9/11 where were you?

About 23 blocks away near Madison Square Park. Worked on a trading desk, so all the TVs were on CNBC. Everyone rushed to the Windows to look outside and you could see the top of the building and the plume of smoke. We were told to stay in the building because "it was the safest place to be," but after the towers fell, everyone left to go home. I lived on the Upper West Side at the time and walked up Broadway through a completely *silent* Times Square, past dozens of people staring at the giant ABC news screen, just stunned. The worst part was all the chaos that continued through the night into the next day, with rumors of suspicious packages at the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, etc. If you lived in Manhattan, there was no escaping the hysteria and the rampant speculation. Also, the wind shifted over the next few days and blew acrid, metallic smelling smoke up the entire length of the island. I can still remember that smell, what it meant, and how I felt, now, even 14 years later.

I was in a lecture in East Hall. Somebody came running in and blurted out that New York was under attack. I ran out of the lecture because my father worked in downtown Manhattan to watch the first tower come down on the TVs in Ulrich's Bookstore. Thankfully, my father was ok.

#neverforget

when it happened.  Both towers were hit while I was in gym class, but I didn't find out till next our in math class, when we walked in and our teacher was crying. 

7th grade, lunchtime, they said sports were cancelled for the day....we were mad!

I was working when a friend told me a plane had flown into the WTC, I immediately thought it was terrorism, he said no way. Then when the second one hit, he looks at me and goes how did you know. Very little work was done, we spent most of the day watiching the news. I also took at look at age requirements for the Mariines as I was contemplating going back in. I was too old to by about 6 months to back on active duty.

It has changed our world, it has shaped the last decade and a half drastically.

On my way to work in Tower One of the World Trade Center. Since my building was on fire I returned home.

A 2nd year law student at Michigan Law. I had a room on the Law Quad on the first floor with a bay window. My TV was my alarm clock they automatically turned on for my morning classes. Set to NBC, I woke up and saw Matt Laurer hosting and looking at the first tower. At the time they thought it was just a Cessna or some type of accident. I shrugged and went up to take a shower in the common bathrooms. By the time I came down and was getting dressed, I saw on live TV when the second plane hit and the mood changed immediately. Total shock. I opened up my window and told different students I knew what had just happened (smart phones and social media didn't exist then). Classes were cancelled and I played host to maybe 3-4 of my buddies as we watched the coverage. Michigan Law draws from students nation wide and there were several from the NYC area who were far more personally impacted by the event than I was.

I was hitchhiking from my car to the start of a 10-day backpack trip.  First look at video was in the Old Faithful lodge where they wheeled out a TV that looked about 40 years old.  

Five days later I met a guide headed out of the backcountry to pick up a client; he looked at me askew and didn't believe the story.  I figure he was one of the last people in the country to hear the news.

I always feel at home while hiking, but on that journey felt especially safe albeit a bit unsteady. 

My wife was working on Capital Hill in Washington DC at the time.  When the third plane hit the Pentagon, I called her on her cell (I still can't believe that the reception worked) and said "You guys are under attack, get the hell out of there."

I stayed with her on her cell as she tried to get out.  All the main roads were blocked, so I was paging through maps trying to find back roads to get her out of there.  It took her three hours to travel about 10 miles to get home to Mclean VA.

Two days later, we went down to see the Pentagon damage.  The whole side was gone and the steel frame was black and charred.  You could still smell the smoke.  But the giant American flag that was placed there was still showing through, like the stars and stripes on top of Mt. Suribachi.

 

 

I was at Grand Rapids City High School.  I won't say the teacher's name because it was extremely out of character, but a student who was skipping class came into the room and just interrupted the teacher to tell him that we needed to turn on the TV.  The teacher, a world-weary but kind sort, said: "With the way the media works these days, I'm sure you'll see whatever is going on a thousand times over the next week.  Let's focus on the book today."  Meanwhile, you hear screaming and crying and stuff coming from other hallways across the halls.

I'm not sure this is fair, and I'm not sure what he did was wrong, necessarily.  But I've never forgiven him for that.  I felt totally powerless; I was humming with anxiety because I knew something monumental was happening but we weren't allowed to know what it was.  It's just a mistake, but I do feel even as an adult that he made a terrible, tragic mistake that day by forcing us to keep the TV off.

I remember the high gas price gauging at some places around metro Detroit that day.

unable to discuss w/anyone except other teachers in the four minutes between classes. Went home just in time for a nightly news minute by minute recap and openly wept

Was in 6th grade, so I didn't get to hear anything about it until my mom picked me up for my piano lesson at the end of the day. It was (and remains) the only time I've ever seen my mom (an extremely stoic woman) cry. 

 

On a separate note, I remember being irritated at all the kids at school the next day who were scared that terrorists were going to attack our school (in the middle of podunk Michigan). 

9th grade health class. We were discussing the effects of STDs. I remember another teacher coming into the room and whispering to our teacher. He turned on the TV and we saw the first tower burning. A few minutes later we saw the second plane hit.

I clearly remember how quiet it was the rest of the day. No planes in the a.m. Until later on when you could hear jets leaving Selfridge. Very memorable day.

told me a plane hit the WTC and wondered if they could watch on TV. I assumed a little plane at first and that it was pilot error. I told her it was fine to watch for a little while and I went to see what it looked like. Shortly after walking in the conference room and seeing the second plane come in, I realized how serious it obviously was. My wife was 7 months pregnant with our second child and I had to wonder what kind of world she and my son were going to experience.

I sat down and spent the rest of the day watching the coverage. I remember the hopelessness of watching the first tower fall and knowing the second one couldn't be far behind.

 

I was at work in Auburn Hills, MI.

I never will forget when we were all summoned to the break room and then watched as the second plane hit. I grew up in a most certain world that has had a fair share of uncertainty since that day.

I was at work when someone told me about it, so went to the break room to see it happening on TV. Right away we knew something wasn't right and about that time the 2nd plane hit, confirming our fears.

I was in 1st grade music class. We all knew that something bad had happened, but none of us could comprehend it. I remember we were all sitting on the floor just talking, asking our teacher questions.

When I got home, I remember my dad was watching everything on TV. I still couldn't fully understand what had happened. I thought he was watching a movie or tv show or something. I was so young my mind couldn't grasp the idea that thousands of people were killed over an act of terrorism. I then went off on my own to go play like nothing had happened.

That's all I remember about that day. I wouldn't understand the significance of what had happened until a few days later.

I remember so vividly where I was and what I was doing... It's like it just happened a year ago every time the anniversary hits.

It was the beginning of my Senior year in HS and our school had a 10-15 break between 2nd & 3rd period where we could grab a drink and a candy bar out of a vending machine and just socialize with your friends for a minute. The bell had just rang and I was on my way to that area walking with my best friend til this day when a friend of ours and our class's president came up to us shouting, "OMG y'all (we live in the Deep South), did you hear that someone flew a plane into The World Trade Center? Another plane just hit the 2nd tower!"

I don't want to say I thought she was joking, but it was all just so surreal that it felt like it was a hoax or something. Looking back now, I wish so badly that it was. No matter how distasteful, it would've been so much better than New York City and our nation's reality that day and moving forward.

On campus getting ready for class when I saw the second tower hit on television. Still a moment I'll never forget how weird it was to go my engineering class afterwards.

8th grade English class

being on Pacific time, both towers were down before I knew anything. The first indication anything was wrong was I had a great deal of difficulty signing on to AOL; I then got a call from our office manager to turn on the TV. I saw patients that day, and the rest of the day was just surreal.

I am a native NYer, and had always loved visiting the Towers when I was in town; I got to watch them being built when I was a kid, and forever loved that Phillpe Petit did that famous tight-rope walk between them...

I had nearly a dozen personal friends who worked in the WTC, every single one of them were out of the buildings before they went down.

 

I found out about 9/11 while walking to work. There were about 10 people watching the TV in the window at Steve and Barry's. 

There was a group of teachers in the office, staring at the TV. I always listened to the radio on my 30 min commute to work, but for some reason that day I hadn't.

"What's going on?" I asked.

Someone mentioned that a plane had hit one of the towers. Then the principal gave me a very serious look and held up two fingers. "Two planes, two buildings," he said.

My heart sank. "We're at war," I mumbled.

I was eating breakfast and almost on my way to a business law class. Then I turned on Fox News (yes, Fox News) to see what shit storm that was going on. Needless to say, classes for that day were canceled. I was still willing to go to class, though, because there was a scheduled examination that day, one for which I was completely prepared and ready to get done. It was rescheduled to the following week, but thankfully I still got an 80some% on it.

Sophomore year of high school, chemistry class.

In Brooklyn NY. Wife and I had just returned from Europe the day before where we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. I was getting ready for first day of work after two weeks and had the local New York 1 news on as I always did, when I saw what had happened. Wife had already left for work so I was worried about her as her train went right under WTC. She was fine, but had to walk home across the bridge as many others had to that day. I stuck close to home to answer our phone in case family was calling (early days of cell phone use and we still had a land line). I could see the smoke from my street. 

I was at work, and about 10:30 the CEO called and told us all to go home. I called my best friend up and said "If we're gonna die, we might as well do it on a golf course" So we played 18.

It was a gorgeous day in Manhattan, and I went for a run in Central Park before heading down to my consulting gig at Scholastic Books, which is at Broadway and Prince in SoHo.

When I got down to Scholastic, one of the Accenture consultants walked into our office and said, "I think a plane may have just crashed.  I've never heard a jet fly so low and loud over Manhattan before."

A moment later, my wife called and said a plane had just hit the the World Trade Center.  We all immediately jumped in the elevator and headed up to the roof -- which has a large glass "greenhouse" structure enclosing the cafeteria. From that vantage point, the World Trade Center basically filled the sky.

As we got off the elevator, we heard everyone in the cafeteria suddenly scream.  The second plane had just hit from the south, and the sky was a giant fireball.  At the time, we had no idea it was actually a second plane because it had approached from the opposite side of the WTC and was obscured by the building.  Everyone had immediately assumed the first plane hitting was just some kind of horrible accident, and thought that the second explosion was somehow triggered by debris from the original plane.  We soon heard on the radio that it was a terrorist  attack, that another plane had just hit the Pentagon, and that there were as many as eight planes still unaccounted for.

NYC quickly shutdown the subways, the tunnels, and all the bridges except for outbound on the George Washington -- and the Brooklyn Bridge for pedestrians.  Manhattan rapidly became a kind of fortress.

Way too many stories to tell about that day, but maybe the craziest thing was waking up in my hotel at around 8am the next morning -- I was staying at the Renaissance in Times Square -- looking out the window, and seeing a completely deserted Times Square.  No cars, taxis, buses, or pedestrians -- like a scene out of I Am Legend, or something.  Nuts.