Twenty-Five Years Ago …
‘Nothing would ever be the same again’
Stan Schneider remembers twenty-five years ago, on 9/11/2001, as he sat in his New York City office. ‘Nothing would ever be the same again,’ he writes. In a special entry in From Our Readers.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was at my desk early (as usual) at 90 Broad Street. It was a glorious day, and I was on the phone with one of my favorite clients. My chair was facing eastward, and I was looking out of the window at a pure blue sky. At about 9 AM one of my colleagues burst into my office to exclaim that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. Instantly, I ended my phone call and turned on my radio to listen to the news. Of course, the news was grim, and the narrative unfolded horrifically – nothing would ever be the same again.
Our building, located less than a mile due east from the World Trade Center, was apparently unscathed by the devastation. Building management informed us that our ventilation system was completely operable, and that we should stay put in our offices until the air outside of the building was once again breathable. So, we all (my staff and I) gathered together in the conference room, ears glued to the radio, and watched out of the windows as the sky became enshrouded by the falling debris (material and human) from the once majestic towers. The next several hours were a blur, but the air outside slowly clarified, and ultimately appeared to become almost normal. In the interim we had all called our loved-ones and explained that we had escaped the immediate impact of the attack, and that we were sheltered safely, awaiting an all-clear from our building’s management. I learned later that my son Dustin – a brand-new freshman at the University of Michigan – was frantically calling to see if I had survived the assault. He ultimately reached his mother, and was assured that I had.
By two or three in the afternoon we were informed that it was now safe enough to exit the building and to leave what came to be known as “ground zero.” I remember walking north with several other staff members. By the time we had reached Houston Street, good Samaritans were already outside dispensing bottles of water to grateful survivors. We were easily recognizable by the layers of soot and ash that covered our hair and clothing. At some points my colleagues each peeled off and headed to their own refuges. My destination was East 68th Street, in hopes of bunking in with my sister-in-law Janet and brother-in-law Barry – until train service to Long Island was restored. (My car, parked in a garage near my office, remained inaccessible for several weeks).
For me, one of the most surreal aspects of the experience came as I continued my trek north to 68th Street. Shockingly, the further north I walked, the less evident it became that anything unusual had happened in Manhattan that very morning. Street vendors were peddling their wares, people were boarding buses and hailing taxis, and women were sitting carelessly under hair dryers in beauty salons. I knew that the world had just changed, but news of it had apparently not yet reached the fashionable Upper East Side.
Once I had completed my 6-mile schlep, Janet and Barry were welcoming and sympathetic hosts. It was several days later that I was able to find my way home. So much had changed since the start of my normal work day on Tuesday, 9/11/2001 – twenty-five short years ago.
Read more like Stan Schneider’s memories of 9/11 twenty-five years ago, and other contributions from Boomer readers, including nostalgia, essays, and short fiction, in
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