Living in Tucson only makes me miss New York City more, especially on this day.
My heart and soul are with the city where I was born and where I came into my own as an adult and entrepreneur.
Here, the newspaper has been carrying stories about September 11 for more than a week. For me, it has felt like too much, too early.
September 11 is a sacred day. Anniversaries are when the media revisit the events that shaped us, and there are important stories to preserve and retell. But for me it never settled into history. Memories of this day occur nearly daily, sometimes twice a day at 9:11 precisely.
On this anniversary, I want to share my story of that morning, which I haven’t told before. The morning of September 11, 2001, I woke up stressed, as usual, about my business--international networking events and a newsletter about the global dot-com industry. After the market crash in April 2001, marketing departments at dot-com companies were shrinking and their budgets, my main income source, were drying up.
That stress might’ve saved me a couple of times that morning. I had double-booked myself for two appointments that morning: one for 8 am in my office, and another for 8 am in the World Trade Center.
And I skipped my morning run. Most mornings I jogged from my apartment in Soho along the West Side Highway, past the World Trade Center to the Statue of Liberty lookout point, and then turned around. That morning, stressed about finding sponsors, planning the next event, and where new revenue would come from, I decided to not go. Either way, I would have been down there as it was happening. Instead, I was "safe inside" in my office in the 20s.
I threw on my suit from the night before and went to my office at 54 West 21st Street. I was leasing space from Kokopelli New Media, which was a prominent early Silicon Alley interactive and web design agency. I arrived unusually early, around 7:30 that morning, and one Kokopelli staff member was already in the office. I began composing an email to my WTC appointment, Kathryn, who in addition to her job at Morgan Stanley, hosted financial and investment seminars for women, begging forgiveness for missing my appointment with her. [She survived the attack, descending 89 floors and getting out before the tower fell.]
Suddenly I heard my office-mate, still peering at his computer screen, say, "Hey, a plane just hit one of the Twin Towers." I was surprised. It was obviously an unusual story. Like many people who had not yet seen what was happening, we thought it might have been a commuter plane. I checked CNN's website for news. Then he said, "A second plane hit the towers."
We knew something was terribly wrong.
At that moment, the office door opened. Elaine, my other 8 am appointment, walked in.
"One of the towers just fell," she said.
We were stunned.
We went up to the rooftop and looked south. There were about 10 people or so also already up there.
Only one tower was standing.
I remember thinking, "This is like a movie. But it's real."
It was one of those moments when you see something happening but cannot comprehend that it is real. From that rooftop, we watched the second tower crumble and fall.
I'm not even sure what happened during the next few moments. It was like a blackout.
The next thing I remember is going back into my office and calling my father, who kept an apartment in the city for when he was there on business. Then I called my friends Tery and James. We agreed we needed to see each other. I walked uptown to the West 50s, stopping to get $200 cash from an ATM because no one knew what was happening, and people were saying to get cash in case banking systems went down. I think I also bought a gallon of water. We met in a bar and tried to talk about what had happened.
That night, I returned to my apartment and slept there. I felt that I needed to be in my own home, to claim my space in the city that night.
The next morning, I went directly to my father's. Coincidentally, he had already been planning to move out of the city. I helped him finish packing the apartment, load the truck, and leave. He drove the rental truck; I followed him in his car. As I drove behind him, I saw that his windshield wipers were moving. It wasn't raining.
That was my signal that he, too, was stunned, carrying a level of stress beyond anything either of us had ever felt.
My father is a lifelong New Yorker, born in the city just as I was. I knew he was shaken.
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| My dad, in his element in the city. |
September 11 brings a flood of memories every year: where I was struggling professionally, where I was struggling personally. There’s an immediacy that is difficult to explain. I remember the rooftop. I remember looking south. I remember needing to connect with my father and find my friends. I remember returning to my apartment because I needed to reclaim some small sense of home.
New York City will always be part of who I am. Today, my heart is with the city, with everyone who was there, and with everyone who carries their own deeply personal story of that day.
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With my dad, July 24, 2001, at one of my events. |
