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| Me (with camera) at the WTC in 1977 |
10 years ...
Whenever I returned to college from a visit home I would pass by the construction site where the World Trade Center was being built. As a child I thought that the Empire State Building would always be the tallest building in the world, but here they were building two (!) which would be taller. When complete, the twin towers of the World Trade Center would replace King Kong's favorite New York City skyscraper as the tallest in the world - at least for a while.
10 years ...
In 1973 the World Trade Center opened. It didn't have the charm of the building it replaced as tallest, but there it was, right at the tip of Manhattan island. You could see it from the Staten Island ferry as you approached ... you could see it as you crossed over the Verrazano Bridge. It was built on land that had not existed when New Amsterdam was settled, though it towered over the space where the original Dutch settlement existed. It transformed the famous New York City skyline.
10 years ...
As a Scoutmaster and as a Cubmaster, I brought the boys in my unit to the 110th floor observation deck. As a New Yorker, I had not been to the top of the Empire State Building (yet), but hardly anyone went there anymore, as these new buildings were the highest you could now get in New York City. On a number of occasions, my wife and I brought our son and daughter up to the observation deck. In 1976 I took a picture of the Statue of Liberty from here which I entered into a US Bicentennial photo contest, and won a prize.
10 years ...
For many years I worked in Secaucus, New Jersey and lived in Brooklyn. My drive to work took me through the Battery Tunnel and past the World Trade Center. Each morning I passed by, seeing the busy area and watching folks going to work in the towers.
10 years ...
Ten years ago today, I was home asleep, not feeling well enough to go to work. My phone rang. It was my daughter wanting to know if the world was coming to an end. I retell the story every year on September 11 - you can read about it for yourself as well - The Day That Changed Everything. Life in NYC changed, life in the US changed, and life all around the world changed. We had always thought that we were safe here in the US, no one would dare attempt this sort of thing here. How quickly, and tragically, we found that we were wrong. We lost so much more than buildings that day. We lost lives, we lost security and we lost our innocence. No longer could we go about our daily lives without a reminder of what had changed. Everyone here in NYC lost someone they knew, or knew someone who had. A high school classmate and friend that I had just recently sat with to plan our class's 30 year reunion, Alan Feinberg, was a fireman and first responder who entered a dying building to help others ... and never came out. You may not have known the people in the World Trade Center, The Pentagon or on the hijacked aircraft, but you grieved for them ... and for the life of the pre-9/11 days.
One of the 4 hijacked aircraft left Newark International Airport - just 15 minutes from my house. It crashed landed in Shanksville, PA after passengers stormed the flight deck in an attempt to take back the airplane from the terrorists.
10 years ...
The day after the attack I found myself in the emergency room at Staten Island University Hospital. In the bed next to me was the wife of a fireman who was working at ground zero. He had come home for a break, and she had a reaction to the dust and debris he came home covered with.
10 years ...
As with the bombing of Pearl Harbor a generation before, we were stirred out of our complacency and into war. Security was increased everywhere, not just at the airports. We had learned to constantly look back over our shoulders.
10 years ...
In April, 2010 a friend was visiting from Australia and I was taking her around my city. She wanted to visit ground zero. I hadn't been able to bring myself to be in the area since the day of the attack. This was my first time back through that area. We looked down onto the footprint of the World Trade Center as the area was being prepared for construction of The Freedom Tower and the 911 Memorial.
10 years ...
Today, the empty space on our skyline where the World Trade Center stood, is no longer empty. The Freedom Tower is at half of its final height. When completed, the Empire State Building will once again relinquish its title of tallest in NYC. We are New Yorkers ... we are Americans ... you may deal us a blow, but we come back and we come back stronger than ever.
Weeks after the attack we visited our daughter in Florida, and saw The Voices of Liberty perform at the American Adventure in EPCOT in Walt Disney World. This clip was a part of that performance that I share each 9/11. (I hope and look forward to you sharing your thoughts on 9/11 below.)
Good gawd, what a beautiful performance Mark!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts and recollections of a moment in time that changed us all.
warmest regards, Kiki x
Mark, thanks for sharing the stories of the WTC in your life...it makes it all so much more personal, not that it was any less felt before, just from a distance...I have also read the linked post. I forgot your wife was a teacher and students were already in school.
ReplyDeleteThis has been a great series, thanks for creating it.
Down here the Returned Serviceman's Legue has a motto
'the price of freedom is eternal vigilence'.
Now more than ever, such a relevant phrase. But of how sad that we need it.
Stay safe New York.
...Jane
Mark, again a hautingly written, poignant commentary on the day your life, your city, your country and our world changed forever. Thankyou for sharing this with us.
ReplyDeleteVery moving and very personal account of 9/11 ... Thank you Mark... Sharing stories, grief and tragedy from THAT act. .. THAT one day.
ReplyDelete10 years.
Denyse
PS. Hope I get to see Memorial along with some of my Aussie Bloggers when we are in NYC early August 2012.
Denyse - and on that day, I hope to have the privilege of being your host and guide.
ReplyDeleteThat was such a moving post, Mark, thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mark, for such an emotionally moving post. I will never forget that day, and while I didn't personally know anyone who died in the attacks, I do have friends who knew others who were lost. Your video was very moving to me, as well, partially (but not entirely) due to the fact that we happen to be good friends with Kevin, the WDW CM directing the VoL in it. (He is now a Dapper Dan on MS-USA, singing bass & wearing blue, just an fyi.) Thank you again. :-)
ReplyDeletewhile religions might differ in many ways, there is one constant, that the truly devout have nothing in common with the zealots looking for any excuse to hate.
ReplyDeletemy two year old son was asleep, my husband was asleep, it was after 11pm in Australia when i finished rewinding a video and the TV leapt on. of course i thought it was a movie, as i watched the second plane plough into the undamaged tower … i don't remember when i realised but, after a moment's consideration, i woke my husband up: I think you need to see this.
the next day i resorted to playing Bob The Builder videos for my son as the blanket coverage fell oppresively over us. i rang my Auntie to make sure my Manhattan-dwelling cousin and her family were ok. there were stories of people who should have been in the Towers or on a plane that day but for some reason — illness, appointment, ennui or a 'bad feeling' — had stayed away and survived.
survivors' guilt, name-calling, blame-laying and mostly grief filled the news in every country. there seemed that history had lost its continuum … there was only 'before', 'during' and 'after' … time and again i consider how lucky i am to live on the other side of the world, far away from the madness of that day, but then i wonder why should luck play any part in who died that day, who was permanently damaged, who lost lovers and mothers and very best friends.
there was, there is, there never will be, any reason. xt