September 11, 2001

[Tricia]

On this day 18 years ago, 246 people were waking in preparation for their morning flights. 2,606 people were getting ready for their day at work. 343 firefighters were preparing for their shift. 60 officers were preparing for their morning patrol. 8 paramedics were starting their day, preparing to save lives.
None of them saw past 10:00 AM September 11, 2011.

In one single moment life may never be the same.

As you live and enjoy the breaths you take today, kiss the ones you love, snuggle a little tighter and never take one second of your life for granted.

 

[Jim Kenney]

Nice tribute!

I was a civilian in the Pentagon all day on Sep 10, 2001 for a work-related seminar. Fortunately, I was on a vacation day on Sep 11 and out furniture shopping with my wife during the attacks.

In early Feb 2019, after a weekend ski trip to Laurel Mtn, PA, I stopped for a visit at the nearby Flight 93 National Memorial. It was very moving and the various exhibits at the Visitor Center brought out some strong emotions in me. Something about the fact that regular civilians like me decided to make the ultimate effort to stop that plane really touches me. For one thing, they probably saved a 2nd attack on Wash DC. But also because I don't know if I would've had their courage and decisiveness in the same situation! They make me proud to be an American.

 

[Coach13]

This is always a tough day for me as I lost work acquaintances at both the Pentagon and in NY. I was on my way to the Pentagon for a meeting when I got a call from my secretary who told me what had occurred. Most of the DC area dismissed early that day so traffic was horrendous on the way home. I’ll never forget sitting in traffic looking at the expressionless looks on everyone’s face in every car around me. The whole DC area seemed to be in complete shock.

 

[Eddie]

I was in the South Tower that day and the plane hit my tower while I was evacuating down the stairs. As the saying goes Never Forget and I sure as hell will never. With all I saw that morning.

 

[James]

Will be here on Mott St later.
Thirty x sixty foot flag originally on 1 Liberty Place during recovery at Wtc.
Ground Zero Volunteer Flag.

 

[surfsnowgirl]

From waking up in California from my TV auto tuning on to the news and seeing the plane hit the tower to driving to work by the airport and hearing the freakish sound of silence as all the planes were grounded at this point to getting to work and seeing the package that had been delivered to me from Two World Trade Center I will never, ever forget this day. Seeing the sender label on the fedex box sent chills down my spine. We didn't hear from our law firm in the towers for 3 days when our attorney called us to let everyone know they all were ok and got out fine. I just remember him asking us if we could send him copies of all the corporate closing binders they'd sent us over the years because they lost everything. They were temporarily working out of a conference room at another building downtown. I worked in the city a few years ago and our corporate service company used to be lowed in one of the towers and he told me the story of how he sent his brother an email and a minute later the first plane hit and they had to vacate the soon to be fallen tower. All of these things play over and over in my head on this day every single year. I have participated in this run called the Tunnel to Towers run that takes the route from Brooklyn to Manhattan that one of the fallen firefighters took. It was an amazing run and a great tribute and way to remember all that had lost their lives this day. The end of the route is right at the site of the former towers. I'd like to do this run again some day.

 

[Tom K.]

So many things to never forget.

Great pics, @James.

 

[SugarCube]

I was at a meeting in Stamford, CT when we heard about the first plane. Someone turned on the tv, and we watched as the second plane hit. We (our company) lost 12 employees that day--they were on the plane from Boston. I was scheduled to fly to Pittsburgh later that day. Since the skies were silenced, I drove home from CT to Albany, NY, amazing that bridges were still open. I had many friends attending a class in a building just adjacent to the Towers and were staying at the Millenium. My best friend was leading the class, and she got everyone out safely. They lost everything except the clothes on their back. Another friend and her husband (a fire chief and detective) spent 3 weeks in the rubble at Ground Zero, helping with the recovery efforts. The horrors that they saw.


No, I will never forget.

 

[coskigirl]

I woke up in Las Cruces, NM turned on the tv, turned on my computer and turned around to watch the news. It was a tiny 13" tv and initially I thought they were playing a trailer from a movie. I worked for Olan Mills Church Directories at the time and we were scheduled to do a shoot in Alamogordo that day. I thought surely they would cancel it but they didn't. It was so hard to try to sell portraits to people who were trying so hard to smile on such a tough day but one many still stays in my mind. He was an older gentleman who had no kids of his own. He had nieces and nephews and I think grand nieces and nephews. He bought our biggest, most expensive package that day of just pics of himself.

About a year later I moved to Northern Virginia and ended up meeting a woman that I'm still friends with. She worked in the towers but was scheduled to fly to San Francisco on September 11. Initially she was supposed to be on flight 93 but decided the night before that she wanted to sleep a bit later and changed her flight. She was in Newark airport when the towers were hit. She ended up marrying a man whose birthday is September 11. I think it's a fitting way to redirect her emotion on the day to celebrating life instead of focusing on the tragedy.

 

[Tricia]

Will be here on Mott St later.
Thirty x sixty foot flag originally on 1 Liberty Place during recovery at Wtc.
Ground Zero Volunteer Flag.

View attachment 79926 View attachment 79927

I remember sitting in the back of @Chris Geib's truck with you as you told me, @Bob Barnes and Chris about how you ended up helping in the volunteer efforts. Big hugs to you today.

I was in the South Tower that day and the plane hit my tower while I was evacuating down the stairs. As the saying goes Never Forget and I sure as hell will never. With all I saw that morning.

Speechless

 

[fatbob]

I've always had a slightly detached relationship with the events of 9/11 because of the fact I was skiing at the time. Staying in Los Andes I saw TV news in the am re the first plane hitting but through a combination of it being in very rapid Spanish and my concentrating on other stuff like getting geared up I only really clocked it as a accident. I hitched a ride up to Portillo with a trucker and skied all day only really noticing that it was pretty quiet on the slopes. It was only when I wandered into the hotel in the afternoon and saw notices that they had set up the auditorium for US guests to gather etc that I really clocked that this was something world changing. Hard to imagine that it was an era without always being digitally connected, without international cell roaming etc etc/

I was working in London for the 7/7 attacks and had commuted as normal. Some colleagues came in very shaken having been one tube train apart or on a bus on the same roads. My abiding memory of that day though was defiance and drinking outside a pub in Borough Market late into the summer evening (as trains were very disrupted) in a place that would have subsequent attacks only a couple of years agi.

 

[James]

 

[Pequenita]

I had a tough day today. Not as difficult as 18 yrs ago - was evacuated in DC and worked in 2WTC in the late 90s - but it’s still surprisingly traumatic.

 

[James]

I had a tough day today. Not as difficult as 18 yrs ago - was evacuated in DC and worked in 2WTC in the late 90s - but it’s still surprisingly traumatic.

There’s some interesting stories about the building. It’s amazing the cast of characters who make huge projects possible. I came across this kitchensisters podcast late one night. It’s on Guy Tozzi, the construction, and the Building Stewardesses.

————————
THE BUILDING STEWARDESSES: CONSTRUCTION GUIDES AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

————
“I started at three dollars an hour, which was still a lot of money for a summer job. I think that whoever had the idea must have been someone with an incredible amount of insight and understanding of human nature. Because to think that you could find young girls like this, and instill us with that sense that we were almost as invincible as the building. We were the building, we were the World Trade Center.”

— Elizabeth English, who worked as a guide at the observation deck
——————————
http://www.kitchensisters.org/fugitivewaves/episode-30/

I watched 1WTC, the North Tower, come down looking south from the 30th floor of a building on 50th street. We were just staring south at the tower pouring out black smoke. For a bit the smoke died down from that huge black hole. But it was just a shift in wind. Then it came mostly straight down in the images that everyone had seen.

But after that, when the dust was blown away, what was left is something I’ve never seen in images. There was the exterior structural steel framework that went up to a point. It was early on a bright, sunny, day so it was strongly backlit. An almost black lattice pattern of steel. And then it just started to fall from the top. Slowly crumbling, the pattern disappearing as the steel fell down. And then it was completely gone.

Some days later, down at the pile of what was left, I happened to be staring at the skeleton of steel still standing. Then a guy nearby says, “It sounded like bells.”
“What’s that?”
“The steel, when it came down after the building it sounded like church bells. I was down here and heard it.”

Came of age in the 60’s and died young:
Brian Jones - 27
Jimi Hendrix - 28
Janis Joplin. - 27
Jim Morrison - 27
World Trade Center - opened April 4, 1973 - September 11, 2001 - 27 years


The Woolworth Building, once the tallest building in the world, is poking up near the Manhattan side tower of the Manhattan Bridge.

Photo before the Vista Hotel between the Towers, before 7 WTC which would be built in the open space left of 6 WTC. Building 6 held US Customs in 2001. In the picture it’s the low dark building with light roof just to the left of 1 WTC, the North Tower. The antenna on top would become much bigger. Building 4, the US Commodities Exchange, is behind the South Tower. It was part of the storyline in the movie “Trading Places”, which has nice shots of the Towers.
The North Tower was hit first but collapsed second. Building 7 collapsed later that day.

Fill, from digging the foundation, makes the flat land in the photo upon which would be built Stuyvesant HS, PS 89, Battery Park City, the World Financial Center, and recently, the Goldman Sachs Building. The West Side Highway is still elevated in this photo. That was torn down in the mid to late ‘80’s.

 

[coskigirl]

@James very informative. Thank you. My best to you as you remember.

 

[Tricia]

 

[Jim Kenney]

 

[Uncle-A]

I posted this in Today In History but it also goes here.

One of the guys I worked with in one of the ski shops in the early 1980's was working in the towers that day and was never found. He was married with a few kids and also a member of the Elks club I belong. We had a drink together there on the Labor Day just before that fatal day. I will never forget and I am not sure if I am a good enough person to ever forgive.

It makes me sad every time I see a photo of the twin towers.

 

[Andy Mink]

I was at the gym in Reno, so it was still pretty early. I remember getting into the truck to drive home and the wrong voice was on the radio. It wasn't the regular morning guy. At that point, the news was saying a plane had hit the first tower and speculation was it was just a freak accident. Not being able to see it, I had no idea of the severity. I got home and turned on the TV just in time to see the second tower hit. Then the Pentagon. Then Pennsylvania.

My neighbor was in NYC for work. He couldn't get a plane back to Reno, of course, so he and some coworkers rented one of the last cars out of NJ and drove across the country. He was in the tower on the observation deck the day before.

 

[AlpedHuez]

I was working for NBC News in Washington DC, first job out of college, and I had just had my first Dateline piece with a producer credit go up on air the previous night, Monday. So I had Tuesday off, my first day off all summer. I had scheduled a visit to the Pentagon to tour the building with my aunt's cousin. The Friday before she had to postpone, so we rescheduled. My wakeup was to sports radio, except this morning it was ABC News special coverage. So I went to the White House to assist with our crew, and we were evacuated from the complex so I went to the State Department. Where there was then false reports of a car bomb. The rest of the days and nights from there were a blur, but the experience definitely spurred me to live and work abroad, in the Middle East and Europe, transitioning from tv news and political campaigns to international development, rule of law and governance.