12 years ago today, where were you? archived

Never forget our lost neighbors

I was on shift at the firehouse. One of the most unforgetable experiences I have ever had. The images of Maplewoodians getting off the trains to waiting family members, the hundreds of people at the south mountain overlook and knowing that some of my friends that worked at Cantor Fitzgerald were in the Towers , will forever be etched in my mind. Not many mplwd residents know that the MFD manned a firehouse in Brooklyn and also hosed down bebris from the site at fresh kills in Staten Island.
members of the MFD held our own remembrance todat at the memorial on Springfield Avenue to remember our township citizens and all those who lost their lives that day.
On each anniversary of the attacks i remind my 4 children about that day and to never forget to love the country they live in.

I was working in a building across the street from Tower 2 on Liberty, living in Jersey City at the time. Rough morning for me, though I am glued to the rebroadcast. Might need to stop watching soon, actually.

Was on my way into WTC via PATH in JC to 130 Liberty.

I was looking out my office window, about four blocks from the WTC but to the north. I did not see the planes hit the towers but I did see the holes and embers left immediately after the planes hit. We were evacuated from our building (Municipal Building at Centre Street and Church Street) before either tower fell. I walked to NYP to get a train home, stopping twice along the route, each time to see one of the towers collapse.

Driving up by the Finger Lakes of NY. Thought for sure this was a "War of the Worlds" type broadcast. Stopped at a local diner and saw it was a reality. :-( We knew one of the guys in the plane over PA. The company Rich and he worked for made him take a cheaper flight to save money.

I was on the last path train into the WTC that morning on my way to work.

I had worked at WTC1 North tower, 63rd floor since 1998. On 9/11/01, I had been reassigned to a job for the previous 3 months in Miami and watched the news on my computer horrified knowing my coworkers were there. I subsequently learned they all made it out safely albeit with terrifying stories of their own.

I was out of town (Louisiana), and Tabby called me from the train to tell me of a fire in the WTC. I asked whetheer the smoke was black or white, and she told me white. I told her that this is usually a good sign (I am a former firefighter). Little did I know.

Throughout the day, we could not get through on land lines, but cell phones kept us in touch. From LA I was able to keep in touch with her parents in Roseland, she could not get throuh n any line.

I was home with my 2 year old and pregnant. I was waiting to hear from my husband who was in the American Express tower in the World Financial Center. He did not yet have a cell phone. We didn't have cable so I had no TV coverage since the broadcasts came from the antenna on the first tower to be hit.

I was in my office in Summit getting ready for the opening of business when my Mom called me and said that a plane had flown into the WTC. I thought that it was a little Piper or such that had lost it's way but then realized how clear the sky was. I then had a 2nd call from her repeating the message except this was on the 2nd tower. I ran to the conference room where there was a television and watched in horror. When the towers crumbled....I picked up my things and walked out of the office and went home. I will never, ever forget this day. God Bless America.

I was working in Special Ed at Tuscan School at that time. I remember our class was lined up to go to Art and the Principal (Pat Brown) came in to our class and told the staff members (quietly, away from the students) that something had happened, that there was a lot of confusion and to try to keep things as normal as possible for the students until there was more information. We did go to Art and took turns listening to a small radio at the far end of the room (again, away from the students) to try to get more info. I recall a total sense of disbelief as the reporter described the Towers collapsing - it just didn't seem possible. Some of the staff had family members in the NYC downtown area, and they were trying to find out whether they were safe while still keeping things as normal as possible for the students. I know I spent lunch sitting at the classroom computer watching news online (the students were in the lunchroom/recess, so they were not seeing any of this). I remember wondering to myself if this was how my parents had felt when the news of Pearl Harbor first was broadcast..... I know we all tried to protect the students as much as possible until they could be safely dismissed to their families - they were all so young and many had parents who worked in NYC.

I was listening to WNYC on the radio. Melech Ric was on a train heading into the city. He ended up walking to a friend's place in Queens to stay, since he couldn't get home to NJ for days. A friend of a friend had his fruit & veg. truck right near the towers and survived only by diving under it. He lives in Thailand now.

Years before, I had taken a class in Transportation Economics in a room exactly where the first plane hit.

I was in my office up at Columbus Circle in my company's corporate communications department. I had passed under the Trade Center just a short while earlier on the subway. I had responsibility for a daily internal e-newsletter and had to stay at my desk putting it together as if it were a normal day while everyone else watched the unfolding story on TV. I had a coworker whose boyfriend worked in one of the towers and was walking around the office in tears until she finally heard from him. My sister worked down on Water Street; her office was evacuated and she ended up fleeing from the swirling debris from the falling towers. (She is on the 9/11 health registry today, thankfully with no apparent illnesses.) She walked uptown all the way to my office, trashing her shoes in the process. I'll never forget how she felt to the touch when she stepped out of the elevator and I hugged her -- she was caked in dust and grime. I had a number of friends who worked in the towers but thankfully they all got out safely. I couldn't get home to Staten Island that night and ended up staying with my sister on the Upper West Side. Had to buy underwear at a drugstore. Will never forget riding uptown on the bus that evening, marveling at all the people walking dogs, riding bikes, and otherwise engaging in normal activities when the world was changed forever. When I tell these stories to my daughter I feel like my parents telling me about the Kennedy assassination... to them it was a horrific, never-to-be-forgotten day; for me, it was folklore...

Was living in boston on the phone with my lawyer negotiating a purchase of a home in colts neck nj to move down for a new job and a relationship......fate played a nasty on us... We moved to the house, job stayed intact, but there was no longer someone to move for

I was living in Brazil at that time. Had absolutely no relation to NYC or the US by then, knew no one who lived here and still I remember very well the shock, disbelief, fear and sorrow I felt that day. I thought there would be a world war. We were in front of a TV set at work and were dismissed by lunch time.

Riding the midtown direct in the meadowlands and noticing smoke coming out of one of the Towers.

I was in the subbasement office of a 1.5 million square foot glass and concrete tower built at the same time and with similar techniques to the WTC. Only it was 9 West 57th Street. I got a call from my chief engineer who was on the roof of our building, 52 stories high, saying that a huge jet had just buzzed our building, almost low enough for him to touch. That was plane 1, sight flying down Central Park, heading just past the Empire State Building to then go right into the North Tower.

A few minutes later I get a call from security that they heard a plane had hit WTC--I did not put two and two together and so thought is was a small personal plane. Then I got a call from the Owner's suite on the 45th floor that it was a jet. I ran to the elevators to get to the 45th floor, and there we could see the North Tower burning, and then we saw plane 2 that was sight flying down the Hudson turn left into the South Tower.

We had an almost unobstructed view. Even at that distance, we all knew what this meant. Our building was very similar in terms of structure and components. We knew it was going to get bad. But not that bad.

The Owner's head of engineering and I stood next to each other as the first tower fell. "Secondary explosion?" I wondered out loud. "Structural implosion," he answered, and watching the plume we knew he was right. I burst into tears on the spot, because I knew in my bones what that meant to anyone within those towers. Knowing that the dust cloud was going to be toxic (the Towers were still loaded with asbestos), I knew then it would be really bad even for the survivors.

We locked down our building because we did not know what else to do. Then we waited. I still remember the oceans of people sitting in Central Park on such a warm, beautiful day, because they had nowhere to go. I still remember the man who stumbled to our front door covered in soot and debris, clothes ripped and tattered, and in shock. We threw him into our engineer's shower, bought him new clothes at Sports Authority down the street, and he went on his way. I wonder how much asbestos and cilicates he inhaled.

I was home listening to Howard Stern. was in-between time before i was to start my new job in a building that didn't exist by the end of the day.

I was on my way to Pratt in Brooklyn, on the subway station at the WTC to transfer trains, right after the first plane hit and while the second hit. It was chaos at the station, many people talking "one plane hit the towers. no, 2 planes!..." no one knew what was going on and it was very difficult to get off from there. Finally made it to Brooklyn and from the roof of the school watched the towers fall...

I was on the 33rd Street PATH from Jersey City, where I lived at the time. I saw the smoke from the towers from the first plane as soon as I turned from 34th Street onto Madison Avenue. (There was a clear view downtown.) The second plane hit when I was in my office, where we were simultaneously looking out the window at the towers and at the TV in the conference room. I will never forget watching the collapses of each tower live as they happened, nor the mixture of fear/grief as I thought about friends/relatives that I knew were down there, nor the feeling of panic as we kept hearing about other planes. Rest in peace to all who are still terribly missed.

We were on vacation in the UK, we were driving and our year old began to have a tantrum in the back so we put on the radio to try and calm her down. We thought we were listening to a report about a new movie coming out and kept changing channels to try and find music but each channel was about the same thing. I said to my husband that whichever movie it was they must be throwing millions into advertising it as it was on everywhere. It was only when the second plane hit and the actual time was said and they also mentioned the time the first plane hit that we realized what was happening. We pulled over to the side of the road and both tried in vain to call friends and colleagues in NY/NJ but all lines to the US were down. 3500 miles away, wanting to help, wanting to do something and there was nothing we could do.

I was in my shop when my sister from Long Island called and told me a plane had hit the tower. Both of us thought it was just a small plane. We were still on the phone when the second one hit and then, of course, we knew what that meant. My husband was on his way into to the city and had just gotten into Penn Station when they got the news. Friends started calling to find out where my husband was since he frequently traveled to and from Boston. I remember the unspoken teary eyed look from one of my customers that morning. There were no words. I did not get to see the devastation until much later that day when I got home. Weirdly, I only had my radio and listened to Howard Stern as it played out. First thing I did when I got home was put out our flag.

One of my coworkers, an electrical engineer says the reason he made it out of the north tower was because the asbestos had not yet been removed from WTC1 even though it was hit first . He felt this saved his life. Asbestos had been removed from the south tower WTC2 and so it went down faster.

The South Tower did have some asbestos, but not at the height of the collision. They stopped using it about 1/3 the way up. I remember seeing as it was being installed, and I also remember walking through the North Tower asbestos dust during construction. Nothing was done to shield commuters from the dust through the area, then known as the Hudson Terminal.

They both also had asbestos in the mastic glue.

I agree that the asbestos insulation was better than the spray on replacement. The spray on stuff gets knocked off beams very easily.

I was in a coffee shop in QNS, and then got on the last E train to the city. Even after the second plane struck, it didn't register, and I still got on the subway. Then I arrived on the UES and went to my school, and saw thousands of ash covered people running up 5th avenue. It was horrifying.

I worked (and still work) 2 blocks from the WTC. I was on my way into my building when I saw the immediate aftermath of the first plane's hit. However, as I hadn't seen the plane but *did* see papers fluttering downward and huge volumes of smoke halfway up the tower, I thought it was a bomb. Found out after I ran into my workplace that it was a plane. From our office windows (which we could open up, amazingly enough), we peeked out after the second plane hit and saw the big hole on the side of one of the towers. Thankfully, we had the windows shut when the first tower fell and the world turned black. We were corralled into an inner part of our building and didn't see the second tower fall. Heard the events on a portable radio. A few hours later, I left the building, walked past a lot of...not great sights, and headed home over the Brooklyn Bridge. (I'm also on the Health Registry, but thankfully haven't appeared to have had any physical issues from the dust.)

mfpark said:

I was in the subbasement office of a 1.5 million square foot glass and concrete tower built at the same time and with similar techniques to the WTC. Only it was 9 West 57th Street. I got a call from my chief engineer who was on the roof of our building, 52 stories high, saying that a huge jet had just buzzed our building, almost low enough for him to touch. That was plane 1, sight flying down Central Park, heading just past the Empire State Building to then go right into the North Tower.

A few minutes later I get a call from security that they heard a plane had hit WTC--I did not put two and two together and so thought is was a small personal plane. Then I got a call from the Owner's suite on the 45th floor that it was a jet. I ran to the elevators to get to the 45th floor, and there we could see the North Tower burning, and then we saw plane 2 that was sight flying down the Hudson turn left into the South Tower.

We had an almost unobstructed view. Even at that distance, we all knew what this meant. Our building was very similar in terms of structure and components. We knew it was going to get bad. But not that bad.

The Owner's head of engineering and I stood next to each other as the first tower fell. "Secondary explosion?" I wondered out loud. "Structural implosion," he answered, and watching the plume we knew he was right. I burst into tears on the spot, because I knew in my bones what that meant to anyone within those towers. Knowing that the dust cloud was going to be toxic (the Towers were still loaded with asbestos), I knew then it would be really bad even for the survivors.

We locked down our building because we did not know what else to do. Then we waited. I still remember the oceans of people sitting in Central Park on such a warm, beautiful day, because they had nowhere to go. I still remember the man who stumbled to our front door covered in soot and debris, clothes ripped and tattered, and in shock. We threw him into our engineer's shower, bought him new clothes at Sports Authority down the street, and he went on his way. I wonder how much asbestos and cilicates he inhaled.

I was at 9 West too - at my desk on the 46th floor - looking north but I didn't notice the plane go by but the receptionist on 44 did. I must have left the building at the same time as the first tower fell because I didn't realize it had fallen until I saw the second one fall. Strangely what sticks in my memory from that day is walking by the West 4th Street basketball courts and they were deserted.

I was on a plane taking off from Newark Airport to Houston. I figured out later that we took off between the 1st and 2nd strikes on the Towers. We were over Tennessee when our plan was diverted to Atlanta. The pilot announced that the flight had been instructed to land in Atlanta but there was nothing wrong with our plane and he would give further details when we landed. As you can imagine, the passengers were very puzzled and concerned.

We land in Atlanta and there were planes everywhere. Any available space was full (besides the runways of course). We arrive at the gate and the pilot announces that the World Trade Center and Pentagon have been attacked, airspace has been shut down, and basically said good luck. The guy next to me got on the phone and blurted out that his nanny said the Towers "were gone." We didn't really understand what she meant.

I got into the terminal and everyone was watching the TVs. CNN was on and the towers had already collapsed.

To make a long story short, I got out of the airport asap (National Guard had already arrived and was guarding the main terminal). A few other colleagues were in the northern Georgia area and we eventually met up and drove back to NJ in a rented van. We stopped outside Richmond, VA that night.