#2382 | Wednesday, September 11th 2002
WHERE I WAS AT ON SEPTEMBER 11,2001
I WAS SLEEPING,IN MY UPTOWN APARTMENT IN MANHATTAN WIT MY PARENTS,BECAUSE ME AND MY SISTER DID NOT GO 2 SCHOOL THAT DAY. AND I WOKE UP AND SAW THA NEWS..AND GOT MA SHOCKED..I WOKE UP, TOOK A BATH,GOT DRESSED AND WHEN TO GO PICK UP MY FRIEND AT SCHOOL IT WAS CRAZY THAT DAY...

julianna | 14 | New York

#2372 | Wednesday, September 11th 2002
It was 9/11/01, my spanish teacher came in saying that a plane had crashed into the world trade center. It took me a few minutes to realise what this meant, then my emotions just seemed to numb. Hopefully, this was just an accident and no one could confirm the size of the plane so how bad could it be? I got news updates throughout the day and was watching the smoldering ruins on TV when I got home from school that day, the day that changed my life....
Anonymous | 16 | New York

#2317 | Wednesday, September 11th 2002
I was sleeping on the couch, when my mom yelled for me to get up, and turn to channel 44 (Fox News), cause a plane just hit one of the twin towers. I was like... "what, how can a pilot be so stupid as to hit one of the towers?". I turned it on just as the second tower was hit, then I knew that this was no mistake... after that I got online to talk to people about it.

Then rumors started to spring up such as "A plane hit camp David, I plane was shot down over PA." Then I was wondering "When the f*ck is this gonna end?" But it had only begun... The terrorists screwed up like Japan did at Pearl Harbor. And they will forever pay!!


Joe | 20 | New York

#2289 | Wednesday, September 11th 2002
I was watching people holding hands and jumpimg out the window. I was right outside. I had a meeting at Church Street. It was the most horrific scene I have ever scene. It's the anniversary and I can still see it. Americans were being murdered. Just horrible.
anon | 30 | New York

#2288 | Wednesday, September 11th 2002
On the morning of September 11, 2001 I was at work at our office on the corner of 57th Street and Lexington Avenue, about four and a half miles north of the World Trade Center.


They leave the TVs on all the time on the trading floor where I work. Normally, no one pays much attention before the market opens. But on that morning, everyone was clustering around, watching images of smoke pouring from a gaping hole in the north tower of the World Trade Center.


I called my girlfriend, Christina. Her office was down on Whitehall Street, a block over from Battery Park on the southern tip of Manhattan and less than ten blocks south of the World Trade Center.


“Honey, are you watching TV!”


“No. Why?”


“A plane just flew into the World Trade Center!”


“Are you for real?”


She thought I was kidding. How could a plane hit the towers on such a clear day?


I called my parents in New Zealand. It was 1am there, and Dad had just got back from a business trip in Australia. I told him there had been a plane crash, but I was ok. He told my mother as he went to bed. She got up and turned on the TV just in time to see the second plane plough into the south tower.


I called Christina again. This time she knew why. The impact of the second tower being hit, much lower than the first, had rocked her building. “We felt it. We’re leaving. I’ll call you,” she said, and hung up. A moment later, I realized I hadn’t had a chance to ask where she was going. I would have to wait for her to get in touch with me. That didn’t worry me at the time. The thought the twin towers could come down never entered my mind.


When they did collapse I called Christina again and again, but the system was overloaded and I couldn’t get through. All I could do was stay by the phone, listening to the continuous wail of sirens outside as emergency teams poured downtown in waves, and watching the disaster unfold on TV.


Hours later, Christina called. She and hundreds more people were watching in Battery Park when the first tower collapsed. A wall of smoke and ash boiled out through the man-made canyons of downtown and engulfed them all. She was convinced she was going to be either smothered or trampled. She found her way to the lobby of an adjacent building and waited out the death of the second tower.


When we were reunited we waited in line for a ferry on the West Side, the only way out of the city to the Jersey side.


I wish I were able to submit something more inspiring. I’d like to be able to say I did anything significant or constructive. Today, a year later, I still can’t identify with what happened. I was neither victim nor hero, survivor nor witness on September 11. No one I know was lost. My firm is still in business. Just like Americans think of New Zealand as some tiny Pacific islets, my Kiwi friends, who have never been to the States, have no conception of the size of Manhattan. In emails and telephone messages they thought I was in harm’s way, when in fact, on the streets outside my office, you’d never have believed there was a crisis going on at all. I was minutes away from the worst disaster in the history of the city, I read all the books about it, watch all the documentaries, but I don’t think I’ll ever understand it.

Simon | 30 | New York

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