9/11 Memories
When the World Trade Center was attacked I had just begun the second week of my first year at NYU. I was tying my shoes when I felt my dorm window rattle. I thought it was a sonic boom, but when I looked up at the TV I saw the towers burning. I grabbed my camera and ran into my RA in the hallway and quickly told her what happened. I saw her look of horror and I can still remember the twisted excitement I felt at being the tragic messenger.
I went to Washington Square and snapped some pictures of the towers on fire. The people around me were either taking their own pictures or gaping downtown in shock. I rushed to class where my writing teacher asked us to do a “quick write” of what we were experiencing. I wish I still had it.
The towers were still up and burning as I walked to my new friend Fatou’s dorm. I saw the panic on people’s faces as I overheard that DC was under attack as well. I felt like I was living in a film and I decided to switch off the movie by taking a nap in Fatou’s bed only to awaken to the news that both towers had fallen. I wandered over to the Salvation Army to try to help, found it overrun with similar minded people and departed.
When I got back to my dorm I was greeted by a message from my sister in Los Angeles wracked with sobs. Phones were not working, but I managed to get on AIM and message a high school classmate I had lost touch with to please call my family and let them know I was OK. My roommate from New Jersey left to travel home as did most of my new college friends from the tri-state area. Planes were grounded, so I journeyed to Columbia University to spend the night at my friend Shirley’s dorm. She was the only person I knew from back home in the city. I took the wrong subway train and some kind Harlem teenagers pointed me in the right direction. When I finally reunited with Shirley she was with a police officer whose assistance she enlisted because I was taking too long. Her presence was very comforting. That night we went to a candlelight vigil on her campus then slept head to toe in her twin bed.
The week after the attack classes were cancelled and all the streets around NYU were empty. One day shortly after the attacks when visiting the makeshift memorials in Union Square and reading the many fliers detailing the missing, a fighter jet flew overhead and I jumped. A kind woman grabbed my arm and said, “Don’t worry sweetie. That’s one of ours.” I always felt that 9/11 was the day I grew up. The day I left my sheltered childhood and started to see the wider world around me, for better or worse, for the first time.
