Living in New York City on September 11, 2001

As many times as I was in downtown Manhattan, either for pleasure or business, I never went into the World Trade Center. I went past it many times, and looked up and thought how nice it would be to have dinner in the revolving restaurant, with the sky line of New York and New Jersey spinning by, all light up like a Christmas Tree. I had friends who did go the World Trade Center restaurant, and they told me many, many times to go. I wish I did.

The morning of September 11, 2001 was like any other. At the time, we were living in Queens County, right across the East River with a beautiful view of Manhattan and the World Trade Center in particular. Especially from my sons school, which was right by the river. School had just stared, it was his first year of high school and about a 10-mile drive from our house, but I drove him in that morning and came home to plan my day.

I was on the phone with a friend when the first plane hit the World Trade Center She saw it on the TV and I immediately turned mine on. My thought was of when a B 52 struck the Empire State Building during WWII, but that was in foggy weather, and this day was a beautiful bright clear fall day. I think we all thought of an attack, but just did not want to admit it to ourselves, but when the second plane hit the other World Trade Center tower, there was no doubt left in anyone’s mind that we were under attack.

It was strange, because it felt like everything was going in slow motion. And then everyone tried to think of what to do. Should we go and take the children out of school? It seemed like we all needed to be together in one place and that was my neighbor’s house. One neighbor was up set because he could not contact this wife , who worked at the World Trade Center. She finally was a lot to get through and let us know she was OK.