In 1988, Donna and I moved to Tribeca from Soho. The Towers of the World Trade Center were the lighthouses steering us to Tribeca. Never an architectural marvel or a calling of world business. For us, the towers were placeholders in our new sparsely populated artistic neighborhood. From our bedroom, we could see the North Tower office lights flickering through clouds. The Twin Towers pinned our home and lives. The Twin Towers said: “You’re safe. You’re home.”
September 11, 2001, actually began on September 10, 2001. It was my birthday, as it is every year. It was also the day Donna thought it would be nice to shave about 1/4” off a granite kitchen counter edge to make it more symmetrical. Her logic was to make it fit the kitchen better. She found someone to come in and grind granite. Me, I was to stay home to supervise. That was not the birthday present Donna promised. She wanted to buy me my first road bike since running was taking a toll on my knees, but only after the granite haircut was complete.
Sept 10 was a hot, humid New Orleans in NYC. I was not worried about being away from my business since it was a block south on Chambers Street. I could pop in to make sure everyone was working. The rando with a grinder showed up. Donna was heading to work, but first, in wax pencil, she carefully traced the new silhouette of the counter and bounced.
Mr. Grinder started. Three or four hours later, it was done. Leaving a thin patina of granite dust across 1,800 square feet of apartment. Ever try to clean up granite dust? Not easy, not water-soluble, not fun. No fans or the AC to cool the apartment since they would blow the dust all over. By the time Donna got home, I was only 50% done cleaning and 100% pissed. All of this for a 1/4” grrrrrrr
I took a break, went with Donna to a local bike shop, ordered the bike, went to dinner, and came home to clean until 11 or so. Still mumbling under my breath.
The next morning, I woke up early as usual. Sept. 11 was a cool, dry, cloud-free day in NYC. No longer hot, humid, and sticky. It felt almost fall-like, and for me, fall was the start of a new year. I did my morning routine. Let our housekeeper in to finish the granite clean-up. I headed one block south to my office on Chambers Street. The office is the 5th top floor. It’s a railroad flat looking north on Chambers and south to WTC. I get in about 8 to turn off the alarm, start the coffee, etc. That time alone, I could do some work in peace. One employee came in at 8:30.
At 8:45, a plane’s engines screamed a deafening roar overhead. It rattled the building so severely that I instinctively ducked my head into my keyboard. Seconds later, there was what could only be described as a massive explosion which ricocheted through the facing north open windows. I ran to the windows and looked out to see nothing. The explosion was reverberation off buildings on the north side of Chambers Street. I turned and ran to the south-facing windows and saw a ball of fire, debris falling, and smoke rising from the North Tower. That’s what my eyes saw. What my mind saw was incomprehensible. I stood frozen. I would later be told I was shouting F-bombs.
At 9:03, while watching the flames and debris of the North Tower. There was an explosion from the South Tower. A plane struck the south face of the South Tower. I watched the flames belching from the windows on the north side. Smoke rising up, debris falling, flames dancing. More F-bomb shouts. I ran home, got binoculars, came back, and watched the smoke, fire, debris falling. Not debris but jumpers from the North Tower.
I grabbed my employees and took them to my apartment. Thank god the housekeeper closed the windows; no dust made it inside. On went the TV, and we all sat to watch. I thought I would try and head south again. As I turned on West B’way, looking through the smoke and dust of both the North and South tower. There were faces in shadowy dust like kabuki makeup walking north. Looking beyond the people, I could see the North Tower. It began to fall. Not really fall. As I think back, it is more like a strong, powerful person slowly sitting down, surrendering, sighing with no fight or will to stand any longer. In my mind, I hear the North Tower say, “I tried my best to save everyone.” I ran north as fast as I could back home through a foot of dust crunching under my feet. I passed a car covered in dust with the word TRIAGE etched into the dust on the windshield and an arrow pointing to a doorway. There was no one coming to receive TRIAGE.
The Silence of Destruction
As I ran along the street in the dust, the world was in utter and complete silence. Mere seconds ago, it was filled with screaming sirens, helicopters, cars racing, and falling buildings. Nothing, blankness, empty. Looking at my feet and in the dust, there were memos, invoices, manifests, lists, etc., some burned, some ripped, all waiting for a hand to lift and read. These fragments were the work life on someone’s desk, locked in a file cabinet, sitting in a trash can? I bent and lifted a piece of paper. Was this in someone’s hand an hour earlier? How did September 11 carry them to my doorstep?
Once home, my employees and the housekeeper were watching TV. I sat; we talked about getting them back home. The power went off, and we sat in silence. Eventually, everyone left and walked out of Tribeca to Penn Station or the Brooklyn Bridge.
Donna Returns
I knew the police weren’t letting anyone into Tribeca at Canal Street. Donna’s office was on Park Ave South and 21st Street. Subways and taxis were not running. Cell service was a joke. I worried. About 3 or 4 pm the door opened and Donna came in. “How the hell did you get through Canal?” Donna responded. “When the cop wasn’t looking, I ducked under the blue sawhorse barricade and ran like hell.” “I guess he didn’t care,” she added.
I looked at her, and on her face was a camo bandana. “Huh, since when do you wear camo? You are all about Chanel.”
She responded, “We’re at war.” Simple and to the point. She had two American flags that she taped to the front door. She was angry. She looked at me and asked if I remembered the Krispy Cream at WTC mall? How we’d sit and make donut toasts laughing. I said, “I am sure it’s gone as well. You’re not wanting donuts, are you?” Donna looked away and said, “All those donuts became halos for those who died.”
Our Personal Reality
Power off, we ate all the leftovers we had by candlelight. Later, we took the dogs out for a walk in the dust, the dark with the entire neighborhood blacked out, dirty, and silent. All the neighbors left for parts known or unknown. As Donna and I walked each step, making dust eddies, she said, “You bitched about a little granite dust? Right now, that and all we know doesn’t matter, does it?” She was correct; what matters in life became an entirely new emotional calculus.
The next day, we got a room at the Tribeca Grand, waiting for the power to be restored. We were still below Canal Street. Con Ed got the power up for an entire neighborhood in three days with cables running along the sidewalks.
A chainlink fence appeared overnight on the South side of Chambers Street, effectively closing my business. With some snacks and coffee, the NYPD protecting the Red Zone gave me 30 minutes a day to get my computers, serves, and files out to take to a temporary office. At times, a cop would escort me into my business to make sure it was mine and what I was taking. I used a little red wagon to move my office to Varick Street. I had employees to pay and business to fund. I had to keep moving. That was my escape. It was my denial of what I saw.
Connection Is At The Heart of Our Humanity
Every morning on the corner of Reade and West Broadway were piles of bottled water, toiletries, clothes, tube socks, and more. There were food trucks for the recovery workers and for those still living here. Sitting at the picnic tables eating were NYPD, FDNY, PAPD, Secret Service, FBI, recovery workers, Red Cross, and those of us still here. Food trucks served up MickeyD’, sandwiches, hot meals. All of this for those doing the work. And those of us staying. We all nodded to each other but mostly ate in silence. Red Cross workers were roaming to offer help, which I took advantage of. Seeing the jumpers made me feel like I did not deserve to live. The world was here for not just those here. But for all of us in our collective grief. This was truly the single most connected and human the world felt.
Early in November, I signed up with the Red Cross to volunteer at the site. I worked the 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift at the Marriott Hotel serving food. I walked along the pile with the lights illuminating the burned rubble to the hotel. I was hoping I could do something. I am not sure I did much. What could you do for those who are seeing what no human should ever see? In late November, the fence was moved south, and my office was opened so I could get into it. It was professionally cleaned, and we could work again.
November 2011
Later in November, restricted access to Tribeca at Canal Street was lifted. Buses began to stream in with people dislodging and walking to the new fence at Murray Street to look into the smoldering pile. Donna is fierce, a force of nature who takes no prisoners and does not tolerate fools gladly. She spoke her mind at will. These buses of people coming, all for good reason, were simply an insult to her, our home, and all who died. A couple of times while walking the dogs with her, she began to speak at groups of people, telling them to go home and leave the area. I had to pull her away, saying, “Donna, you don’t know if any of these people lost someone here.”
She looked at me in hard, focused intensity. She said, “This is sacred, hallowed ground for those who died, those who lost someone, those working, for us who lived through this. This is not a place, not now, for visits. We need space to heal.” Stepping over a bundle of electrical cables in the street, she added, “One day the site will be hallowed ground to pay respect and remember, but now it is simply a raw, open wound for me.”
What was the place marker for our home and us, the Twin Towers, were gone, replaced by a void of loss and grief. Not only for us but for the world. Nothing would be the same. What remains for me are memories of our life and the joy of being cradled in the arms of connection. It brought to the fact in life connection is the beating heart of our humanity.