I REMEMBER

I remember...
riding in the back seat of my father's blue Chevy Impala, driving and driving and driving for what seemed an eternity, en route to Staten Island where my parents surprised and stunned my brother and me - you could put a car on a boat?!

We took the Staten Island Ferry to downtown Manhattan, parked the car and wandered through the city's business district, a ghost town on the weekend. We walked through Battery Park staring out at The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We meandered through Foley Square, visiting the steps of the majestic local, state, and federal courthouses in all their majesty. And then we arrived at The World Trade Center.

I remember...
looking up. The rising towers cast massive shadows against the clouds in the sky. I remember posing for family photos, sitting on the ledge of the massive, round, bronze sculpture housed in the public space at the base of the skyscrapers.
I remember...
the endless, ear-popping elevator ride to the top, and walking around the Observation Deck of the World Trade Center. My father pointed out the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, 59th Street and Verrazano Narrows bridges. He showed me the geography from 102 floors above the ground -- Brooklyn, Queens, even the hospital in our distant hometown visible on a clear day from atop the Twin Towers. And then, we were done. We posed for family photos and headed to Hong Fat, my father's favorite Mott Street joint in Chinatown since he was in high school. I was eight.

I remember...
A 30th Anniversary surprise party being thrown for my aunt and uncle at Windows On The World, the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center.
I remember...
being overwhelmed by the fancy-schmancy-ness of it all and mesmerized by the massive amethyst geodes on display. It was a cloudy, dreary day. I was nine.

I remember...
hosting to out-of-town guests and being their tour guide. I'd take them to the top of the World Trade Center as the piece-de-resistance finale of the grand tour of my New York, then heading to Hong Fat for dinner, introducing them to the Chinatown staple my father had brought me to, then on to Little Italy for coffee and pastries at Ferrara's.

I remember...
wandering aimlessly through the downtown canyons, a tourist in my own hometown, aware I was perpetually in shade, the entire neighborhood sheltered by the towering trade center pillars which blocked the sun's glare.

I remember...
sharing a celebratory dinner with music industry friends at the newest restaurant to open atop the World Trade Center, a steakhouse and cigar bar, and toasting to the end of a world concert tour while looking out over a twinkling nightscape of Manhattan.
It was late August, 2001.

I remember...
flying out of Newark International Airport (before we would see 'Liberty' added to the name) on a bright blue-skied, big sunshine morning towards my long Labor Day weekend on Nantucket. The Continental Airlines jet flew north up the Hudson River, so low and so close to the city before veering east over Long Island and the Atlantic.
I remember...
my friend and I noting how low and how close we were to the city and how we could actually see people inside the World Trade Center, and how very odd that was.
I remember...
telling that friend about that incredible dinner I'd had at the hip new steakhouse just weeks prior.
It was August 30th, 2001.


I remember...
waking up on a beautiful Tuesday morning. I showered and got ready for a day at the office. I had The Today Show on the TV in the background while I attempted to blow my hair straight.
I remember...
thinking my hair would look awesome that day because the air was dry and there was no heat, no humidity. The sky was bright blue. Not a single cloud dotted the sky. There was a light breeze. It wasn't too hot. It wasn't too chilly. It was, quite simply, the perfect day.
I remember...
turning off the droning hairdryer when The Today Show cut to live footage from the NBC news cameras atop Rockefeller Center to show the North Tower with black smoke billowing forth from its upper floors. I turned up the volume on my TV and watched from the edge of my bed.
I remember...
thinking it had to be a horrible accident, and being told by the TV hosts, that it was likely a small commuter plane which hit the tower.
I remember...
turning the hairdryer back on but keeping my eyes on the TV screen. I was watching live as the second jetliner speared the South Tower. It was no PiperCub. It was no accident.
I remember...
the rest of the day's details as if I were underwater -- some sounds were muted, some heightened; I was safe but fearful just the same; I moved but it seemed in a slow-motion, silent manner. And I held my breath.

I remember...
leaving my apartment and heading down into the subway, though part of me knew there could be no train service -- the A/C/E and 1/9 lines that stopped by me ran under the World Trade Center. After twenty minutes underground (with other New Yorkers who knew the search for a subway was futile yet, I think, yearned to weather this disaster together,) I opted to hoof it the fifty blocks uptown to my office instead.
I never walked east towards Seventh or Sixth Avenues. From 17th Street, along either avenue, I could have clearly seen the Twin Towers, burning, plumes of smoke wafting in the cobalt blue sky. But I suppose somewhere in my mind I figured, if I watched it on TV, versus from my own corner, it wouldn't be real.

I remember...
walking up Eighth Avenue. I called my colleague in Austin, Texas to let him know I was office-bound but would be late. He told me to go home and watch CNN; a third plane had slammed into the Pentagon and we were under attack.
I remember...
being scared and confused, believing war had been declared New York and the nation.
I was 31.

I went back to my apartment, and turned on the TV.
I was glued to CNN.
I watched the South Tower, the second hit, collapse first. I let out an audible gasp and covered my mouth. I was alone though I know I was one of millions doing that exact thing at that exact moment.
The communications in and out of New York City were jammed, some due to the overload of people trying to check in on loved ones, some due to the transmitters being located atop the World Trade Center.
I tried to call a childhood friend, the only person I knew who worked in the financial world downtown. No answer. I reached her mother on Long Island, who assured me her daughter was safe and heading home on foot.
I called my parents, when I was finally able to get a call through.


I remember...
realizing my brother was traveling by air that very morning. My parents and I had few details. He was on an American flight. He was heading somewhere west. He took off around 8 a.m. I was charged with the task of trying to locate him. I left a voice mail on his cell phone to call as soon as his planed touched down... and when he finally did call, safe on the ground in Dallas, among a handful of passengers who landed in their actual intended destinations that morning, he (and everyone else on his plane) was clueless as to what transpired while he'd been in the air. I had to explain to him but I could barely understand myself. (Almost seven hours after touching down on Dallas tarmac, American Airlines and airport officials would declare my brother and his fellow passengers free to go; he'd grab a rental car with his co-workers and begin the long drive home.)

I remember...
who called me that morning - from LA, from Long Island, from Florida - making sure I was OK.
I will never forget the people who tried to find me, out of instinct.

I remember...
my boss calling me, panic in his voice at first, then relief when he heard me say I was home, and OK. His mother and others had been trying to reach me but had no luck. His call went through and he made me promise not to go anywhere...

I remember...
being on the phone with him, each of us watching the towers burn on TV in our respective homes, and moaning together as we watched the North Tower pancake-collapse.

I remember...
the only time I was ever invited to stay overnight at the mansion coming when all of the cities' bridges and tunnels were in lockdown, making my escape from the crime scene impossible.

I remember...
My neighbor knocking on my door and asking if I wanted to donate blood. We lived just north of the 14th Street cut-off where none but emergency vehicles were permitted.

I remember...
wandering down Seventh Avenue towards St. Vincent's Hospital, overwhelmed by the sight of my fellow New Yorkers lined up in hope of donating blood to a facility understaffed, unprepared, simply not designed for mass disaster relief.

I remember...
looking across Seventh Avenue at the emergency room ambulance bays, the doctors, nurses, medics, all lined up along the sidewalk, starched white gurneys awaiting the surge of victims we know now were never coming.

I remember...
hiking all over Manhattan, offering to donate blood at two more outposts, both times rejected. We finally ended up in the East Village at a mutual friend's apartment, standing on his roof under the still blazing sun and seeing the white smoke rising from the ruins, only to have F-16's streak overhead. It was surreal. It was a Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer's apocalyptic vision of Manhattan.

I remember...
wandering through Manhattan that day, noticing dust-covered, disheveled, shell-shocked people making their way uptown, and those who were already home but felt as if we needed to be with our fellow New Yorkers, out in the streets, commiserating.

I remember...
people looking at each other and smiling gently, nodding, their soft eyes asking, "you OK?"
I remember.


I remember...
returning home to my apartment and watching CNN non-stop, right through until sunrise on September 12th. I showered again, and walked uptown to my 67th Street office. Empty. Phones were useless; with the towers' collapse, communication was minimal. And really, what the hell work could be done anyway? I worked for a rock band.

I remember...
leaving the office and walking to the American Red Cross' Upper West Side headquarters on Amsterdam thinking maybe they'd want my blood. They did not. So I returned home, again by foot. Fifty blocks. And watched some more CNN.


I remember...
watching news coverage all day and receiving a phone call that yes, a rock band was expected to do something. VH-1 run Public Service Announcements for the Red Cross and band members would be featured in them. I was to rework the scripts and travel to New Jersey the following day where the footage would be filmed.

I remember...
news alerts coming in that there were bomb threats in both Penn Station and the Empire State Building, locations even closer to my apartment than the Twin Towers had been, and feeling the beginnings of a panic attack. The fear wasn't subsiding with time; it was increasing. I suddenly felt very alone and unsure of myself. When my colleague called me to check on my work, the abrasive tone he usually took (and which I'd long since grown used to) was met with fury by me. No. No, I was not OK.

I remember...
nervously making my way to the VH-1 offices in Times Square the next morning. Extra security in and out of the building. Suddenly, in a mad grapevine panic, word of a bomb threat in an adjacent building which housed a publishing firm caused employees to make a mass exodus. But not me. Not my VH-1 bigwig. The two of us were Jersey bound.

I remember...
sitting in the back seat of a Town Car and emerging from the Lincoln Tunnel on the Jersey side, living the opening credits of The Sopranos. And that's when I caught a glimpse of my beloved city, still smoldering in its wreckage.
I remember...
silently crying the entire time the distorted, disfigured Manhattan skyline was visible during the trip.

I remember...
arriving at my boss's mansion. The sky was cerulean. The sunshine warm and blinding, making the river sparkle and shimmer. The grass was green. Horses grazed on the adjacent property. The dog bounded across the acres, soaked from a swim in the Navesink, paws muddied from the run, and excited to greet me. It was the happiest I'd been, the safest I'd felt, in 48 hours. I was in heaven, having just run away from hell.

I remember...
my boss being the first to promise his participation in whatever fundraising concert was to be planned.
I remember...
my boss' surprise when he realized I hadn't brought a bag with me to stay, that the bigwig and I were heading back to New York City.
I remember...
the bigwig and me desperately wanting to put off our return as long as possible. We asked our driver to take local roads. We asked to pull over for Burger King. No, no... no drive through. We'll eat in. We let that afternoon draw out as long as we could before we made the trek back into our city of ruins.

I remember...
the smell. Undefinable. Burning. Putrid. Lingering.
I remember...
having to keep the casement windows to my apartment closed so the smell wouldn't permeate my home.

I remember...
learning a colleague's husband was missing, presumed obliterated in the collapse of the towers. It was the closest I came to a personal loss of a loved one; I'd met the man 2 or 3 times, at best. And he was gone.

I remember...
taking the train out to Long Island on the 14th. East Meadow never looked so good. The sight of my brother finishing his impromptu roadtrip by staggering into The Apollo Diner, days unshaven, to join my parents and me for lunch was a great sight. The whole family around the diner table was a blessing.

I remember...
the entire family heading back into Manhattan on September 15th to finally, finally, finally use the tickets to The Producers we'd purchased way back in January, before it was a smash hit.
I remember...
ticketholders standing in line before the show, each uncertain if it was okay to be there, okay to laugh, okay to have fun in the wake of the week's horror. Although Broadway had briefly dimmed and closed, the shows had to go on.
I remember...
laughing to the point of tears and an aching stomach. How cathartic.
I remember...
the cast, after their final curtain and final bow, returning to the stage, asking all of the theater patrons to stand and join them in singing "God Bless America."
I remember feeling chills.

I remember...
visiting a NYC Firehouse (Engine 8, Ladder 2, Battalion 8 on East 51st Street) and coordinating a videotaping of "America The Beautiful" to be aired on television prior to an NFL game, their season delayed a week in the wake of 9/11. Ten men who responded to the call on 9/11 never came back. Black bunting draped across the front of the firehouse. Firefighters, family members, widows... all standing behind my boss as the cameras rolled, all singing along, my boss on the verge of tears.
I remember wandering through the firehouse, being shown pictures of the men lost in the towers and hearing repeated "thank you"'s offered to the rock star, while the rock star could barely contain his emotions. He deserved no special thanks in the midst of such heroism and tragedy.
I remember...
leaving the firehouse and the ride back to the office. I was in the passenger seat of a Town Car. My boss was in the back seat. Both of us had tears streaming down our cheeks. The ride was silent. He reached his hand out and touched my shoulder. I moved my hand back to grab his and we held onto each other as the limo inched its way through midtown traffic.
I remember...
arriving at the luxury apartment we used as an office. I sat down at my desk but could not focus on the work before me. My boss retreated to his bedroom, locked the door and was unseen for several hours.
The entire experience, though incredibly moving, was an incredible emotional wallop.

I remember...
the day of the memorial service for our colleague's husband who worked at Cantor/Fitzgerald.
I remember...
arriving at my office and sharing a morning glass of wine with my boss in the kitchen. During the elevator ride downstairs, my boss told me his wife was pregnant with their third child. Circle of life.
I remember...
arriving at the Park Avenue church, amidst hundreds of people, and standing towards the back of the packed venue. The service was a celebration of the man's life, complete with bagpipes and The Chieftains performing.
I remember...
being cornered by paparazzi and reporters looking for photos and comments, ghoulishly attempting to make the coverage of this funeral stand out amongst the thousands of others taking place across the tri-state area in the weeks and months following 9/11.
I remember...
that as the beginning of the marketing of 9/11.

I remember...
preparations fro The Concert For New York, held at Madison Square Garden. Star-studded, it hit all the right notes. Those in attendance were the first responders and their families -- it was a celebration of their bravery and a respectful, heartfelt thank you for those whose lives were lost on 9/11. But I was not in attendance.
My boss performed but I was not there.
I'd offered my opinion on what he should wear onstage (he listened) but I did not attend the show.
Months earlier I'd planned a two-week Southwest roadtrip through Utah and Arizona. I chose to take that vacation and let others handle the logistics of the big concert. In a sea of that many people, my absence wouldn't be noticed.
I remember...
watching bits and pieces of the show in my hotel room in Bryce Canyon, Utah. I saw James Taylor's performance and then went to dinner. When we returned to the room, we watched the finale with all the artists on stage singing together. What a shame that McCartneyforced the other performers to sing his (very lame) opportunistic, new single "Freedom" instead of something everything could sing together. What could have been a unifying moment through the magic of music was overshadowed by ego. 
I remember...
visiting Monument Valley, the place of John Ford and John Wayne, and being in awe while at the same time feeling completely at home.
I remember wandering through the gift shop at Goulding's Lodge, the Navajo native behind the counter asking me where I was from. When I told her I was from New York City, her eyes welled up.
She asked me, "Were you there?"
I said that I was.
She answered, "I just don't know what to say. Are you okay? When we saw what happened and all those people... well, we're just so glad you came to visit here."
She wasn't the only person to react to us like that; identifying yourself as a New Yorker during that time was to witness people instantly recoil, not out of horror but out of fear, fear that they'd say the wrong thing, touch a raw nerve, be overcome with emotion.
I remember...
buying a steer's skull in Williams, Arizona and wanting to bring him home. He sat on the back seat of our rented red Mitsubishi Eclicpse Spyder convertible. When we were pulled over, like everyone else, at the Hoover Dam so the National Guard could check our car and trunk and belongings, the skull was barely noticed -- it was not what they were looking for.

I remember...
cousins from Baltimore and friends from Los Angeles, eager to visit Ground Zero, not out of morbid fascination but so they could wrap their brains around what they had only witnessed on television. Until you walk from Ground Zero to City Hall to the Brooklyn Bridge, you don't realize the scope of what you watched on TV - the distance, the mass of humanity walking home across the river, the sheer chaos that had unfolded in such tight quarters.

I remember...
growing violently angry (to this day still) when in the neighborhood of what is now the build site of the new Freedom Tower. Violently angry that so many years later it's still a pit and that infighting over power and money and planning has delayed this project to the point of embarassment. Violently angry over the people hawking bootlegged merchandise and souvenirs from folding metal tables near the site. Picture books and crappy figurines depicting the events of 9/11. Blood money, all of it.

As much as it could for someone living in New York north of the perimeter of debris, my life, bit by bit, returned to normal, for me at least. I didn't lose a loved one in the towers, or on any of the four planes. I didn't lose a father or husband or brother or son who ran in to rescue others and sacrificed their own lives. But there was, and remains, a haunting ache that lives in my heart. Some days, like the yearly anniversary of 9/11, it makes sure I know it's still there, ensuring I never forget that day. As if I needed a reminder.

Other times, it aches in anger, over 9/11 used as a political ploy, a buzzword.
That's the 9/11 of Rudy Giuliani and the GOP Convention held in New York City.
That's the 9/11 of nationalistic bumper-stickers and empty slogans for those who otherwise would dismiss New York as a boiling cauldron of heathen, liberal, elitist snobs.
That's the 9/11 of Glenn Beck and his cockamamie 9/12 Project... because I remember what I was like on 9/12.
I was fucking terrified. I was angry. I was in shock. I was confused. I was trying not to breathe whatever, and whomever, was burning in the night air.
But I also remember...
I was amongst thousands of New Yorkers who wanted to give blood but it was unneeded.
I was amongst thousands of New Yorkers who donated dry clothing for the rescuers.
I was amongst thousands of New Yorkers who let the rest of the world see what we had known all along: New York isn't a cold, heartless city.
New York isn't an easy city. It's crowded. It's loud. Personal space is at a premium so we create our own personal space bubbles by focusing on ourselves, keeping our heads down, getting ourselves from Point A to Point B without losing our sanity.
But New Yorkers always have been warm, and friendly, and funny, and happy to have visitors from other cities, states, countries, continents. We're proud of our city, of all of us living together in (relative) peace.

I remember...
being surprised when out-of-towners expressed disbelief that their visit to New York was such a pleasure and that so many locals were so willing to give them directions, help them navigate the subways, point them to interesting places. It's as if they'd believed New York was the big, bad boogeyman of metropolises. They'd sigh and assume that New Yorkers had changed after 9/11, that it was the attacks of 9/11 that made New Yorkers nicer, friendlier, softer. But they're wrong.
New Yorker's have always been that way; we just didn't let everyone else see it all the time. Cat's out of the bag now.

I remember September 11, 2001
I don't need a bumper-sticker or a politician or two beams of light shooting up into the nighttime sky to remind me.
I remember because I lived in New York and experienced it first hand.
This was my story.
And I will always remember it.