My dad IM’d me on AOL Instant Messenger to tell me that planes had gone into the World Trade Center towers. I frantically scoured the web for some sort of confirmation and virtually every news site I tried was shut down from excess traffic. I finally got onto my hometown newspaper’s site, AJC.com, and saw confirmation of what had happened. During all this we had turned our little office radio on and were listening to a broadcast of Peter Jennings from ABC talk through what had happened. I heard that the first tower was coming down and sent an IM to my dad who was in disbelief. It’s funny to think back now because for working at a newspaper, access to urgent news was almost non-existent in our part of the building. We had our little radio, the few websites would come through and a small black and white TV set up in the main production room.
The Chronicle sits in the shadow of the JP Morgan Chase building, the tallest in downtown Houston. As such, we were soon evacuated. I believe Kev’s building also shut down as well for security concerns. We headed home to our little apartment where we sat in silence for most of the day because the digital cable was malfunctioning and we couldn’t get a signal. I believe it was around 8pm that night before we actually saw video footage of what had happened.
We visited New York City in March 2001 for Spring Break. It was a memorable trip since Kev would be graduating in just a few months and most of that week was spent fielding job offers, one after the other it seemed. We bought the City Pass which at that time gained you entry to the Empire State Building and the Top of the World at the World Trade Center. I remember thinking that it might be boring to see both views during the day, so we opted to see ESB during the day and WTC at night. In the photos below you can see us at the top of the ESB with the WTC in the background, then on the 110th floor of WTC South Tower with the ESB in the background. I remember it being an awesome, sparkly, windy view and for the most part we had it all to ourselves.
We've been back to NYC several times since 9/11, staying everywhere from Koreatown to Brooklyn to Wall Street to Jersey City. Jersey City pushes 9/11 at you because you catch the PATH train at the WTC station. The times we've been to the WTC site it's been fenced off from view, so the PATH train is one of the few places where you get an eyeful of the construction since the train skims the edges of the pit. Wall Street also brought us quite close since we were only a few blocks from the site itself. We've been to the small museum and I cannot wait for the day when the site is completely rebuilt and a proper memorial and museum exist.
Tonight in Doha we watched a “live” broadcast of NBC Today Show coverage of the events as they unfolded. Like most folks, I still get choked up when I see the Towers struck and when they fall. But I watch. Every year I watch and I remember. I think the most poignant and intense coverage is Jules and Gédéon Naudet’s 9/11. I read online that CBS is airing an updated 9/11: Ten Years After and I encourage you to watch it if you can.
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