| Tuesday 11 September | |
| I was back at the office after taking a sick day for bronkitis. I was sitting at my desk catching up on my e-mail when coworkers came running by on their way to my boss's office. We're located in midtown on Madison and 40th, several miles from the lower Manhattan. My office is on the 21st floor. The news had just broken about the first plane striking the southern tower. Everyone gathered around. The same thing as when the Challenger exploded. We all watched at the second plane hit. From the corner office you could see the towers on fire. We ran back and forth from "live" on television and "live" out the window. |  |
| I called family to tell them that I was ok. I had to dial quite a few times. Everyone had already tried to call me but couldn't get through. After the San Francisco earthquake I'd heard that the phone company would cut off calls into a disaster area but allow calls out. Around 11am they closed our office and I left, taking one last photo of where the towers once stood. |  |
| Our offices are a block from Grand Central Station. There were already masses of people heading north, but train service had been suspended. Some people from my office that live on Long Island got together to walk over one of the bridges and then get picked up by car. I walked south to meet Lisa at her office on 19th street. It became apparent that every other person has a cellphone. I couldn't get a signal on mine. The reality of it all became more real to me when I saw an unmarked police car racing up Park Avenue with soot and debris trailing. At first it looked like the car was on fire. |
 |
| Lisa and I continued south, heading towards our apartments, and at Union Square Park and saw the first of many people walking north who were covered with white debris. Then there were fewer and fewer cars on the street. People gathered around this car with the radio turned up loud to hear the latest news. We then passed a woman with what looked like a lemonade stand who was giving out glasses of water to people who must've been choking from the smoke and dust cloud. We stopped to grad something to eat and I noticed people calmly reading books while eating as people passed outside heading uptown. I guess they needed to escape in their own way. |
 |
| We headed down to check on a close friend of Lisa but at Canal Street we came upon the first of the roadblocks set up around the city. Only residents with photo ID were being allowed across. We found a little alley way and made our way to her apartment. She'd seen the second plane from the street after running out after the first. But she wished she hadn't since she now has the image of a dozen people jumping out of the towers because of the fire. |
 |
| If you looked down West Broadway you could see the towers. Now all we saw was the smoke. I tried to imagine the towers still there behind the smoke. |  |
| We didn't see much traffic going south. Several of these carts shuttling medical personnel passed. It was around 4pm and traffic should already have been backed up on Canal heading towards the Holland Tunnel. |  |
| A little further south at another roadblock a crowd gathered. People just stared in disbelief. |  |
| Signs were posted to donate blood. |  |
| Lisa and I made our way over to Greenwich Street where a people were signing up to be volunteers. Construction equipment started to arrive. Lots of people watched from behind baracades, sometimes spilling into the street. One patient cop kept asking people to clear the street to make way for the equipment - "People please, it's a black day for New York and I know you're curious and concerned but you're not making it any easier for us." A man came by with a shopping bag full of Evian asking if any of the cops or emergency people needed any water. I choked up again. |  |
| We headed north back to my apartment in the West Village, about 20 blocks up. The local playground ws full with parents that were home early. Young children played while their parents talked about things. If you looked south you could still see the smoke. |  |
| Lisa and I walked over the few blocks to St. Vincents Hospital. There were burnt out flares on the street where the streets had been blocked off. They were no longer blocked off because it was pretty quiet out front. Just news crews set up waiting for the ambulances with survivors. Unfortunately there weren't many. Finally home. To add to the surrealness of the day my apartment was stank. One of the mousetraps I'd set had caught a mouse the day before and about a dozen flies had already found their way in. After airing the apartment out some close friends living nearby came over. I guess nobody really wanted to be alone. The city was incredibly quiet; there were few cars on the street. |
 | To Wednesday |
| Back to Cityscapes |
