9/11 - 5th Anniversary

Septemeber 11, 2006 will mark the 5th anniversary of a day that changed the world. The acts of terrorism had an immeasurable effect on the history, culture, politics, communications, economy, religion, science, etc., etc....of the entire world.

Several members of this board were in New York City on that day. Some of us were very close to the site. There may be new members who haven't made their presence known on that day.

I ask that this thread be used respectfully for a memorial; a tribute; a beacon of peace and hope for the future. There is a website dedicated to building a memorial at the WTC site - buildthememorial . If you are so inclined, make a donation. My "story" is posted on the site and it is part of the archive. It's not a sensational story, but just an account of my day; witnessing the collapse of tower 2 and escaping from downtown Manhattan and NYC. I felt it necessary to preserve the story for my children and grandchildren. It was also a catharsis.

Whatever your participation or rememberance, share your thoughts here. Pray for the victims; living and dead. And pray it never happens again.

MC - Thank you so much for sharing that beautiful site. I started to read the stories to see if I could recognize you in one of them, and then I was completely swept up and heart-broken by each and every one of them, especially by those that lost someone close to them. They are all so very candid and lay their souls bare. It is so kind of them to share their stories with us. I feel so very privileged.

Yes, in the coming days, let's try to regain that sense of unity that we all shared in the days following the attacks. And for those who pray, let us pray that it never, ever happens again.

For those interested, NBC is going to replay the 9/11/01 "Today Show" on 9/11/06 starting at 8:30AM EST.

I recently watched segments of a broadcast of the events of the day. It still seemed so surreal.

I can still remember where I was when I heard the news...

One of the few "I still know where I was" - places I will have to the moment I die.

One of those rare days in history that every American will always remember where they were and what they were doing. The memory of that tragic event still seems like yesterday.

Great site MC, although I don't have time to check it out very thoroughly right now, I will later.


TIS

I have really been trying to watch and read all I can about 9/11 in commemoration of the upcoming anniversary. Last weekend, I watched the French filmmakers' documentary of the only footage inside the North Tower. I also have been watching whatever specials that have been shown on A&E, Discovery, Nat'l Geographic Channel, and PBS.

I just re-read the book "102 Minutes - The Story of the Fight to Survive the Twin Towers." There are some excellent USA Today articles from 2002.

Finally, here is a view from atop the Towers at this site: Twin Towers panoramic view

Good idea, MC.

Have five years passed already? Sometimes it feels like its been a lot longer than that but mostly it seems like only a short, few weeks ago. Sometimes I fear I'll never forget seeing the inhumanity done that day but mostly I pray I'll always remember the City's response.

I have yet to visit Ground Zero. I used to go down there to watch the construction when the Towers were being built in the late 60's/early 70's. Being a traditionalist I didn't like the fact that these new buildings would take the "tallest" title form the Empire State Building (my favorite skyscraper) but now I can't envision the City without them.

I had to drive into lower Manhattan one day this past winter and after exiting the Battery Tunnel I purposely stayed to the extreme left (and not looking to the right) so as not to see what was going on there. I can't bear to see the former sight of the buildings knowing that so many people died there. I know one day I'll visit but I'm just not ready yet.

I won't pollute this thread with my thoughts about the terrorists (and I hope others don't either) but I will say they perversely brought this City together as its never been before.

More to come later.

"Standing defiantly against the gray and white landscape of devastation, these dust-covered men and the vivid red, white, and blue of Old Glory instantly became a symbol of American patriotism, a global message that life, and America, would go on."





Don Cardi

The first plane hit the tower, nothing was on television, and I drove to work. When I got there something told me to go home and turn on the television. I did, and I watched as the second plane hit, and instantly I knew we were under attack. My mother and sister were in Manhattan and I spent much of the day trying to get through on the telephone lines. Like all Americans I sat numb for nearly a week after it happened.

The first week in October I was in NY on business, and after checking into the Hotel I immediately took a camera and went to ground zero. Coming out of the subway near City Hall, I was immediately hit by an acrid, pungent smell. It was more than the smell of a smolering fire, it was the smell of death.

As I approached the fallen towers and saw the thousands of sheets of paper with the names of the missing...the exhausted firemen and police around the area, and an air of reverence, mourning, and dignity all around the site.

It seems like decades ago, yet it seems like yesterday.

For those who are new here and may be interested in reading about what I went through and saw that day, here is a link to a post that I made on September 13th 2001 :


http://www.gangsterbb.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=000087;p=0

Although the post that I made may be about my experience that day, please keep in mind that I am still here to talk about it, thank God. We must keep in mind that the ones who we NEED to remember and pay tribute to are those people who lost their lives that horrible day.


Don Cardi

As many haven't, and for various reasons. I won't tell anybody they should go there; it's personal. For three years after the attack, I worked in downtown Manhattan. I was constantly reminded of the day and many days I passed by Ground Zero. You become used to to seeing it, but never used to why it happened and the enormity of it.

Several months after the PATH train station reopened at Ground Zero, I had occasion to take the train from Hoboken to the WTC station. What I experienced was numbing. The train entered Ground Zero at the original tube entrance, but it was now exposed to Ground Zero. You were looking into the void of the WTC. I truly felt I was on hallow (holy) ground. It was like a punch in the stomach and a thump on the head. I was witnessing the gravesite of thousands of people.

I have been to Ground Zero several times and my brother recently took my daughter to visit Trinity Church. It is not a pleasant trip, but one I felt compelled to make. Mr. Babe's company had offices at 120 Broadway and he had to go down there soon after the attack. He was moved beyond words at the sight of the devastation.

There are two things that never cease to amaze me:

1. The enormity of it. It is truly unbelievable.

2. The quiet. In the midst of the city that never sleeps, the site is like an island unto itself, where people speak in hushed, almost reverential tones.

This isn't a first-hand account of what happened on that day...as I wasn't there. I didn't have anything especially interesting going on that day...but I can remember where I was at and what I was doing.

I was a junior in high school on 9/11/01. I had stayed home from school that day because I wasn't feeling well. I remember getting up that morning...and putting in the tape of Monday Night RAW I had recorded the night before. I was making myself some soup...when I got a phone call from my stepmother. She asked me if I was alright...if I had seen what just happened. I didn't know what the hell she was talking about. I had my wrestling tape on...so I hadn't seen or heard anything regarding the attack.

I turned off the VCR and the image that came across the screen nearly knocked me off my feet. The north tower of the World Trade Center was on fire...and within minutes of watching...the 2nd tower was hit. I wasn't there to see it first hand...but seeing it on live television was horrifying enough. I didn't know what to make of it...I didn't know what the hell was going on. I was 16 years old...I'd never even heard of al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden.

My uncle is a SgtMaj (retired) for the United States Army. He was on his way to the Pentagon (for reasons I'm not aware of) when the Pentagon was hit. Thank God he was running late that morning.

I read Don Cardi's description of the horrors he witnessed first-hand. Seeing people jumping from the towers...the smoke billowing from the towers...I can't imagine what that must have been like. But I know how it made me feel seeing it on television. I remember being angry...confused...frightened...saddened. All the schools in my area closed down...a lot of business closed down as well...as Washington D.C. is only but a few hours away.

I remember the next couple weeks...looking up in the skys...and not seeing any smoke trails in the sky. Not an airplane in sight. It was so quiet.

My father had a friend that lived in NYC as of 9/11...who at one point in his life worked at the WTC. He waited patiently for weeks for any sign that he was ok. About 3 weeks after the attacks...my dad got a post card in the mail stating "All is well."

Its been nearly 5 years since that dreadful day. And as many have stated above...in one respect...it feels like its been decades. And at the same time...it seems like only yesterday.

Today is offilally 5 years to the day,and i would like to offer my sympathys for those who lost there lives on September 11th

RIP

I don't know how everybody else feels about this constant news coverage on CNN etc., but it bothers me to no end.

CNN is even running the broadcast from that day on their website. When I turned the TV on this morning I was confronted with CNN and CNN Headline News running the same live feed of the memorial service.

And that's what bothers me. Why does CNN need to run the same thing on TWO channels? The only thing I can think of is CNN trying to benefit from the coverage of a tragic event that happened five years ago. The same thing did not need to be on at the same time from the same network. Why the media must beat this thing to the ground as a news story is sickening.

Plus, the damn anchors kept throwing in their stupid comments. Here's a hint CNN- If you want to look sympathetic and not like a media giant that's only after the numbers, then DONT HAVE YOUR IDIOTIC ANCHORS TALK OVER THE LIVE BROADCAST. Way to blow it and just look like a bunch of fools.

That said, I know people will disagree with this and that's ok. I will not debate this. I just wanted to throw in what I was thinking about.

I didn't see the CNN stuff today, but I did watch some of the coverage on MSNBC, who re-ran their original broadcast from 8:50 a.m. on 9/11/01 until about 12:00 pm.

There was one thing that occured which simply floored me and I had NEVER heard about this before today. To put it into the proper context, I was at work on 9/11 when my phone rang. It was my Mom, saying that 2 planes had hit the Trade Center. She remarked that she didn't understand why American pilots would fly their planes into the buildings. With zero knowledge of the events, I responded that it had to have been a hijacking. So I saw nothing on tv or the internet until some co-workers and I walked to a student lounge and watched the South tower fall on live television. Shortly thereafter, our mayor called the president of our university and ordered our evacuation because there was a rumor of a bomb on a plane at Cleveland's main airport. Unfortunately, the airport was less than 3 miles from my home. Thankfully, this turned out to be a false rumor.

Anyway, I am watching the coverage replay today and Matt Lauer made a comment to the effect of "Is it me, or are the Towers leaning to one side?" They debated it a little bit more among Couric, Lauer & Brokaw. Of all the footage I had ever seen, not once had this been discussed. But I swear both Towers were off-center and leaning at least 10 minutes after the South Tower was struck. I certainly have heard stories about how the building swayed back and forth after the initial impact. This was just something to behold.

Don Cardi

If you don't mind, I'd like to reminisce a bit about what the area was like before the WTC was built, and how WTC came into being:
The part of lower Manhattan later occupied by the WTC was one of the oldest, and most run-down, neighborhoods in the city. The streets that were there--Albany, Greenwich, Cortlandt, Liberty, etc.--had a motley collection of early 19th century (and some 18th century) buildings, which housed stores, offices and some light manufacturing. There were even a few residences. Unlike today's chi-chi NYC real estate, these were tenements whose residents traced their ancestry back to the "potato famine" Irish of the 1848-52 migration. I used to see them playing stickball in Greenwich Street or Trinity Place on Saturdays.
The area had sensational cut-rate shopping. Cortlandt Street was known as "Radio Row" (Arrow Electronics, Heinz and Bolet, etc.)--absolutely the place in the city to buy hi-fi and radio equipment at a time when it was very expensive, and you had to know what you were doing. The original Syms clothing store (men's clothes exclusively at that time) was on Greenwich Street. Kaufman's Army/Navy had all sorts of weird (and highly appealing to a teenager) stuff, like .50 cal. ammunition with the powder removed, dummy artillery shells, knives, pup tents--you name it. Volk's Restaurant, an authentic German place, served sensational fare; the bartenders sold me real Lowenbrau and Berliner Weisse when I was 15 and working for the New York Post (on West Street) as a messenger at night, after school hours. I felt like a real "adult" :p The area under the West Side Highway held junkyards and auto repair places. It was a grungy, raffish, but oddly appealing neighborhood.
The WTC was the brainchild of David Rockefeller. His Chase Manhattan Bank had its headquarters downtown. He was concerned that the deterioration of the area would be bad for his and others' investments. The Rockefellers always had a strong interest in global trade, and Chase was one of the leaders in international lending. He envisioned that lower Manhattan could become an international commerce center. Starting in 1958, he got the almighty Port of New York Authority on his side. The Port Authority had quasi-public powers (including eminent domain) and many exemptions from taxes and construction standards, and could issue bonds on "full faith and credit" of the public. The local business people organized a big effort to stop the WTC. But, before the civil rights and Vietnam eras, such protests came to naught--the Port Authority just swept them away.
I was still working in that area when the WTC was being built. Two things (other than the truly gargantuan size of the excavation) fascinated me most. One was the relatively small, self-jacking cranes that were developed for the project. They attached to the steel framing of the buildings and, as the floors rose, the cranes jacked themselves up the sides of the buildings to continue to haul up materials.
The other was the tubes for the PATH, a commuter subway that runs under the Hudson from Jersey City to lower Manhattan, as well as to midtown. PATH (then called the Hudson Tubes) had its lower Manhattan terminal in the area being excavated for the WTC. In a clever bit of engineering, they excavated around the huge concrete PATH tubes that had been buried deep underground and were now exposed, and propped the tubes up with railroad ties and other timbers. Periodically PATH trains would come rumbling through the exposed tube, shaking them scarily and making the timbers groan, but not cracking the tubes. When the buildings were completed, the PATH station that formerly was a stand-alone on Cortlandt Street was relocated in the lowest level of the WTC. Of course, service to lower Manhattan was suspended after the 9/11 tragedy as part of the PATH station (and some subway stations) were damaged. The PATH tubes, being at the lowest level, filled with water. Within days of the attack, engineers paddled small boats down the tubes to NJ to assess the level of water and the work to be done. Must have been an eerie sight.
Thanks for listening.

TB, Thank you for sharing. My mother-in-law worked on Wall Street and used to commute there from Jersey City in the early 1950's. She said that if she had to wait for a telex and stay late, it was eery to leave the office after hours because the area was so empty at night. She said that she would hear her high heels echoing on the cobblestone streets when she left.

Thank you, Turnbull. That was very intersting.

I remember Radio Row quite well.

In fact, your mentioning it brings back memories of stuff I did 40+ years ago with my Junior High School buddies.

Long before the WTC was even thought of, we used to go down to Radio Row and browse through the dozens of stores - stores with absolutely no ambiance whatsoever - and the scores of bins and troughs therein (remember them?), which contained small parts and doo-dads and doo-hickeys, none of which did we have the slightest idea of what they were used for but they looked really cool.

We'd put our money together, and for $15 or $20 we could buy a large assortment of this stuff, which we would then take home and use to construct these Rube Goldberg-like contraptions which did absolutely nothing except maybe turn a wheel or click numbers off on a counter, but they were fun to make and look at.

Ah, the care-free days of the early 1960's, when a bunch of 13 or 14-year olds could go into the city by themselves without fear or worry, and have a full day of fun and excitement and shopping and eating without spending more than maybe $5 or so.

Sure, we worried about the world being obliterated in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, but somehow that threat doesn't seem as real or as vivid or as close to home as today's threats posed by terrorism are.

Sure, as 13 and 14-year olds we talked about it, but it didn't seem to bother us all that much for some reason.

I wonder how today's kids of that age - especially the ones from NYC who experienced 9/11 in their city first hand - feel about the threat of terrorism.

My now-17-year-old son was 12-years old at the time of 9/11 - a bit young to make the comparsion to the 13 or 14-year old me, perhaps - but the first time we were driving through lower Manhattan after 9/11, I asked him if he wanted me to park somewhere so we could take a first-hand up-close look at Ground Zero.

"No" he replied. Since I thought that destruction and wreckage were surely something that any 12-year old boy would be interested in seeing, I asked him "Why not?"

And he replied, very much to my surprise, "Because it's too sad."