If I remember correctly, it rained hard in Manhattan the night before. I got a haircut and was drenched by the time I got home to Water St. In the morning, I ate some toast but didn't even have time to let my green tea cool, and then I was off. With my books and a sandwich in my knapsack, I'd prepared for a long day of classes at NYU.
Standing in front of where I lived on Water St., I tried to line-up for the campus shuttle bus, but it was too packed as usual. Papers flew in the air, and although that seemed odd, I thought maybe some sort of parade or march was going on. What did I know? I'd only just moved to New York two weeks before.
Whispers, murmurs, bits of phrases started to come through about a plane hitting a building earlier. I thought perhaps a small two-person jet might have just clipped an office building. By the time my friends and I reached the subway on foot a few blocks away, we started to realize something big happened.
I heard and felt the impact of the second plane hitting the towers while standing underground inside Fulton St. station. Do we get on the train or not? What if we got stuck? Would it even affect the train? What exactly was going on? The A train delivered us to West 4th St. and by the time we were above ground, both towers had already been struck.
People just stood on the street staring at the buildings. Huge amounts of smoke coming from them. I kept thinking about how difficult it would be to repair such damage. I made it to my first class (and I still can't believe it wasn't cancelled). After sitting almost an hour inside wondering what the hell was going on, class ended, we all came outside, and both towers were already gone.
I went to my next class. It was around Astor Place, and this one was officially cancelled. The mood around me was getting really tense, and people were now genuinely concerned and freaked. Campus TV's were showing bits of news and ticker tape stuff at the bottom of the screen. In the washroom, I saw a slightly older man staring into the mirror at the sink. He was half crying and half dazed, but he was fully covered in white dust from head to toe.
The first week afterwards, I moved around staying at different friends' dorms. We'd sit on the street and play cards since no cars were allowed at certain areas. I was still trying to learn my way around, as a newcomer to New York. Sometimes we saw armed troops using mirrors to check under cars, or riding in groups. Where did they come from? Where were they going?
And that's it. I can't remember details of the weeks and months afterwards, it's like a blur. Just tried to focus on classes, and count the days until lower Manhattan dwellers wouldn't be evacuated anymore. When I did eventually get back to my dorm weeks later, my cup of tea wasn't there anymore from that morning. I think they went in and cleaned everything up, sort of like a fresh reset indoors. But every time I went outdoors down there, there was no reset that cleaned up the mountains of debris at the site.
10 years later, I still remember the burnt-rubber-metal-chemical smell that drowned the entire area while walking home from class at night. I don't really know how to articulate what I feel, but I always see 9/11 as something really huge and dark. Weren't we pointing in a certain direction before the 11th? Coming from the Y2K bug, new millennium thing, future, etc. etc. But then this happened, and things changed. Thanks for letting me share, folks. Back to somewhat regular stuff next post.
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