Remembering 9/11

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Where were you on September 11th, 2001? What were you doing? How did you experience that day?

That's what this thread is about.

I did a brief stint working in IT from 2000 - 2001. A close friend of mine had a small business installing and maintaining networks for local companies, and building and repairing PCs. He operated out of his home garage that he converted into a workshop.

I started that morning speed building two PCs that were needed by a client by the end of the day. It was about lunchtime (UK time), and I recall very clearly the precise moment I received the news of what was happening in New York. I was bedding a sound card into a motherboard. It's strange how such a mundane action could be recalled in such vivid detail. Of course, had it not been for what I was hearing at the same moment, I wouldn't have remembered it at all. The radio was on in the background. The announcer came on, overlapping the end of a song. A news bulletin was imminent, and the top headline: I quote "a plane has hit a building in New York."

Wow, I thought, that's bad. How on earth did that happen? I imagined an out of control small plane, a turbo-prop perhaps, had gotten into difficulties, dipped to a dangerous altitude and clipped one of the high-rise buildings. Moments later, however, the news bulletin began. I discovered it was worse than that. A whole hell of a lot worse.

I spent the rest of that day working. The frustrating thing: there was no TV. My mate Phil, who I worked with, didn't have a functioning set. He had one sitting in the living room but it was dead, had been for more than a week and he hadn't got round to dumping it and getting a new one. This was the days before live streaming of any kind, so the internet was out, too (we were on dial-up in those days anyway). So all I had for the next six hours was descriptions coming out of the radio.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. When the south tower collapsed, I think I had a small panic attack. I've been up those towers before, I knew them quite well. My parents had friends in New York, and we'd stayed with them on several occasions over the years, since the 70s, and they'd been over and stayed with us. One of their friends, who they introduced us to, worked in the south tower. A lively big-talking New Yorker in his fifties who had a weekend house upstate. A massive, beautiful house near Lake George where we spent many a blissful afternoon boating on the water. On one visit, in 1988, in the city itself a few days before we flew home, he invited us out for "brunch" (not a UK thing, I had no idea what brunch was). We went up to the 38th floor of the south tower and met him in his office. He gave us the grand tour. Afterwards, we went to eat and had a great time. Later, returning with him to his office, we decided to do the tourist thing and go up to the top of the tower. I took the following photos that day, initially in the plaza at ground level, then up on the observation deck.

In this one, eerily, I captured an overflying plane, I think a DC-9.










It became terribly apparent in my mind that the collapse of one of these colossal towers might just be one of the worst things that had ever happened. Because I had no images, and no clear idea of exactly 'how' it had collapsed, I imagined a sideways topple, like a felled tree. How many other buildings did this destroy? How many lives? Was our friend who worked on the 38th floor caught up in all this? Was he dead? It was a cool September day in that breezy garage, but I remember I began to sweat.

At intervals I rushed indoors to update Phil and his wife, also home that day, looking after their two year old son. I remember telling them another plane had gone down. This one had hit the Pentagon. And soon after, a fourth plane had crashed, this one in the country somewhere, and they were saying it may have been shot down. Authorities, I explained, were also very worried about yet another plane they couldn't account for.

It suddenly seemed to me like the world I'd known didn't exist anymore. What the hell was happening, how was it happening, who was behind it, and why? In those days I was already very interested and involved in spiritual matters and metaphysics. I'd been hearing for years that the long-prophesied "end times" were coming, the New Age of Aquarius and all that. Was this it? Was this moment, right now, the beginning of the end of the old world and the start of World War III?

I had to wait until I got home that evening to see the real images of the events of that day. What I'd only seen until then in my mind's eye. Shocking. Calamitous. Horror beyond description. I only had to wait a little while longer to receive word that our friend was not at work when the south tower was hit. He'd not been in the city at all that day, and was perfectly safe and well. One piece of good news on a day full of bad.

[Tintin]

I had gone out to lunch at around 1pm GMT, from memory, and had taken the full hour. Back at my desk, Thomas - a colleague - who worked on the floor above, came running in and said "Planes have hit the towers in New York". This had all happened while I was out enjoying lunch so I was largely oblivious up until that point.

Our organisation had arranged to set up a TV in the "Member's Room" on the ground floor, and it was there we witnessed the towers' collapse, as we thought at the time, although disintegration/vapourisation would be more accurate given what we've subsequently deduced over years of research.

I then made my way down to the coffee machine in our basement level and bumped into an American colleague passing by, and clearly remember saying, verbatim: "What have they gone and done now?" We exchanged a knowing look.

I along with many others were caught up in the emotion of the event, and still processing those terrible scenes; I then remember a few days later going with a friend to sign the book of condolences at the then US Embassy. I don't recall exactly when it was on the day itself but I clearly remember seeing Danny Lombardi on TV, a volunteer fireman, being interviewed on-site at the WTC and remarking to my then landlady: "Wow, that's the guy who stayed at our apartment a couple of nights when we were in New York." (That was late-April/early May 2001). He said he lost a "brother", presumably a fire department or ladder colleague.

About a day or so later on, I think - it could have been later that week - I started making calls to folks I'd met on my previous visits to NYC who were all thankfully safe and well.

I'd never been to the World Trade Centre although I do remember one very early Sunday morning, approx 6am, being somewhat tipsy after an all-nighter near Greenwich Village during that Spring 2001 trip, and clearly recall seeing the towers looming ever nearer, then realising I had headed the wrong way onto Greenwich Street, not Greenwich Avenue. The buildings even being viewed a good mile or so away were mighty impressive.

One had no idea that'd be very nearly the last I would see of them. I do have photos of the towers that were taken from atop the Empire State building but I do not seem to have digitised them, yet.

[BMJ]

Strangely my best friend of then and still now had her first mental break down on 9/11, I think the cabal was conjuring bad woo on the day and harvesting it.
So I was watching most of the event live on tv in emergency late at night here in Sydney from Westmead Hospital.

I can tell you everyone there was in shock and disbelief it felt like it might of well had been Sydney that had been hit thats how deeply we were shocked by 9/11 for days after the event.

In regards to the pentagon, well I saw that live and that was not an aircraft that hit the pentagon.

[Victoria]

Thank you for this beautiful post, Mark. I had just pulled over to watch the sunrise for 9/11 this morning when I saw your incredible photographs.


What an extraordinary commemoration and vantage point of the towers you've shared. It is cathartic to read your and Tintin's perspectives from that day. 



On September 11, 2001, I was in university. It was heavily overcast that morning. Grey skies and heavy mist with low hanging clouds all around. 

When the first tower was hit, I was sitting in my car in a parking lot outside of our university anthropology lab.

Remembering it brings to mind just how much of the world we knew before then was lost; life went on for most, but the liveliness, the carefree dreams, an era that felt more harmonious between people and full of possibility for our international relationships appears gone. The naivete. What once seemed honest came crashing down. All of it was drastically altered. 

I can still feel the gripping fear that day of not knowing whether my father was okay. He was fine. So many others weren't.

[petra]

I was working scanning book covers into a website. No one called to tell me what was going on, I just kept on working away.. I knew something was happening but didn't realize I should probably stop working and pay attention. It wasn't until after I got off work until I found out what's going on. It was so surreal.. I didn't even know how to process it.