"When
I returned home I knew I was going to be late for school
but since school just opened for the year I didn’t want
to leave a bad impression so I decided to go against my
parents wishes and, for speeds-sake, take my bike back
to school. So I rode to school, directly going
past 5 World Trade Center on my way. This is a
shorter building with only about seven stories.
This, however was the building I most often visited
because Borders, a good bookshop, was located inside. It
too would later collapse.
"When
I arrived back at my school it was – from what I know
about the official time of the attacks – 8:44."
"Now
I will describe the location of my school. It is
only about 5 blocks north of the Twin Towers on the
other side of the West Side Highway. From the WTC
complex there is, in order from north to south, Vesey,
Park Row, Murray, Warren, then the street Stuyvesant
High School is located on: Chambers. You again
will see it better on the map. I was under the
bridge that spans the West Side Highway. This
bridge was made so that the students of my school and
those of the Elementary school next to us can cross the
highway safely. The West Side highway is a very busy and
very dangerous street for pedestrians."
"Under
the Bridge is a series of bike racks made for all of us
to lock up our bikes. It was as I was locking my
bike to the pole that it happened."
"Now
this next paragraph all happened in just a few seconds
mind you."
"The
view I had was perfect, perfect I say in the sense that
I could see well, not that it was something I wanted to
see. I heard a loud whirring noise like an
extremely large truck go right over my head.
Naturally, as a New Yorker, very little catches my
attention; but it was just so loud. I turned to
look at the street first, then I looked up. What I
saw was awful. A plane flew directly into the
North Tower. I remember hearing a lady screaming
and thinking to myself in such a New York way, “Come on
lady no one screams in New York, nothing gets to us,”
even as I watched it hit. As I kept watching it
exploded. The tower exploded! Then it sank
in. I stood mesmerized just watching this huge fireball.
Then as the fire cleared, I saw the hole in the tower.
It was shaped almost like an airplane. I saw it
before smoke started pouring from the hole, when you
could actually see the airplane. That hole was one
of the most lasting images of the day. I say “one
of the most” because something later would top it."
"When
it all really came to me that a plane had hit the world
trade center, it hit me like a sack of bricks. I
started cursing. That’s it. I started
spouting off “What the F***!”, “What kind of S*** is
that!”, and the one I repeated most through the day:
“That doesn’t F***ing happen, man, that’s movie S***!”,
or other such profanities to the same extent. A
biker beside me seemed to share the same opinion.
Next I heard a lady screaming, “My cell don’t work, my
cell don’t work!”. Then after about 2 minutes of
staring, cursing and staring some more, I just turned
around locked my bike up, (that was no easy task though,
with my hands shaking the way they were it took about a
minute and a half to lock the damn thing) climbed the
stairs to my school and went in. I was the only
one who had arrived at that time so after I was
literally pulled into the building by the security
guard, I was the one who told all of the people hanging
out around the lobby, “Hey, the World Trade Center just
got hit by a plane!” Everyone needed a second to believe
it - they all thought the sound was one of the many
sounds you just hear in NY, a car backfire or
something."
"Then
I went up to my classroom. I was convinced at the
time that there had been a malfunction in the cockpit,
no doubt, and the poor pilots couldn’t do anything.
I entered the classroom and said again “Hey, umm, a
plane just hit the World Trade Center.” They just didn’t
believe me. The class is on the north side of the
building so they had heard nothing. After a few
minutes of explaining, they still didn’t believe me.
Then over the loudspeaker the principal of the school
said: “this morning at 8:45 a plane hit the WTC” -
that’s when they believed."
"Now,
I know they did not hear the first plane because I
didn’t hear the second. It wasn’t until another
guy walked in and said, “I saw the second plane hit.”
Now, this, no one believed. Everyone, like myself,
believed that the controls on the first plane had gone
crazy, so we didn’t, couldn’t, believe that two planes
had done the same thing. After a little time we
realized that it was intentional - an act of terrorism
or something."
"The
principal would later in the period come on and tell
everyone to continue with the normal day and to go to
the next class. So we did. My next class
however was anything but normal."
"We
had no lesson. We just turned on the television we
had in the room and watched the footage. We
discussed how they would evacuate the people in the WTC.
We determined that a helicopter would have to airlift
all people above the crashes oblivious to the horrid
idea that they would actually collapse. We watched
the footage of the second plane hit over and over from
every different angle. There was no footage from
the first, so I was the only one in that class to have
seen it."
"Later
in the period, I went to the bathroom to put on my
jacket for the pictures - my time was going to be during
the next period so I might as well get my jacket on now.
When I came back from the bathroom, I heard about the
Pentagon. That really freaked me out, for two
reasons. One it meant that this was not just a New
York thing, the nation was under attack and anything
could be next. The second was that I thought that
without the Pentagon, how would we stop these people?
The pentagon was our military, damn it, and now their
all dead (one of my many irrational thoughts of the day:
the pentagon is far to big to be destroyed by one plane,
but forgive me, I was not really in the best condition
then). So, for another 20 minutes or so (I can’t
tell how long) we just sat and watched footage over and
over on Channel 1."
"Now,
again I go into a location description. From my
classroom we were too far east to see the actual towers,
a building was in the way. Just barely. One
classroom to the west and the angle would have been
fine. All we could see was the street directly
adjacent to towers. Also we were on the eighth
floor so we could see the street clearly. This is
important, since what I saw on the street was
horrifying. From the windows we could see the
police cars, ambulances, fire-trucks and rescue workers
under the WTC."
"Now,
near the end of second period on the news a very calm
newswoman was describing the scene. The press is
supposed to be calm, always. Never are they fazed,
never are they scared. This is how they seem to
us. So when the news lady went from almost
casually describing the scene to screaming at the top of
her lungs, we freaked. She started screaming “Oh,
my God, IT”S FALLING!!!!!!!”
"We
ran to the window and what we saw was awful.
Now we could see the tower, or see parts of it
anyway. We saw tons and tons of 2 World Trade
Center (no doubt with people in it) falling.
Falling right onto the street below. Onto the fire
trucks. Onto the ambulances. Onto the police
cars. That wasn’t the worst part of what I saw.
I saw people: cops, firemen, good people there to help
save others in the street between the vehicles. I
watched as the WTC fell on all of those people.
All of the cars and trucks; yes, that was an awful sight
too but they were at that distance: still cars.
You had to imagine people in the cars to realize it
fully there. But there were people in the street.
I could see people on the street, people I didn’t have
to imagine to see, and then I couldn’t see them at all.
They were gone, crushed, and most likely dead beneath
the south tower."
"After
that everyone went crazy. The TV had gone out in
the school and so had the lights, but only for a few
seconds. But after the collapse the girls (and
some guys) started crying. I personally was in
shock and I just stood at the window screaming
obscenities again. This time, I wasn’t alone -
believe me. A good portion of the class was doing
and saying the same thing. After it fell we were
evacuated. They said the dust cloud was coming
towards us, so we had to go. On the way down the
stairs a few other guys and I had to carry a boy in a
wheelchair three flights because none of the elevators
were working. When we got down to the ground I met
a few friends, and we all left the building. The
police men led us north on the now empty West Side
Highway. About two blocks into the walk a loud
rumbling began and, as I turned to look, I saw the TV
needle atop the north tower collapsing into the rest of
the WTC and watched in horror as the rest of the second
tower went down too. We all saw, and were again
all shocked. But this time we were beyond cursing.
I guess we had just reached a point were we couldn’t
curse or scream anymore. We just turned around and
started walking north again. The idea that there
were no Twin Towers started sinking in, oh, so slowly.
Even after watching the footage on TV in class and
seeing the plane hit, it never occurred to me that they
would fall. I had kept thinking: “how the hell are
they going to fix those holes?”…thinking, “God, there
must be 500 people dead”! When they fell, the number
that popped in my head rose to 100,000.
Irrational, yes but it’s what I thought."
"Later,
my friends and I went to the house of one friend who
lived on 9th street. On the way we
stopped and looked down 6th avenue at the
“nothing” that used to be the World Trade Center.
It was unbelievable."
"The
rest of the day was spent watching the news and waiting
for news of my parents. I knew I would be waiting
longer than most anyone as my parents were in Brooklyn
at the Airport. It did go through my mind at one
point that they might have been in one of the planes.
There was really only one plane I knew they could have
been on: the one that crashed in Pennsylvania the others
were too early. Then I found out that was a United
airline and we always use American, which is of course
the company of two of the other three planes. (Later I
found out they were on Japanese airlines so my worrying
was pointless). But, I spent most of my time
worrying about my sister, who has Down’s syndrome.
How she was, where she was, was she okay? Her school
wasn’t all that far from the WTC, and she was east of
it, almost directly in the path of the dust clouds that
would envelop lower Manhattan. I couldn’t contact
her because the phones weren’t working."
"There’s
not really much more to say, really. My parents
eventually found me after I wrote an e-mail from my
friend’s computer. They arrived about seven hours after
the first plane hit. They had walked from Brooklyn
over the Manhattan Bridge. My sister had gone home
and there met with the superintendent of our building.
He took her to his brother’s house on 7th
street - 2 1/2 blocks from where I was. We then
all walked back to Brooklyn over the Manhattan Bridge to
a car they had rented from the airport - and drove to
the house we have in upstate New York."
"I
am still here in upstate New York writing this. In
the days after the tragedy I have received so much
support. I am not traumatized. My “New York-ness”
keeps me hard. We’re hard to faze, so something
like this surprised, shocked and scared me, but didn’t
traumatize me. What I’ve seen in these past few
days has filled me with mixed emotions. I
personally went to give blood about three hours after we
were evacuated. I couldn’t - the lines were too
long. You may hear about how we are sticking
together through this. There is no way to describe
how true that is. In 4 hours from when the first
plane hit there were already posters everywhere - and I
mean everywhere - asking people to donate blood.
There were makeshift stands everywhere with people
giving out water and cookies to the donators. This
has filled me with happiness. Well, after
something like this, it is hard to be happy but I have
been touched. Conversely, some things I have seen
on TV have angered me. Obviously, towards whoever
did this, but as well, I also am disgusted by all of
these things I see on the news. I keep seeing all
of these people from Michigan or Oregon crying as if
they were the ones who saw what I did. I know it
is awful and they have the utmost right to but it still
for some reason pisses me off. The news channels
should show people from New York or Washington reacting
to this. We saw the people dying, not on TV
but with our own eyes. Whenever I go over
the building falling on those people in my mind I
realize what I saw. I saw hundreds of people dying
less than one half kilometer from where I stood in less
than one second from each other. We should be the ones
crying on TV Except those from New York won’t cry as
much as much as the others. We are a strong city and
have steeled ourselves after this attack. We cried, yes,
but many of us have stopped crying and started wanting
to help others. When you are helping others there is no
crying. We must be strong, for if those we help,
and the rest of the nation sees us strong, then they too
can be strong."
"The
ones who did this are cowards and I want them to know
that those who were there are not afraid of you.
That there is not one person who could have witnessed
what we did and not felt the way I do. And the way
I feel? I f you were here right now in front of me I
would not cower in fear: rather, I would rip you apart."
"I
am 17 years old and what I saw on September 11, 2001 I
will never forget. What I feel now is sorrow for
those who died and anger at those who did this.
But President Bush could not have been more right when
he said that all this did was bring us closer together.
I have no doubt that together we will punish the
heartless cowards that did this, but with just
actions – that will be our revenge."
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