The following is what I wrote from my Brooklyn apartment on the afternoon of September 11, 2001 when a friend wrote to see if I was okay. * * * * * I am okay. Eleanor and Templeton are at the Jersey shore. The weirdest thing is that I was lying in bed this morning having a dream. I dreamed that I was in midtown Manhattan in a 20-story building. I was looking uptown at a building that was under construction. Suddenly, I saw that the building’s girders were buckling and soon it toppled hitting the building on the downtown side. The hit building toppled into the next downtown building, which collapsed and hit the next building after it. These buildings collapsed like dominos for about ten blocks. I remember watching people in the top floors of these buildings trying to leap off onto adjacent roofs. I was trying to assess this dream when the clock radio went off and I heard the announcer say, "There has been an explosion on the top floor of the World Trade Center." I turned the television on and learned that an airplane had hit it. I decided to go and look at the Trade Center from the roof of my building. I was leaving my apartment when I heard that there had been a second explosion. There was a five or ten second delay and then I heard a fantastically loud boom. I went to the top of the building and saw both towers smoking with flames shooting out. Up until that point, I had no idea about the second plane hitting the second tower, so the sight of the gash in the lower tower really puzzled me. It really freaked me out when someone told me about the second plane crash. You could see paper and debris floating in the air – kind of like a flock of birds flying in tight formation over the harbor and Staten Island, all the way down to the Verranzano Bridge. I watched on the roof for a while and went down to our apartment to watch the TV coverage. I was watching a shot of the burning WTC and all of the sudden I saw it collapse. I ran back to the roof and saw a huge cloud of dust and smoke where the Twin Towers used to be. A neighbor of mine, who is a photographer for the AP was shooting film of the tragedy on our roof. I said, “Did it collapse?” And he replied, “Yeah, man.” That was a strange moment. We stood and watched for a while. The dust and debris seemed to push out of the spaces between towering the lower Manhattan buildings like Play-doh extruding out of a press. Eventually, the dusty cloud made its way across the harbor. Within a short time, Brooklyn was covered with a white chalky snow that was so thick it was hard to breathe. I went inside and closed the windows. This whole thing is very scary. I have gone out subsequently and it is so strange to not see the Trade Center. I feel like someone has knocked out my front teeth and I continue to search the bloody gap with my tongue. I mean, that building is such a part of living in New York. I have worked in there, been to parties, bought theatre tickets, etc. The saddest thing is that I have no idea who might have been killed in this tragedy. I am sure that it is only a matter of time before I learn of people close to me who have perished. This is terrible. I was at a record release party last night. Oddly enough, I was talking with some people and the subject of discussion was how generations are defined by big news events. “Where were you when JFK was assassinated?” "Where were you when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor?” Someone said, “What distinguishes our generation is: ‘Where were you when you heard the OJ verdict.’” I guess today changes that.
Posted on: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 12:21:00 +0000
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