We wondered what the celebration was about. But as native New Yorkers, we knew something was always happening in the city. The traffic cop didn’t appear too concerned--though he glanced upward at the shower a couple of times. He continued directing cars either toward the FDR highway or up the west side past the World Trade Center.
We decided to turn on the local all-news station to find out if anything big was happening. The station's chopper pilot was high over the Hudson River, giving a run-down of the various auto smack-ups and updating congestion on the George Washington Bridge. He must have turned the helicopter around because he suddenly let out a scream that I recall as, “The World Trade Center is on fire.”
We looped around the tunnel exit and headed up the FDR. Cars were stopped on the road around South Street Seaport. We pulled over and had a clear view of the North Tower of the WTC. It was ablaze and smoking like a chimney. It was only then that I realized that the confetti was the skin of the WTC, and the paper represented the daily grind of the people working in the building.
The southbound lane of the FDR had already been closed to emergency vehicles only. There were tens and tens of fire trucks, police cars, ambulances and city vehicles roaring down the highway toward the Battery. Sirens blasting. Many of those brave rescue workers would never see their loved ones again.
Susan and I didn’t see the second plane hit the South Tower. That happened at 9:03. She wanted to hurry to her office, pick up a laptop and then head home. I wound up walking home to Brooklyn, praying and inhaling the dust of the 2,749 souls who were murdered on 9/11, the greatest single-day slaughter on U.S. soil since the Battle of Antietam in which 4,000 Americans were killed on Sept. 17, 1862.
As we remember the people who died on 9/11, let’s put pressure on the pitiful politicos and bumbling bureaucrats who are responsible for the foot-dragging that has gone on way too long. America fought and concluded a Civil War and two World Wars in less time than it has taken to build a memorial to the people of 9/11.
That is an outrageous disgrace and a tragic commentary about life in America today.
(Photo: U.S. Air Force)