13 Years Later

Tuesday September 11th, 2001

by Paul Dalen

I watched a jet plane fly over my head. Low, but in control. Thinking to myself "why would a plane be flying so low over Manhattan?" Walking south on Hudson Street about a mile due north of the World Trade Center I was lost in my thoughts wondering if perhaps a plane flying into

Newark might approach over the city. My daydream wondering ended when I heard one loud thud. Dull and distant sounding, I was barely alarmed.

The first thing I saw was paper: huge volumes of paper blowing east in the wind, about 800 feet up in the air. It didn't make any sense. Then I saw the smoke high up in the air, billowing to the east. I couldn't quite figure it out. I walked south on Hudson and as I passed Laight Street I crossed Hudson with my eyes on the trail of acrid smoke. I finally saw the World Trade Center. In it's side was a huge gaping hole. One of largest buildings in the world, a landmark building with a huge, odd shaped hole in its side. Had I not known it was a plane that struck the building I don’t think that I would have identified the shape of the hole, but to me it clearly looked like the roughly hewn cutout of a plane. It was, I believe the term would be, surreal. The mind boggles.

The smoke continued to lazily billow out the side of the building and then the flames started.

I called and woke up my parents and told them that I was OK. I never would have thought that the worst was yet to come. A plane in the side of the World Trade Center? That’s nothing, I was soon to learn.  While on the phone with my parents the 2nd plane hit the other tower. I heard

the explosion from my desk. My father uttered "oh god" in a low sickened voice as he saw on CNN what I had heard a few seconds earlier.

I ran back to Hudson Street to see what there was to see. Debris was falling from the buildings. I felt horrified for the poor innocent souls who must be at that very moment in a state of panic, injury, and terror beyond imagination. I panicked: are those PEOPLE I see falling from the building? Then I really DID see a person fall and sadly realized that there is no mistaking the figure of a fellow human as opposed to the asymmetrical nature of mere debris. There's no disguising it. I watched in horror. Another. Another. Then Another.

I sat moaning on the rear bumper of a car and counted 7 poor souls jumping, one very quickly after another, to their deaths from about the 90th floor of the first building hit. (I wonder if they felt any modicum of comfort in the company of others, knowing that they were not alone as they fell. I would doubt it.) I felt some strange obligation to bear witness to their deaths. I watched for as long as I could. (Later that evening I heard a story on the news about a man and woman who jumped to their deaths hand in hand. I thank God that I was spared that sight.)

I walk back to the office. As I type these words the second building has just collapsed. I’m less than a mile from the mayhem. I’m sitting nearly on top of the entrance to the Holland Tunnel which was named as a proposed target during the last attack on the World Trade Center. What next? What in God’s name will happen next? I leave the area.

I walk home through Soho. People are moving with determination like any other day in New York. But the looks on their faces belie confusion, fear, numbness. My mind stutters and stalls.  Catch phrases like "live by the sword, die by the sword" run through my head. "As ye sew, so

shall ye reap."  Looking for some explanation, some context. Did we, as a country, bring this down on our own heads? Clearly the poor people that are dead, dying and forever mangled are innocents. As innocent as any of us. Did the wholesale murder of native Americans and enslavement of Africans to build the "worlds greatest country" leave a karmic or spiritual debt that has now come due? Does the world work like that? What will that ignorant jackass in the White House and his sorry whitebread advisors do now? What liberties will they take in the name of "justice" or "retribution"? How many more innocents in other lands will die? How much MORE blood will we all have on our hands?

I'm rambling, I know. It’s just that I just can't stop thinking about those 7 office workers tumbling through the air.  I watched for as long as I could. Then I looked away, shaking.

# # #

Wednesday September 12, 2001

The Gray Dust

I live south of Houston Street, so I just headed Downtown. I found out later that trying to get downtown from north of Houston was much more difficult. Unless you could produce ID showing an address in the Lower East Side, SOHO or any of the other downtown barrios you are (even now) prohibited from proceeding. It was eerie and quiet all through SoHo. The few people on the streets were tentative and hesitant in their body language. When I came to Canal Street there were Police barricades at every corner. I was less than a block away from my office and while a haggard looking person was been intensely questioned by a cop about their reason for wanting to enter "the frozen zone" (as the police are calling it) I walked through the narrow opening undetected.

I made my way to the office and checked the answering machine to hear peers and colleagues expressing their concerns for my business partner David’s and my well being. I grabbed some files I thought I might need. I left the office. Rather than heading home I headed south on Hudson and within a block came to a mangled NYC Fire Department cruiser parked by

the curb. On the following blocks I saw Police vans, cruisers, civilian cars and SUV’s plopped by the side of the street. 

Horrible mangled shells all. Windshield’s smashed, roofs crushed, all of them covered with that gray dust that we all saw, either in person or on Television. Damaged vehicles were being towed out of the immediate area and placed on the streets near my office.

Walking south towards the location of the incident I saw a few other people, many walking dogs, all sheepishly heading towards "the place". All of us acting as if we were just out for a casual stroll on this perfect, cool nearly Autumn day in New York. The closer I got the more

surreal it became. The streets, sidewalks and remaining vehicles were covered with a thick blanket of that same gray dust. Rows of tow trucks, groups of tense looking young white men wearing FBI wind breakers carrying bags of who-knows-what, Fire Trucks, CON-ED repair vans were all heading to the site.

No one stopped my progress but I zigzagged through lower Manhattan avoiding the make shift check points. I was now heading west on Chambers Street and as I looked down at my feet I saw the remains of that bizarre flurry of paper that I had spotted the day before. No longer floating lazily through the air, the papers were strewn all over the street and sidewalk. I pickup up a dusty piece of paper charred on all sides so It was no longer rectangle but a lovely oval shape. It was a page from a legal brief, from a law office that was housed in the World Trade Center I would suppose.

I came to Greenwich Street. The intersection was spotted with camera crews, police, reporters, and National Guardsmen. Most of them smudged with that same gray dust. I looked to my left and the breath rushed out of my lungs. Four very short blocks to my south was the site. I stood stunned in the middle of the street, unable to fully fathom the things I saw. It was a gigantic mess of brick; mangled steel with huge volumes of smoke pouring out of that cacophonous hell towards the clear blue sky.

The smell was messy, foul and uncivilized. I watched the smoke rise. Police moved in and out. Ambulances came and went. CNN was broadcasting live from the intersection. The few other civilians present who by design or unfortunate confusion found themselves walking across Chambers Street with no real preparation for what they were about to witness would suddenly see the carnage and stop cold, mid step. Some gasped; others stiffly put their hands in front of their mouths or eyes. Some began crying instantly.  Others like myself watched in silence until

some primitive level of comprehension had been reached and then the tears poured out. It was quiet, I felt dizzy. I watched for as long as I could. Then I looked away, shaking my head.