My September 11th

Well, I was going to save the September 11th post until it was officially September 11th, but most people probably won't read this until tomorrow anyway. Besides, my story about that day actually starts the night before, so I guess it's just as relevant for me to post now.

The summer of 2001 had been an amazing, crazy summer. One of my best friends had moved to New York, interesting and interested boys had been in abundance, and I had reached a point at work where I felt not only comfortable, but confident. The week before Labor Day, two people from my company were scheduled to host a party in Las Vegas for one of our clients. At the last minute, one person got sick, I was asked to go, and in less than 48 hours I was hanging out in the Hard Rock Hotel with Gary Coleman and Wyclef Jean. (I made my friends cringe with embarrasment when I got back and told them I was more excited about meeting Gary.)

Two weeks later, it was Fashion Week in New York, and on the night of September 10th, I was going to some after-party, feeling very self-important. The party itself was nothing special, but that on top of my Vegas trip represented a sort of high for me, like I had arrived both in my job and in New York. I was only 25.

The morning of September 11th, I woke up still a little drunk. Getting dressed, I felt fabulously thin, and was excited to wear a "skinny-shirt" I found at the back of my closet. It was the most beautiful sunny day and I walked into work thinking that life really just did not get much better.

Shortly after 9:00 one of the girls had gotten a call from her husband who worked downtown who told her that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. The office buzzed about it, but we all kind of assumed it must be an accident and went back to work. Shortly thereafter (you know the drill), we heard about plane number two and knew it was terrorism.

At that point, though, it was only 9:30, and everyone was being told to stay in the building, not to go anywhere. Our office was located at 43th and Madison, and our only window view was of an airshaft, so a few people went down to the street and walked to Fifth Avenue, because at that intersection, you could see straight downtown. I stayed upstairs and kept checking CNN.com, but this was before streaming video or any of today's technology and the web kept crashing. I forget when we heard about DC, but I started emailing with a friend of mine down there, to make sure he was allright. He was, and he was doing the same as me - sitting around with all of his co-workers waiting to be told what to do.

When the girls came back up from street level, the towers had just fallen, and I just couldn't believe them when they said they were gone. What do you mean, they're gone? They fell? Where did they fall? This was before any of us had seen a TV, so all those images of the towers falling that are so ingrained in our minds now didn't exist at that point. I couldn't imagine how one minute something could be there and the next minute it wasn't, especially something like two buildings that defined the New York City skyline.

Once the towers fell, panic started setting in. A few people had familiy who worked in the trade center, so they were allowed to leave. My uncle worked down there, but I learned immediately that he was fine, and I only knew one other person to worry about. He ended up being fine as well (well, physically fine; mentally, not so much) but because of the breakdown in cell phone communication, I didn't learn that until much later that day.

At 11 AM we were allowed to leave - I think the whole building was evacuated. And that's when I started getting scared. It was one thing to know that planes had hit downtown, but to be evacuated, you start thinking it was for a reason - they're coming for us next. At 43rd and Madison, we were very close to Grand Central and the Chrysler building, and we just didn't know if the attack was over or just beginning. We had heard reports that Chicago had been hit - which obviously didn't happen but we didn't know that at the time - and that another plane had crashed or was missing somewhere.

At street level, those of us who lived uptown started walking together, heading northeast away from the midtown monuments that might serve as targets. We stopped at one point to pick up someone's friend at another building; while we waited, a man walked by with his head bandaged and his shirt bloodied from the neck down. This was around 53rd street, and it occured to me that he had walked all the way up from downtown. Clearly, he had been caught in the middle of it.

The streets were a pedestrian river - everyone just flowed north. I lived on 86th street with two roommates at the time, and our apartment was unusually large and so typically served as a gathering place for all of our friends. When I walked in around noon there were two other people there; by 8 PM that night we hosted about 20. I spent a good hour or few watching the TV - this was the first time I had seen the planes hit the buildings and the buildings fall. Amid the footage of the buildings was footage of the people - walking, running, crying, searching.

By 6:00, I just couldn't watch TV anymore. To call it depressing would be an understatement. My girlfriends and I went across the street to our favorite bar, where we treated ourselves to dinner and some margaritas. Only in New York, I think, do people go out drinking in times of crises. We certainly weren't the only ones - the place was packed. It wasn't a jolly old time, but none of us could bear to sit inside anymore, and we justified the outing by considering that we were celebrating, because collectively, miraculously, we hadn't known anyone who had gotten hurt.

After dinner we went back to the apartment, and by 10 PM the group had broken up. With a few margaritas in my system I was ready to be alone and just talk on the phone to my parents, but I will always remember that day because I had been surrounded by so many friends. I was lucky not to have been downtown or to know anyone personally who had been in the thick of it, but I feel luckier that I had so many shoulders to cry on, so many ears to listen.

I will also remember that day not just for the tragedy that it was, but for the context in which it took place. Walking to work that day, I had been deliriously happy over a Fashion Week party; in two hours that would seem so trivial. Getting dressed that morning I had been thrilled to wear a skinny shirt; that night, I looked in the mirror and thought of all the people who had lost limbs. Telling my September 11th story never seems right without including the party on September 10th, and usually, the Vegas trip. I just think it demonstrates how fleeting things can be.