9/11 as it happened

[rtse11]

And the ME got fired about three months later for using a company AMEX card at the strip club where he was seeing one of the dancers.

At least he died doing what (or who) he loved.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

I was doing my morning radio show. TVs we’re on ESPN. A caller told us about the first plane. We flipped to CNN just as the second hit. I said “Oh ****” on air and my co-host said “We switching to news right now.”

 

[Michael_ Gee]

I have two memories that stick in my mind 20-plus years later. I'd been out walking the dog, but when I turned on the TV to see the stock ticker and learned what was happening, I got in my car and drove to the Herald, because I knew there'd be work. When I got there, I saw everyone else had had the same reaction, the movie reviewer, the business editor, we sports folk, everybody, It was a moment of pride in what became an awful day of work.
The next day was Wednesday, so I went to Foxboro. Offensive lineman Joe Andruzzi was the only interview. He came from a family where all males were either NYC cops or firefighters. None of his direct relatives had died, but many people he'd known as family friends had. At the end of the interview, he said, unprompted, "guys, we're going to get through this." It was the first and only time in my career an athlete used the word "we" to include the media.

 

[maumann]

At least he died doing what (or who) he loved.

He wound up in jail one weekend after she called the cops during a drunken spat (this was just before he got canned). Thankfully, Gwen and I were on a trip. Apparently he could only remember my phone number, so there were over 30 frantic calls recorded on my answering machine where he was able to get out two or three words before the collect call operator hung up.

And yeah, he bounced around a number of little western North Carolina newspapers after that fiasco, eventually dying of a heart attack some years later.

 

[Della9250]

 

[lakefront]

 

[Songbird]

Lets Rolls ... you gotta have a big ****ing pair of yarbles to name 'em that.

 

[The Big Ragu]

I have told my 9/11 story multiple times on here. It's so hard to believe it was 21 years ago because it is so indelibly etched in my head and changed so many things about my life. At the same time, it feels like a lifetime ago because my life has changed so much since then for reasons that had nothing to do with 9/11. I would have never thought this back in the 2000s, but each year it does feel a little more distant to me.

My apartment -- which I still own, even though I am not there as much -- had a clear, unobstructed view of the towers (now it has a great view of the Freedom Tower) from the roof deck. I was still in bed when the first plane hit, which is wild to me today, because I am up between 3:30 and 4:30 almost every day and couldn't sleep that late now if I tried. But I had been out late for work the night before and was dragging my ass that morning.

The radio was on -- it was Howard Stern -- and I heard them start talking about a plane hitting one of the towers, and I went up to my roof almost immediately to see the building smoking. I was soon joined by several of my neighbors, one of whom brought a camcorder up with him and caught everything that happened in the next half hour or so. At first, we thought it was an accident, terrorism wasn't part of the conversation, I don't think. But 10 minutes later, we saw the second plane flying in very low from the South, over the Battery, in what felt like slow motion. My most vivid memory of the day is one of my neighbors (who still lives in the building, he's probably in his 70s now), saying, "Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no" over and over again, as we watched the plane crash into the South Tower. It happened in slow motion.

From there, it is kind of a blur. We just stood there and watched the first tower collapse, and it was devastating to watch. Within 20 minutes the blanket of white soot that was blowing in our direction brought so much debris and unbreathable air to my neighborhood that you couldn't be outside, so I had to head back inside. I remember trying to call my dad to tell him what was going on and tell him I was OK (although I didn't work in the Towers or anything like that), but you couldn't make a call for hours.

In the days afterward, there were several memorable vigils in my neighborhood, because of where it was located, and I have never felt so part of a community in NYC as I did then. I was depressed for several months afterward, it felt like everything had changed, and yet, I have never felt that connected to people in my life, and I say that as someone who doesn't look for connections the way many others do. Within a few weeks, I was volunteering down at the site 2 days a week. Tying it today, it was my introduction to the N95 mask . I had a stack of them, a hard hat, a face shield and a desire to do something, but honestly there really wasn't that much for me to do. There were so many people who wanted to volunteer, but no practical need for them, and people were being told thanks, but no thanks. I somehow found my way in via the Red Cross and I would show up and do whatever there was a need for, usually serving up meals. To people who never got into the actual site, the carnage and pile of mangled steel was unbelievable. What always bothered me a little was that I got the sense that for a lot of people, it almost wasn't real, like it was a CGI effect they watched on a TV screen. I know that's not fair of me, but I remember when they opened a storefront version of a 9/11 museum nearby, I wandered in one day and was pissed off by seeing tourists buying 9/11 trinkets.

After it was all cleaned up (it took a long time), the site was basically a fenced off hole in the ground, and I couldn't bring myself to go there for the longest time. There used to be a shopping area under the towers -- sort of like an underground mall -- and when they built something new to replicate it, I wanted no part of it. But there is a major subway hub there where a lot of lines meet and slowly I got past it and now, like I said, each year it does feel a little more distant to me.

 

[Songbird]

Remember Me is a good movie because of how they incorporated 9/11 ... which came out of nowhere.

 

[Azrael]

... which came out of nowhere.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Bin_Ladin_Determined_To_Strike_in_US_(August_2001).pdf

 

[Webster]

The various snippets of that day which I remember the most:

— it was such a sunny morning. I went to vote in the NYC mayoral primary before work and thinking it was the brightest sky I could remember
— I heard about the first plane from my office in midtown listening to Howard Stern. I called Mrs W, who also worked in midtown but was still home and told her not to go in. She went to her office anyway. As soon as the second plane hit, I walked down the 20 flights of stairs and went home
— once I was outside, the fact that no one’s cell phone worked was scary. No one could get in touch with each other. We finally heard from my brother-in-law, who worked near the towers 5 hours later.
— We ended up hosting a bunch of my wife’s co-workers at our apartment which was about 10 blocks from her office. After a while, we decided to go to a blood bank near our place and the line was probably 500 people and they told us to go home because it looked like there was no need given the small number of survivors.
— the next day, finally being able to access my work email and seeing all of the “are you ok” messages pop up at once.
— on that Thursday, a bunch of us were sitting outside at a bar on the UES and all of sudden the wind shifted direction. About 20 minutes later we were completed covered in a fog of dust from the towers

 

[Songbird]

I meant an out of nowhere 9/11 moment in a movie.

 

[dixiehack]

Now that we have two decades of distance, can we all please admit that Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You” has held up like milk in the afternoon sun?

 

[Songbird]

like milk in the afternoon sun

... so let's make some cheese?

 

[wicked]

I was in New York with a school group three months after 9/11 and a few things stood out:

— Downtown was a ghost town. A friend and I went walking around ground zero and we fortunately found a Subway open because we were starving. This was on a Saturday, but even then it wouldn’t normally be that empty.
— The missing posters were still on the fence at the church right near the towers (I forget the name). To see all of those and to know most of those people were dead, well… There were also some flowers and condolence notes too.
— We were heading back to our bus when I noticed some vendors uptown were selling postcards with photos of the second plane before it hit the tower and the aftermath. WTF?

 

[The Big Ragu]

The church you're talking about is St. Paul's Chapel. It sits across the street from where one of the towers was, and the building itself somehow wasn't damaged. Not even a broken window. In the aftermath, the church turned into a place of worship for a lot of the recovery workers, but it also turned into a staging area of sorts. A lot of supplies that were donated ended up there, and there were a lot of meals served to construction workers, firefighters and police officers at that church. There was an outdoor grill constantly cooking up stuff there, and a lot of people went through that church in the first 6 months. I'm not sure if they had beds set up and people were sleeping there, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. The fence around the church is what you are remembering. It turned into a memorial wall, with flowers, photos of victims, posters, candles, etc.

 

[OscarMadison]

It's easy to see too many crass advertisements and disingenuous flag hugging and feel outrage. Then again, how far are we from people who say, "**** your feelings," and then reveal themselves to be curators of slights? Maybe it's time to stop feeding the energy monsters. Anyway, who needs all that cholesterol?

 

[Batman]

Now that we have two decades of distance, can we all please admit that Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You” has held up like milk in the afternoon sun?

Absolutely not.
It's not a timeless classic by any means. It's very much of a specific "you had to be there" moment. A teenager hearing it for the first time in 2022 might not "get it." And I'll even grant you that, musically, it's a little awkward and perhaps a minute too long.
But damn, dude, if you are an American who remembers that day and its immediate aftermath at all, I don't see how you can't identify with every emotion he mentions in that song — the mix of anger, sadness, confusion, fear, horror, helplessness and uncertainty about what happens next. I hear it and it takes me right back there.
I think he nailed the reaction of the everyman, the Americans who weren't in New York or Washington, perfectly. In that sense, it holds up pretty damn well, IMO.

 

[WriteThinking]

There's some incredible reading/remembering here. You may have to sign up to see the stories in full, but no fee.

Essential Reading: Remembering September 11, 2001

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]