A Post-9/11/01 Reflection:
Most of my family and friends know that I have a great love for the City of New York. I spent some wonderful years there during most of the 1990's. Even though Baltimore is my home town, I often say that New York is my “adopted home town.” When I am in New York I truly feel like I am “home.” On September 11th I was in Baltimore completing my first week at my new assignment as a teacher at Archbishop Curley High School. I was as shocked as everyone else with the events of that day. As I watched the towers of the World Trade Center collapse on live television, I found myself gasping out loud with the words “Oh my God.”
I had already been planning to
visit New York on the weekend of September 14th, and felt even more
drawn there because of the things that had transpired. Needless to say, when I arrived on Friday
afternoon I found the mood of the City to be very somber. It was important for me to be able to be with
friends who had been in New York on the previous Tuesday morning.
On Friday evening, I went to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and joined thousands of people there for a candlelight vigil. Gazing across the East River from Brooklyn, I was only able to get a glimpse of the destruction of lower Manhattan. The buildings that had majestically dominated the skyline, and for which I always had a near reverence, had vanished. In their place was a huge empty spot. From the distance I couldn’t see “ground zero,” but I could see billowing smoke and the haunting glow in the sky which emanated from high powered spot lights shining at the WTC site. Like everyone else, I was intensely aware that thousands of rescuers were feverishly trying to rescue thousands of others who possibly had survived as the buildings fell. The view from the Promenade was an unbelievable, horrible and very frightening sight.
This past weekend, I returned to New York once again. This time I was able to get much closer to the WTC site as I stood just two blocks away on Broadway near Wall Street. I can’t describe the feelings I had as I looked down the street and saw mounds of twisted steel and concrete, black smoke, firefighters, US Army personnel, the total destruction of the WTC and the great damage to the surrounding buildings.
When I lived in New York, I was a
frequent visitor to the World Trade Center.
I often took my out of town visitors to the Observation Deck at the top
floor of Tower #1. I had the pleasure
of eating at the Windows on the World Restaurant at the top of Tower #2. I frequently shopped in the mall underneath
the WTC complex. It was one of my
favorite places to visit in downtown Manhattan.
Seeing the WTC totally destroyed was an incredibly emotional experience
for me.
