9/15/01
Diary (second letter this date)
Dear all,
Thursday, I went to the National Guard Armory where people are lined up to
file missing persons reports. It's an agonizing experience. The pain is,
like so much else, incomprehensible. Everyone has a story. Everyone has
cried oceans of tears. And now, they are standing in a line for hours and
hours, in the hot sun, carrying pictures of their loved ones, posting them
on every mailbox and light post. They carry them to the press line, where
they talk to reporters to get their pictures broadcast. The hopes that
someone will recognize their people help them carry on. Efforts to find
survivors that, for so many, will prove fruitless can not be viewed in that
light. So many people hoping even if they do not find them living, that at
least, they find them dead, so that some sense of closure is possible.
Friday, on the front lines, rescuers are finding body parts by the
thousands. There is still hope, but it is slim. Only late entering rescue
personnel have been rescued. Today, the rain has come. Hope is vanishing
even as I write.
The people of New York are doing everything they can. There is no limit to
what people want to do. Relief efforts from the community are phenomenal.
The only way to cope with the pain and grief is by being active. Yesterday,
I volunteered some, went to a prayer vigil, and ended the day teaching my
students in an attempt to bring some sense of normalcy to our lives.
On day one, we got about three or four blocks from ground zero. We were in
the middle of the smoke. I photographed the walk. I have yet to get the
pictures developed. Others have taken amazing photographs, mine document my
experience, but do not really show the event from up close.
The air has been quite bad. There are electrical fires, an acrid smell that
is now part of the memory of this. Now the rain is clearing the air, but
hardening the dust into cement.
We live a mile or two from ground zero. As I left my house on Tuesday, it
was one of those perfect New York days. The sun was out. The humidity was
low. The temperature was ,warm, but not hot. The sky was clear and blue. I
saw smoke and thought it was an apartment fire about a block away. Earlier,
as I was leaving, Lisa had heard the plane and thought it was strange. But
this is New York, what could it be? Others I met on the street had heard the
explosion. Now, I've talked to so many people I know who saw the crash and
collapse.
But at that moment, I was on my way to work after stopping to vote. By 9:10
the buses were not running. When I reached the subway, it was clear that the
fire was bigger than I had thought. I overheard people talking about a plane
crash. Then I heard people telling each other that it was the World Trade
Center. I tried calling Lisa on my cell phone. There was no service. I
waited for a pay phone. When at last I reached her, she was watching the
second plane crash into the building.
Still, we didn't fully appreciate the situation. I continued on my way to
work. Lisa went to an audition. When I got to work, I turned on the news and
heard that the Pentagon had been hit. Within minutes, we closed shop and I
set off to reach Lisa at midtown. (I ride little foot-powered scooter
through town.)
The subways were down. People were staring downtown in disbelief. People
were running uptown. Shock was setting in. When I reached Time Square, most
of the huge television screens were down. I rushed uptown and found Lisa,
who was quite distraught, as she prepared for her callback. I took her
walkman and monitored the only radio station I could find. Then, the
buildings collapsed. I was reporting to people what I heard. Kathryn
called. For what seemed like hours, I hadn't been able to use my cell phone.
It was now 10:30. Somehow she got through. We commiserated. Both of us had
felt so out of place the day before. And now. . . . When my classes started
at Pratt, I had felt like such a pretender. In light of this, I didn't even
know what it meant to be a pretender.
We left the union office and walked back to Times Square. It was the first
time I saw the images of the attack. There, on the huge ABC screen were
images of the second crash, the fire, the rescue. It was unbelievable. We
were some hundreds of people standing in the middle of the street, watching,
jaws agape at what we were seeing. Looking down Seventh Ave, we could see
the smoke billowing skyward and toward Brooklyn. Lisa and I decided we had
to try to get home. I called my sister and, after 20 or 30 tries, finally
got through to get the message out that we were safe.
We walked across town. We tried to get on the bus, but it was too crowded.
People were just pushing their way on. We walked on. At Second Ave., we were
able to board a bus. People just opened the rear doors by force and jammed
their way in. Everyone was in shock. We took it downtown. We went to an
overflowing grocery store to get supplies for ourselves and our displaced
friends. Finally, we got home and sat stunned, watching the news, trying to
get our brains around what had happened just hours ago.
Later that afternoon, Carol came over. She was trying to get home to
Brooklyn, but a fight broke out on the subway and she got out of there.
After we fed Carol, we escorted her to the subway. When she boarded, I
wanted to walk closer to the disaster. I needed to make it real. So we
walked through the lower east side, into Chinatown, through the projects and
down to the Brooklyn Bridge. When we got to the bridge, I wanted to walk
across to Brooklyn, but the smoke was so intense we couldn't pass. Building
7 had just collapsed and new fires were raging. So we went into Manhattan,
walking slowly northward out of the smoke. We got to city hall, passing the
destroyed vehicles, the dust, looking down through the smoke. A police
officer gave us masks and we tossed the kleenex we had been using to cover
our faces. They gave us some water, and then told us to get out of there.
Emergency vehicles were passing by. Then, we came across a construction site
where workers were ripping plywood into planks, making makeshift stretchers.
Hundreds and hundreds of wooden litters. It was a chilling sight. We got to
Canal street about 6pm. It was empty except for a few police vehicles--the
police cars came in every shape and size. There were jalopies and hot rods,
there were smoky old wrecks and shiny new SUVs.
The winds have shifted many times. We're often in the smell of the fires,
though now with the rain, the smoke is gone. On Wednesday the smoke followed
us all the way to the upper east side. Is it toxic? Well, put it this way,
it ain't healthy. Is there asbestos? Some. But the mayor tells us it's not
unsafe. Still, I wore my mask yesterday when I left home.
Now, I must hit the streets. Morning is here and there is work to be done.
Love,
Marc