I was at 53rd and Madison Avenue in NYC when the first plane struck. I was actually on the phone speaking with a good friend who worked downtown directly across from the North Tower when the first explosion was heard by him and me while on our call and I was the first who announced to my office mates that the North Tower was on fire somewhere towards on its upper floors. The rest of the day was a traumatic nightmare as even many mid-town office buildings were being cleared out due to bomb scares that were being called in by anonymous copy-cat villains. As I later walked to another friend's apartment later that afternoon as all train service was suspended and I was obliged to spend the night, it was incredibly eerie to walk down the middle of Park or Lexington Avenues without a single car to disrupt my travels to Central Park West for the evening. Our restaurant meal was served cold as the chef had been unable to get to work so an only a limited menu was being offered by a limited staff. The next morning I walked to Penn Station and was able to get a noontime train home to Princeton, NJ with standing room only among a group of solemn and forelorn fellow travelers all just wanting to get home and embrace our families. It took me years and years to ever even go to downtown Manhattan as the pain and memories were too painful to recall. Combine all that with losing a few friends that day in the building collapse and stories from others working nearby and how they were directly impacted are among those few things in my life I'll never forget. Never.
Thank you for sharing. We, too, will never forget the anguish of those days, but also the sense of unity and shared purpose that emerged in their wake.
Excellent.
I was at 53rd and Madison Avenue in NYC when the first plane struck. I was actually on the phone speaking with a good friend who worked downtown directly across from the North Tower when the first explosion was heard by him and me while on our call and I was the first who announced to my office mates that the North Tower was on fire somewhere towards on its upper floors. The rest of the day was a traumatic nightmare as even many mid-town office buildings were being cleared out due to bomb scares that were being called in by anonymous copy-cat villains. As I later walked to another friend's apartment later that afternoon as all train service was suspended and I was obliged to spend the night, it was incredibly eerie to walk down the middle of Park or Lexington Avenues without a single car to disrupt my travels to Central Park West for the evening. Our restaurant meal was served cold as the chef had been unable to get to work so an only a limited menu was being offered by a limited staff. The next morning I walked to Penn Station and was able to get a noontime train home to Princeton, NJ with standing room only among a group of solemn and forelorn fellow travelers all just wanting to get home and embrace our families. It took me years and years to ever even go to downtown Manhattan as the pain and memories were too painful to recall. Combine all that with losing a few friends that day in the building collapse and stories from others working nearby and how they were directly impacted are among those few things in my life I'll never forget. Never.
Thank you for sharing. We, too, will never forget the anguish of those days, but also the sense of unity and shared purpose that emerged in their wake.