REMEMBER: NEVER FORGET SEPTEMBER 11TH

We had been at an appointment over in East Harlem last week and noticed that a local firehouse had prepped a banner out front of the station which read, "we will never forget."  It has been 13 years now since the attack that would decimate the Twin Towers downtown and for a moment the memories had started to come back as if everything happened yesterday.  I had started a demanding job at Calvin Klein Jeans back then and remember hurrying to work on a perfect September day.  Right before running out the door in my tiny East Village studio, I was able to see clip on the news which had been trying to zoom in on a very thin stream of white, puffy smoke coming out one of the top floors of the World Trade Center.   Everyone assumed it was a minor office fire which would have been pretty extraordinary but not enough reason to be worried about since there was a busy day ahead.

The commute on the subway was simple but things started to become more apparent when arriving to the office.  Our Vice President's executive assistant had the radio on (this was way before social media) and the team that had arrived before 9:20AM sat around as the news unfolded.  We learned that both towers had been hit and that there was an attempt at the pentagon.  At that point everyone was told to go home.  With a bit of anxiety, I packed up my belongings, took a quick look at the new 200 emails from the overseas offices that still had not been responded to and then ran on to 6th Avenue by Bryant Park.  Then some of the panic started to register at that point.

What everyone saw outdoors was out of some Hollywood movie of which we all had been unknowingly cast into.  Traffic was bumper to bumper and unmoving.  Dense crowds of people filled both sidewalks and streets trying to get home.  Subways were out of the question since more explosive devices could have been on the public transportation systems.  I had to venture south and turning that direction saw clearly that both the towers were smoldering in massive dark clouds.  One of the buildings already had a head start and suddenly started to collapse inward.  In my memory, the exodus was pretty quiet up until that time. Then people started pointing, screaming and crying.  The implosion had started which nobody thought would actually happen.  It took an eternity to walk through the chaos to the East Village and the massive amount of smoke from the destruction of the two towers was always in view because of my downtown destination.  Nevertheless, I was determined to get home.

Luckily most folks still had a home phone back then since cell phone signals were not working.  I had to light all the candles around the apartment that evening because the electricity would be shut down for some time.  Living in a walkup building never bothered me but at this point in time I was grateful not to be dependent on an elevator. After a round of telephone calls to loved ones, I found that everyone I knew was okay but at the same time everything would not be the same.  The weeks that would follow would be the city's darkest time but everyone in the village that stayed made sure we supported one another and for once felt united instead of being a group of collective strangers who barely glanced at one another in passing.