When I passed, I heard her say something about people jumping off the tower.  That was the first time I remember feeling the human impact and not just the structural and societal impact.

I spent the rest of the day watching the replays of the images on my uncle’s TV.  I called the restaurant which was my employer at the time and the manager told me I had to find my way back.  He told me it was quickly becoming the busiest night of their history.  When the subways opened, I made my way back to Brooklyn and to the restaurant.  As he said, the restaurant was filled both inside and out.  The air was thick with the smell of the burning towers, and debris consisting of half burnt business documents blowing down the street.  I spent the rest of the night serving people from the neighborhood.   On a day of such horror and confusion, I believe people were looking for something positive and reaffirming.  Perhaps they were looking for the most basic of needs…a human connection and a sense of community.