Vivid Memory

I thought I'd elaborate on my memory of 9/11.

I had just moved to NYC in mid-August to start orientation week at Columbia Business School.  I was temporarily living with my brother at his apartment at 33rd St between 5th and Madison Avenues.    We were into the second full week of classes when the attacks happened. Since it was Tuesday, my schedule didn't start until 11AM.  Thus, I had gotten up at about 9:30AM and was getting ready.  I was blasting Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" on my brother's stereo (don't know why).  My brother, who had Grand Jury this week and had been downtown, burst in around 10AM and shouted out "a plane flew into the World Trade Center."  I thought I misheard.  At the time, people thought the first plane accidentally hit the tower.  My brother had jumped back on the subway and made it back before the subways were shut down and while the second plane was hitting the towers.  We turned on the news and 20 minutes later watched as WTC 1 collapsed to the ground.  WTC 2 had already fallen an hour earlier.

The gravity of the events hadn't hit me and I thought to myself that I needed to get to Strategy class.  I stopped at Staples for batteries for my calculator and the clerks looked at me like I was crazy for coming into the store.  I walked past 5th Avenue and could see the smoke clouds from downtown. When I shut my eyes, I can still conjure up this image.  I kept walking.  I made it to the subway on 33rd and 7th Avenue, but it was already shut down.  I began the walk to Columbia (at 116th Street!) with hopes of flagging down a cab.  There were hundreds of people on the streets, with no empty cabs in site.  It was an orderly state of frenzy, though.  I kept walking, with a backpack full of folders and my laptop computer.  I was sweating and exhausted, but I kept walking.  Around the West 80s, I found a cab and begged for a lift the last 20 blocks.  Class was canceled, so I walked to the main building in Uris Hall.  Classmates were gathered in the lobby around the TVs that were tuned to CNN.  People were crying and worried about ex-coworkers.  I saw one of my classmates and her reddened eyes and asked if she were okay.  The next hour passed in a blur before I hopped the now working subway back home.  By this time, it was known to be a terrorist attack.

It was a surreal day and so was my reaction.