I was working in midtown at the time, in the Citicorp Building, for a trading firm. I was working on some issue or another. I remember getting a call from my wife that she had heard about a plane hitting the WTC. I figured it was a little Cessna or something. Then I received notice that we were being evacuated. I went to the trading desk to confirm this, and there were a bunch of traders that were arguing about leaving their stations (this was before the 2nd plane had hit). The Sr. partner who had made the call to clear the building gave his personal word that he would cover any trading losses. As he was saying this, the 2nd plane hit. There were several projection TVs around the trading desk, and everyone saw it. The trading desk cleared, I got my laptop and grabbed every backup tape that I could find, and we all headed out. My boss was driving in from Queens and told everyone in the IT group to stay put outside the building, and we would all get together to figure out next steps. That was a huge mistake – he never made it to Manhattan, and staying put for an hour removed any chance of getting out of Manhattan easily.<br><br>
Cell service was shot at this point, so I could not get in touch with anyone. Manhattan was essentially closed off. I was living in northern NJ at the time, but all Hudson River crossings were closed. I tried to get a bus uptown with a co worker that lived in Westchester, thinking that if we could get to Westchester that someone could drive down and I would be able to get across the Tappan Zee Bridge to the west side of the Hudson River. We could not get near a bus, and eventually we split up. He went to his girlfriend's appt on the Upper East Side, and I started walking to the Upper West Side where my best friend and his family lived. On the way from E 53rd street to W 103rd, I passed around the north side of the Central Park Reservoir, and had the clearest view do what was going on. It was a spectacularly clear day. There were several dozen people there looking southward and crying.<br><br>
Moe mentioned the sound of jets yesterday. The sight and sounds of F-14s jetting up and down the Hudson River is unsettling, to say the least.<br><br>
I eventually got to my friend's apartment, and spent most of the day there. About 4 PM or so, the GWB was reopened. I borrowed my friend's bicycle and rode on up. When I got to the bridge, all sidewalks were closed, and I was turned around. Many people were arguing with the cop stationed at the base of the sidewalk, but one thing I noticed was that his eyes were red and swollen – he obviously spent a great deal of the day crying. I cycled back to my friend's apartment. When I got there, I decided to head to the ferry terminals on West 33rd, where they had been running ferries to Hoboken, where I could get a train home. According to local news reports, the wait for a ferry was several hours. As I got near Madison Square Garden on my way to the ferry terminals, the PATH train service restarted. Took the PATH to a train, and I ended up walking into my house at 9:20, just before President Bush took the air.<br><br>
I was living in a town called Glen Rock at the time. It is a complete bedroom community – everyone in town worked in the city, and most of them downtown. My church had 11 parish members killed, including Brendan Dolan, a man who my wife and I met at Lamaze classes, and whose son had regular play dates with my daughter. He could not call his wife, but he was able to send emails. As a lifelong Red Sox fan, one of his comments was that he figured that he was not meant to see them win the World Series in his lifetime. A divorced father with custody of his daughter lived three houses down from me – he did not come home that day…. Several children in my children's day care center lost a parent.<br><br>
I had worked in the WTC for 7 years, and I know several people from those days that were killed. One of them, Marge Benson, actually got out of the building, but was exhausted from the walk down 72 flights of stairs. She told the group that she was with to keep walking, and that she was just going to catch her breath. One of the towers collapsed on top of her.<br><br>
I have mentioned a few times here that my Dad was a career NYC firefighter. He had retired in 1997 as a Deputy Chief. We often joked that he had the dream job of most 5 YOs – he bought and sold fire trucks. Technically he was head of fleet operations. After Sept 11th, he was on the phone constantly, helping to find equipment for the clean up, plus to add direction to the Fire Department leadership. Most of the upper command of the FD was killed – they had set up a command center in the lobby of tower 2. There was a documentary that was filmed by two French brothers that had a lot of footage of this command center. The fire officers in that command group were the people that my Dad had worked with daily.<br><br>
On the Saturday following Sept 11th, my Dad, my brother, and I went into the city. From 1985-1993, my Dad was a Battalion Chief for Battalion 9, which is Manhattan's west side (19th St and 7th Ave, around the corner from Limelight). My Dad wanted to visit the houses in his old battalion, so we loaded up my brother's Cherokee with many cases of Gatorade, and drove on in. In my 39 years, it is the only time I have seen my Dad cry. He stopped counting at 40. What struck him mostly was not the firefighters he knew from his Battalion Ch days. From 1979 to 1983 he worked at the fire academy on Randall's Island. Most of the victims he knew were from this time. Young men that joined the FD as 18-20 YOs, that were now 40 YO fathers, with wives, families, children….<br><br>
Sorry for the novel.