I live about 15 blocks from the complex, and I started walking toward the buildings as soon as I saw the first plane attack on the morning news. On my way down 6th Avenue, people in suits were walking to work, more amazed than frightened at the sight of the two towers burning. Most paused once in a while to look back at the fires, then continued on. Even when I came within four or five blocks, where crowds of people stood transfixed, there was more concern about falling debris and panic about loved ones inside the buildings than there was fear that they might actually come down.
People were screaming in horror as victims jumped or fell from the higher floors. Even so, from the outside, the disaster looked like a bad skyscraper fire from a movie-a very bad fire to be sure, but one that the hundreds of firefighters and other emergency teams could handle. Clearly, not even the police and FBI who had flooded the area were worried about collapse-they wouldn’t have been anywhere as near to the buildings as they were. If the first building hadn’t essentially fallen straight down, its crash could have killed hundreds standing, like me, a few blocks away.
In hindsight, this seems incredible. But at the time, people on the scene knew less than people at home watching TV. I had no idea that the planes that flew into the towers were huge 767s, loaded, with fuel for a cross-country flight. We didn’t realize that the flames poking out of the windows were just a hint of the 2,000-degree inferno inside, hot enough to melt structural steel as if it were plastic. No one could get through to colleagues on cell phones-the system was overloaded. Pay phones were out, too. We didn’t know how bad things really were. The police seemed as ignorant as we were.
All of us remembered that a huge truck bomb eight years before had failed to do more than shut the buildings down for a few weeks. Everyone remembered how calmly and safely the occupants had left the towers back then. Perhaps most important, the buildings, even as black smoke billowed from them, looked structurally sound. Neither was listing or twisted; the impacts of the planes didn’t seem even to have visibly shaken them.
It was impossible to imagine the skyline without the twin towers. To anyone who lives in New York, or New Jersey for that matter, they are as familiar as the Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate Bridge, the St. Louis arch. They not only dominated the downtown skyline, but would pop into view in the most unlikely places-between two tiny streets in SoHo, from the roof of a friend’s loft in Upper Manhattan. Every morning, the weather report on the local news invariably had a shot of the Empire State Building, with the towers looming downtown in the background.
The squads of emergency vehicles rushing to the scene, to be followed slightly later by motorcades of the unmarked sedans of the FBI, ATF and black State Department “War Wagons” seemed somehow reassuring. People worried about how quickly the fires would be put out, about how many would die, but not that these icons of America would disappear.
Then it happened.
Suddenly, the top of the south tower just dropped. Even as it fell, it seemed impossible. But 110 stories of steel, glass and metal crashing into a twisted heap a few hundred feet in front of you is convincing. Even more shocking was the knowledge that 10,000 people, maybe more, had probably just perished in front of your eyes. People seemed frozen in place at the sight. Then a huge cloud of ugly smoke and debris swept up the street like an avalanche. People ran for safety.
Even then, most of us thought the north tower would survive. That fire was higher up, and seemed smaller. Most spectators had left; but the area was still peppered with stunned witnesses, reporters, photographers, ambulances and law enforcement. The cops and FBI were sweeping people north, but not particularly forcefully. At about 10:30, an agent heard something on his radio. “They think the second tower is going to go!,” he yelled. “Everyone, I mean everyone, get the hell out of here NOW.” And everyone did.
The day after, I looked south from 6th Avenue and Houston Street, for my morning view of the Towers. Their glass and aluminum played with the light, making them look a bit different every time I saw them. I reflexively looked south to see how they looked on this bright, sunny day. But there was nothing there but sky.
