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September 11, 2007I know I posted this last year, but I think I will post it every year. This is my story of that tragic day that permanently changed me and is with out a doubt the scariest day of my life. September 11, 2001 - I was running the usual five to ten minutes late for work. But, when I arrived, all of my coworkers' offices were empty. I found everyone in the back of the building, looking out the window at what we thought at the time was a news helicopter or small plane which had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. I remember thinking that I always knew something like that would happen. I mean the towers are so big and there are so many planes flying around, something was bound to run into it one of these days. Regardless, it was a shocking sight to see. I had just been to Windows on the World (on the 107th floor of One World Trade Center) a few days before. My friend Jack was visiting me from California and I always took tourists there for drinks because the view was so spectacular. I was just standing with my coworkers, staring in disbelief at what was happening, when another low-fling plane made a hard turn right in front of our eyes and smashed into the second tower. I knew, I just knew right then that we were under attack; planes were diving into NYC and I needed to get out of there quickly. I needed to go home, and not back to Brooklyn. I needed to get to Connecticut. My sister had called in sick to school that day so my Mom had taken the phone off the hook so her and my sister could sleep in. Of course. Their line was busy busy busy busy. I was in a state of shock and panic, trying to call home, and all I got was a freaking busy signal. So, I called Glamma and Poppy and told them that planes were dive-bombing New York and I need to come home and I am so scared and Mom's phone is off the hook and where is Dad and what is going on? Of course Glamma snapped right into action and drove to my parents house to wake up Mom & Lauren. I wanted to go home but I had just heard all subways and Grand Central were closed and had resigned myself to being trapped in a city being dived bombed with airplanes. Great. *** One of my coworkers, Jackie, was pregnant. Looking sheet white, she came to my office and asked if I want to walk with her to her sister's apartment on 86th and Lexington. Absolutely, I said, let's get out of here. I felt like a sitting duck in a high rise. We passed the trading room on our way out, where everyone was gathering around the television, screaming that the first tower had collapsed. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Jackie and I ran out onto Park Avenue into a scene of total mayhem: subways closed, people running uptown and downtown, fire trucks racing south, sirens blaring, and a huge, thick black cloud of smoke moving across the city in the direction of Brooklyn. Walking uptown, all I did was hit redial on my phone, trying to call home, but I couldn't even get a signal. I saw a businessman running full speed in the direction of downtown, tears in his eyes and he stopped me to find out if I had a signal. I hated saying no. *** Walking up Lexington, we stopped twice to pick up a woman who had collapsed on the street, hysterically crying. I don't know why, but I kept telling her it would be okay, that she should keep walking uptown, away from the mess. Some people ran out of a store saying the second tower has collapsed and I threw up into a potted plant on Lexington Avenue. This was also when the rumors started swirling: More planes were coming! They blew up the White House! Camp David! Stealth bomber planes flew over New York, just adding to the fear that there was a war going on above us. I became convinced they were going to start shooting planes down over my head and I had to get uptown, out of the way, home. Why. Can't. I. Get. A. Signal. *** Pregnant Jackie started smoking cigarettes, and people in shock cried and walked at the same time, when finally, I got a signal but what followed was a lot of confused communication. I asked my mom to pick me up and also where my father was, but she wasn't sure because he was also walking uptown and had no signal and I tried to get her to convey to him to meet me where I was going. I started mentally going through all the people I knew who worked down town. My old roommate, Jillian, worked on the 37th floor of the World Trade Center - does this mean she was dead? For the first time all morning, my cellphone rang and it was my friend Paul from LA trying to make sure I was okay. I don't remember what we talked about, I just remember standing on the corner of 86th and Lexington, looking everywhere for my Dad and staring at this massive fire downtown, even bigger than the World Trade Center had once been. I think this is when I realized that my perfect world had been permanently disrupted; the bubble had burst. I couldn't even find my own father. *** Thank god for the Irish Catholics. Inside Jackie's sister's apartment, the TV was on and vodka and cranberry juice flowed. I hadn't even noticed until then that my outfit was drenched in sweat. This is when we finally learned everything that was going on; lost fireman, the planes, the Pentagon, and my love/hate relationship with Guiliani turned into one big love fest. I mean, where the hell was the President? I think it was two days before anyone heard from him. I remember thinking, is Rudy Guiliani President now? *** I never did get home that day. I found my way to Brooklyn at about 8 that night and headed over to Really Gay Dave's for an alcohol binge that lasted the next three months. It was two days later that I was sitting on my couch with my friend Peter Solymosi watching Dan Rather on channel 2 (the only channel that worked since all the rest were broadcast from the top of the World Trade Center), when I reached into my purse for a cigarette light and pulled out a box of Windows on the World matches from the week before. We both marveled at their new significance. Peter took them to his frame shop to preserve them and they hang in my apartment now. It's weird, but I feel like I have something from the Titanic.
September 11, 2007 12:31 PM Commentsyour take on the 9/11 disaster was filled with real emotion and understanding. You went through a lot and came through with great vision for today. Love G Posted by: Grandma at September 11, 2007 10:40 AM I'd say. On 9/11 I was helping a pregnant woman home and today I am having the pregnant subletter in our building thrown out for complaining that we are noisy! aha aha aahha I'm such a bitch. Posted by: jocelyn at September 11, 2007 11:26 AM Don't swear in front of Grandma. Posted by: Alexis at September 11, 2007 06:53 PM Grandma can handle it. She's a tough broad---a totally classy tough broad that is! Posted by: jocelyn at September 11, 2007 07:07 PM Sometimes the pregnant deserve our sympathy, but at other times they deserve our scorn. That is what 9/11, and you, have taught me. On a lighter note: when are you going to post a picture of that tranny at B-Bar last night? She was the only redeeming thing about that place. Bitches took all my money in, like, 5 minutes. I am going to have to cash in my Roth IRA if I ever want to go out again. By the way, did you ever hear the story about the former heroin-chic model Zoe Fleischauer wetting her pants at B Bar because she was so smacked out? It happened. She was wearing vinyl pants and she didn't notice she had peed in them until she started hearing *squish, squish* as she walked around and noticed the smell of urine. Can you freaking imagine it? Like, what if we wet our damned pants at B-Bar? We would never live it down. Actually, none of the queens there would likely care, because they are too busy looking at each other's pecs. But regardless: that's why you don't do heroin, kids! Posted by: Molly at September 12, 2007 12:04 PM OMG, That is hilarious! OMG, what if I sat in traces of it last night? aha ahahahahha Posted by: jocelyn at September 12, 2007 12:19 PM Don't worry, the heroin-chic pants-wetting incident happened more than 10 years ago (i.e., during the heroin-chic era), so it's rather unlikely that any traces of it remain. I don't know why I still remember that story. I literally read it in Glamor magazine in 1996, when the place was still called Bowery Bar. There was a headline on the cover of that issue that said "MODELS ON HEROIN." Of course now they should be writing about us, because we are so Glamor-ous and zeitgeist-y, but somehow "MARKETING PROFESSIONAL AND INNKEEPER FALLING-DOWN DRUNK" lacks a certain sensational zinginess. Posted by: Molly at September 12, 2007 01:05 PM How about Rock Photographer and East Village woman of leisure? I think that should have enough sensational zinginess to get us on the cover of effin Glamour! Posted by: jocelyn at September 12, 2007 04:02 PM I like "Innkeeper," really. It sounds like something no one actually does anymore. You can be "Innkeeper" too if you want, since you babysat the B&B for me. I think "INNKEEPERS ON BOWERY BOOZE BINGE" sounds like something ripped out of one of those 19th century city rags we learned about from that history of New York documentary. Or you can still be Rock Photographer if you want, since that's legitimately cool. I'll understand. Posted by: Molly at September 12, 2007 04:18 PM That booze binge lasted all the way to New Year's Eve. Any other boyfriend would've left me, but somehow Mitch persevered through my need/desire to invite the entire world to my apartment every night to slowly kill our livers. In NYC that winter, the terrorists stole Christmas. Bastards. Posted by: David B. Fruit, Esq. at September 12, 2007 05:16 PM |
