Where Were You on 9/11?

Patch asked: where were you on 9/11?

We've already started getting responses that won't fit into the comment box space. We will try to publish as many as we get. If you want to share reflections, and the comment box just won't do, email editor Chris Helms.

From Pat Larkin:

"Because I had worked at the WTC in New York in 1986, my sister called me the morning of 9/11 to tell me what had happened. I turned on the TV news to see the story, and saw the tape of one plane crashing, then saw the second one crash as it happened.

"For me, personally, the worst news came when I learned the AA flight numbers & destinations and recalled immediately that one of my closest childhood friends was scheduled for one of those flights. We had gone to dinner 3 nights earlier and I had learned of her plans. After that realization I was even more horrified that I was watching video footage of my dear friend crashing and dying because of terrorists. I don't recall if I cried; I only know I was shocked and wounded, terrified and very sad.

"With desperate hope I called her home in Winthrop but could only leave a message on her answering machine. Since she was an AA employee, I hoped that she had been somehow refused the flight because of overcrowding - or something similar. I felt so hopeless watching the events of the day. I prayed and prayed for everyone.

"About noon on 9/11 I received a call from that dear friend who was scheduled for that AA flight. She had to postpone her flight to L.A. by a day because her physician's lab couldn't take a needed blood sample on Monday and had to postpone her appointment until Tuesday. She had been furious that she had to miss her flight for such a stupid reason. As she was an AA employee, she was quite shaken by the terrorist attacks. I cannot remember ever feeling such relief and awe when she called me. I think of her every time I hear the term "9/11" and give thanks for her good fortune.

"A side note of interest: For 2-3 months before 9/11, another close friend and I had been praying daily for a special intention for our friend who was scheduled for that flight. We will always believe that prayer, and the grace of God, kept her off that plane. We also still pray that God will grant that intention we have for her. For those who had friends or family on any of those planes, or at the WTC or the Pentagon, please understand that many people are praying for you and sending healing thoughts. It wasn't just family and friends who were killed, but an honored part of our entire nation - the precious lives of our people who contributed to the beautiful fabric of our nation. The pattern of that fabric was ripped away and changed, but we are still one whole nation moving forward, trying for peace and pursuing happiness. May God bless you all."

From Charles McEnerny:

"I recently read Rhett Miller’s article in The Atlantic about his 9/11 diary: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/about-that-day/8598/. 

It made me want to write down my own memories. Though ten years old, still very clear. 

I thought maybe it would encourage others to write down their stories as it has often felt like people are somehow compelled to recount their own experience. 

9/11 memories begin for me on Sunday, 9/9. I was in Portland, Oregon with my wife and 9 month old daughter, and I had to head back to Boston to go back to work at Fast Company magazine. 

But after being dropped off at the airport by brother in law John, I just had this really bad feeling, somewhat panicky, about going home. Wanted to stay another day, so I changed my flight and called John, who came back and got me. 

I ended up flying back to Boston on 9/10, getting in late, around 11 PM. Later, I would remember how I had been at Logan Airport just hours before all this brutality would start. 

The next morning while getting ready for work, I learned about the first plane while listening to Howard Stern. I think Gary Dell’abate came into the room and told Stern that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. 

I grew up in Queens in New York City and instantly thought of the two times that planes had flown into skyscrapers before: in 1940s a single engine plane flew into the Empire State Building and in 1980s a single engine plane flew into the World Trade Center, both by accident. I assumed this was something similar. 

I turned on the TV just a few minutes before the second plane hit. I was watching some station with a bad camera angle, so all I could see was something pass through the right side of the frame quickly and then the explosion. The video was probably from one of the helicopters sending pictures back to a TV network. 

My brother John worked downtown for a New York State’s Banking Department, about three blocks from the World Trade Center...or I should say the Twin Towers, which is really what I remember everyone calling them while growing up. 

He answered the phone and I said, “What are you still doing there?” He told me that the building management had said everyone should stay put, but he had decided to go. His wife Vilma was also calling in and he got off the line to talk with her. 

I watched the video on TV for a while and I remember thinking, the NYFD are going to have a hell of a time putting that fire out. It wasn’t sinking in how high up it was and how big it was. I’m pretty sure i was in shock and just went about my business and went to work on the Orange Line in Boston. 

On the train I was listening to the news on a really bad Walkman and the signal kept going in and out. Looking around, I saw other people listening to the news on headphones and could see my own emotions in their faces. I had tears in my eyes and thought I heard the radio announcer saying something about the building was tipping, but it was not clear. 

When we got closer to Back Bay, business people were coming out of their offices and going home on the subway (we call it the T in Boston). One couple stood near me and said they were going to pick up their kids from school and just go home. They didn’t want to be in a skyscraper and didn’t want their kids off at school without them. I could hear the fear in their voices. 

Fast Company’s offices were in Boston’s North End neighborhood. Best known for its Italian residents and restaurants, the offices were in an old factory rehabbed for the dot com era. The floors were all wood and creaky and after I got to my desk and put down my things, I headed down a long, creaky hallway to The Rang, the kitchen area where they had TVs. There were about 80 people standing there, in complete silence, watching the TV. 

The first tower had already crumbled. I asked someone what happened and they said the building had fallen. I went straight back to my desk to try my brother. The lines were silent, though, with Verizon’s main Manhattan center being beneath the Twin Towers. It took quite some time before the phones were working and I spoke to my sister and mother. My sister was crying, worried that she wasn’t sure where I was (with both planes flying out of Boston, as they had said by then on the news). I remember her crying, “What is wrong with this world?” It reminded me of the night my father died and we got the call at 3 AM.

I stayed at work for hours; relapsing on smoking cigarettes with my friend Heath and generally not knowing what to do with myself. 

We had no idea where my brother was for about six hours. I think I was the only person in my family who had been to my brother's office in lower Manhattan, so I knew how close it was. Everyone else was trying to be positive, but after seeing those images on TV, I had to assume the worst. 

There were a lot of people at Fast Company with New York ties; I remember later talking with Jill Kirshenbaum, one of the senior editors at Fast Company, standing in our mail room recounting the day, tears in our eyes. She also lived in Jamaica Plain and did not go into work that day; I wish I had known so I could have stayed with a fellow New Yorker through it all. 

I remember a series of really stupid emails from the management at Bertelsmann, which had bought Fast Company, about whether we could go home early or come into work the next day or what was allowed. I guess they were in some state of shock, too. 

My brother John called my sister-in-law many hours later, after walking up town through the East Village. He later told me that he and others were walking through the Lower East Side covered in soot and people were sitting and eating at cafes and looking at them and not understanding what had just happened. If memory serves, he walked uptown and over the Queensboro bridge before getting on the 7 train or bus to get back home to Flushing. He wisely avoided Penn Station and big commuter hubs, fearing what else might be next that day. 

I spent the following days glued to the television and talking with friends near and far. It was weird at night when it got quiet in Boston, without planes flying overhead, except for the occasional military flight. Too little, too late. 

My nieces were moving from Portland, Oregon to Boston that week, so I was busy getting an apartment in our house ready for them. I listened to NPR endlessly. An episode of This American Life about loss probably saved my sanity. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/193/stories-of-loss

I wanted to go back to NYC that week, but kept hearing how bridges and tunnels were closed or trains weren’t getting in. Watching the images on TV of candlelight vigils just ripped my heart out. New York is a city that I both love and sometimes hate (what can I say, I’m an actual New Yorker), but no one and no city deserved this and I wished I was there with all these people mourning. 

When I lived in NYC, I always figured that if someone blew us up with an atomic bomb, then that would be it. It would be all over. It would be all of us gone. I never really thought about just a piece of the city blowing up, with the rest of us left to live through it. 

I was in midtown working at HBO when the 1993 bombing took place. My brother was also near the Twin Towers that day, too. I called him when I heard about it, though it took some time for everyone to understand what happened that day. 

In the subsequent weeks I learned about all the people that I knew through friends, family, and neighbors who died on 9/11.

My friends John and Maureen’s friend Chip, who had always wanted to be a firefighter and got to the profession later than most.

Anthony, a video editor from HBO, who I knew his wife worked in the Twin Towers and he lost her that day. 

My mother’s friend Emily, whose husband died that day. 

Herman, who had invested money in MovieMaker, a magazine I had worked for in Seattle. 

For several months, everyone I spoke to in New York told me the stories of people they knew and lost. 

My brother John lost many friends.

Friends and relatives who were in the police or fire departments suffered loses beyond words. 

Living in Boston, I’ve also come across a handful of people who lost someone on 9/11. There’s a different connection to that day in Boston, but it’s still pain that one can’t describe. 

In the years that followed 9/11, I remember being amazed at how many people moved to New York, instead of running away from it. I don’t know anyone who picked up and left, but I know dozens of people who came to the city. 

This always strangely gave me faith in humanity, that these misguided, manipulated, and insecure terrorists did not scare New Yorkers or Americans: it’s only made people want the city to win that much more. 

If you go to New York now, it’s attracted thousands of new residents from all over the world. It's not what it used to be and that's the way New York always is. I like to think they are all coming to New York’s defense. 

My wife and daughter’s return was delayed because of the airspace being closed. I was scared for them to fly about a week after 9/11, but I was so glad when they returned home, even if it was now a very different world."