9/11: @ Ground Zero

Six months ago (March, 2010) marked my first visit to New York City. I went there for work; I was working for one government agency at the time, doing security-related work for another one.

While working in New York, I found myself on the 23rd floor of a Federal Building located on the southern third of Manhattan. From the conference room I was working in, I could see the entire northern two-thirds of Manhattan. I posted this same picture six months ago, while I was there:

The conference room was in the corner of the building. Not only could I see north, but west and southwest as well. To our west was the Hudson river. When I remarked what a great view they had to the southwest, my host (we’ll call him “Wayne”) informed me that before 9/11, all you could see were the Twin Towers. Literally, that was all you could see when looking southwest; they blocked your entire view in that direction.

This led to a discussion about Wayne’s experiences that day. Given his office’s proximity to the World Trade Center, it is no surprise that people in his office both heard and felt the initial impact. At least one of Wayne’s co-workers saw the plane approaching and strike the building, and quickly informed everyone in the office that “this was no accident, and it was time to leave.”

And so, they did. Wayne’s trek began by walking down 23 flights of stairs. That put Wayne on the ground, with nowhere to go. His first instinct was to “get out of Manhattan,” so he set out — on foot — for Penn Station. From his building (just west of City Hall Park) to Penn Station is about a three mile walk.

When Wayne got to Penn Station, he found it had closed. His next plan was to “wait it out.” Wayne stopped by the nearest convenient store and bought a six-pack of bottled water and some fruit. He tossed the food and water into his backpack and set out for Central Park, which is just little over a mile north of Penn Station. With food and water, his plan was to spend the night in Central Park until he could figure out what was going on.

“When I got to Central Park,” Wayne told me, “a funny thing happened. I saw all these business guys wearing ties heading east. If you don’t know what’s going on, follow the guys in ties; they know what’s up,” he said. As it turned out the subway in Queens was still running, so people were walking in droves across the Queensboro Bridge, trying to get there. “It was just like that movie, Cloverfield,” he said. “Just people everywhere, all walking together, all confused.”

Wayne did eventually make it to a subway station in Queens. I forget where he told me he lived, but I remember he told me it took him about 12 hours to get home, all told. As he was telling me his story we were standing next to a six-foot tall map of New York City, and he was pointing with his finger all the places he had walked.

Later that week, a friend of mine (Kevin) who happens to live in Harlem (and was also in NYC on 9/11) offered to give me a walking tour of New York City. The tour spanned two days — on the first day we covered the southern 1/3 of the island, and on the second day we covered the middle 1/3. After hearing Wayne’s story, I definitely wanted to visit the remains of the World Trade Center and take some pictures.

Kevin and I covered (I think) every square inch of Manhattan (at least my feet felt like it!) and soon we had arrived at Ground Zero. The site is surrounded by chain link fence, covered in banners and plastic slats that prevent you from looking in. Kevin took me around the side, up a giant set of steps so that we could see in, over the fence. With my best camera in hand and ready to go, we looked over the fence and …

… nothing. There was nothing to see. A few bulldozers worked into the night pushing dirt around, but that was it. I’m not sure what I was expecting — remains, perhaps. Some concrete, some steel, some wreckage … heck, anything. But there was simply nothing there.

I took a couple hundred pictures while I was in New York City, but not a single one of the WTC site.

The stories from both of these guys really changed the way I viewed the WTC attacks. Suddenly they weren’t just “big buildings that fell down” someplace I had never been. I was really glad both Wayne and Kevin shared their stories with me. When the anniversary of 9/11 rolled around this year, I don’t just think about what I was experiencing on that day — I think of what some of my friends (who were much closer to the attacks) were going through as well.