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Notes From New York: Where Were You When the Planes Hit the World Trade Center Towers?

A generation ago everyone asked "Where were you when JFK was shot?" That was then, this is now. The WDFM offices are less than a half-mile from what was the WTC. I was a few blocks closer attending a breakfast and panel discussion at 55 Broad Street.

I remember there was a very loud and sustained thunderous roar that kept reverberating. It reminded me of the steel plates they drop down on the street to cover a big whole dug out to lay new cable or repair infrastructure underneath. This sound kept going on and on. A few minutes later the moderator of the panel said a small plane had slammed into the side of the World Trade Towers. I got up and left.

I remember standing just outside that room, holding on to a railing, trying to collect myself and visualize what must be happening.

I went down to street level. Other buildings were emptying out by now but there was no sense of urgency; not yet, anyway. People were mostly standing around laughing, scratching their heads, smoking cigarettes and talking about what must've happened.

Then the cops started to move the crowd north. The density of people suddenly increased 'til Water Street was impassable. I believe people didn't expect to be moved away from their buildings at first. Perhaps they expected to go back to work shortly. By the time I got to Peck Slip in the South Street Seaport, I could look up and see the top floors of one Tower in flames. The smoke cloud was coming towards me.

I got up to the WDFM office and then heard another elongated roar. That must've been the second plane hitting the other Tower. I'm not sure. My sense of time and sequence has not been in tact all week. This time I felt the rumble in the floor. My building is an old landmark building and always shakes when big trucks go by, but never for this duration.

I went up to the roof with binoculars to get a better glimpse of what was going on, but the smoke cloud was so thick I could no longer see the Towers. My binoculars already had dust and large particles on them. I took them inside, closed all the doors and turned on the AC's to filter the air. Then we watched events unfold on TV. We saw Tower Two collapsing. I thought it was on tape, and grew very confused when there was a corresponding sound and tremor that also went on forever. Those around me clarified that it was live. Seeing, hearing, and feeling this was overwhelming. My neighbor Audrey kept saying in a very distant voice, 'Oh no, oh no, oh no..." When the second plane hit, everyone on the street and inside understood this was an attack. The Pentagon was hit and a plane went down in PA. We started to realize our lives were undergoing tectonic changes too large to absorb and comprehend all at once. We knew thousands were dying, suffering, and their loved ones would soon be in agony for a very long time to come. It reminded me of my brother's death 21 years ago. My face was now wet with tears, knowing much more would come for the foreseeable future.

The phones went out in the afternoon, yet the DSL connection stayed up, even though there was no dial tone. The news kept unfolding and then repeating with new pieces of info intermittently. Last week's WDFM had just gone out and we were trying to filter through the hundreds of emails we get after a send-out. We kept drifting off into thought or watched the TV, just like you did.

The electricity went off around 5p.m., I think, when Building 7 fell and (as we learned days later) crushed the sub station that fed our part of downtown. Most of my information now came from radios running on batteries. Out came the flashlights at twilight.

The next day we walked around in the smoke and dust- filled air which remains that way at the time I write this on Sunday evening, September 16th.

Each night I had dinner with my neighbors by candlelight, eating up perishable foods. Cellular phone service wasn't working well because the network had lost cell sites and was understandably overloaded with traffic. Most inbound calls are still not getting through. The streets looked like they had loads of sand on them. It was the ash and debris from the Trade Towers. Papers from offices were all over the place. I learned later that some of those papers also floated over the East River into the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Cobble Hill and Park Slope. The next morning, a line of crushed vehicles had been placed temporarily in front of my building. I kept forgetting to wear my mask, which filters out smoke and dirt. I'm still coughing as a result. A National Guardsman stops us and asks if our eyes are affected. He advises that if they're not washed out often, abrasions can occur when the eyelids drag dust particles over the eyes repeatedly. Everyone helps out. People are different here now, I think permanently. That New York gruffness and edge is not very evident these days. People are stoic when they say they're ok and look back at you for a second or two longer when you ask. I notice people, myself included, staring off, lost in thought or emotions, or both.

My neighbors check on each other and eat dinner together more often than not. Someone left a burning cigarette in a kitchen trash can before evacuating. My neighbor and I grabbed fire extinguishers and went down to look for it, in the dark. Others were there, no one had yet called the fire department. I ran down to street level to get help. The darkness and the smoke caused me to imagine what it might have been like for those people in the stairways of the WTC trying to escape. Outside, we found help and realized we took nothing with us and should not go back in for anything. One neighbor said "I have everything of value with me," as she stroked her husband's arm. Unforgettable. The smoldering trash can was found and the live embers causing all the smoke were extinguished.

You can't run an online business without electricity, phones, and net connections. I put off leaving my beloved domicile in the Seaport as long as possible. I asked the Con Ed guys how long it could be until we got power back. They didn't know and said so. Having said that they said it could easily be a week. Those guys are still working 24/7 to bring power back. The central office that feeds us phone service could be out a week or a month since it was located across the street from the Trade Towers and sustained very major damage. Weirdly enough an emergency info center was set up in the Skyscraper Museum nearby for Con Ed and Verizon to tell locals what they knew. It's easy to put down utility companies and I've done my fair share over the years with good reason, but I must say these guys are there, working hard and telling us what they know. Verizon will be installing 5000 free, wireless pay phones in the area. Good on them both.

So it was time to move office and domicile. How to do that was a logistical challenge. No subways, cabs or busses down there. On Friday afternoon, assistant Richard Witt and I put an overnight bag I'd packed and one of our computers into my folding shopping cart and walked up the East River under and along the FDR Drive to 14th Street, about two miles away. We passed interesting looking vehicles on the way. Humvees, troop transports, a Sheriff's car from Suffolk County, fire engines from Hempstead Long Island, a PBA canteen truck. All manner of refuse removal trucks were lining up to take tons of debris away to Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island.

We met a woman out strolling with her baby who told us she was a flight attendant and knew the mother of one of the pilots of the aircraft that went down in PA.

At 14th street we took a cross-town bus to my temporary office provide by a good friend of mine.

Amazingly, miraculously, I personally don't know anyone who perished, yet. But everyone knows someone who knows someone, at the very least.

Ground Zero, the hot zone, the epicenter, or simply the zone are different ways people talk about the World Trade Center where people who are made of the sternest stuff continue the rescue and recovery efforts.

I share my impressions as I pass through this point in time in this place I proudly call home. A mother on WCBS News Radio putting out a call for her fireman son Christian Reganheart, who has an eagle tattooed with the letters USMC. Again, tears. People at the Armory at 26th and Lex with pictures of loved ones pinned to their clothes. My neighbor who saw people jumping from the Towers whilst he shielded his son from the unspeakable sight. Another neighbor seeing the first plane hit as she had her morning coffee. A city hall worker who sees I've forgotten my mask and shoves one into my hand, saying through his mask, "Take this," and we just look at each other.

I call WDFM's Managing Editor Eileen Shulock to look in on her as she, too. is from New York. She comes to the phone and I hear her voice is now older and scratchy; weary. I know the answer to the question I'm about to ask and that we all ask each other, "Did you know anybody…?" "Yes," comes her reply. She spends her time now coordinating volunteer IT people for the Red Cross.

New York City's Bravest and Finest (our firemen, police officers, as well as the EMS and Port Authority staffs). One fireman saying to a guy walking down the Towers staircase at the time of the disaster to run, don't walk, as he kept running upstairs to probable death. These are real heroes. These are strangers who have the utter respect and awe of New Yorkers as we try to cope with our emotions. These are real heroes of the country and world.

I stop listening to the news cuz it's mostly redundant. Every two hours I tune back in. I try to read Fortune magazine, or read my book "Gotham: A History of New York to 1898." But I find myself reading the same passage over and over again because it isn't sticking. They were written before this happened, I keep thinking, in the "before time," a period that had some more innocence to it. I know life will now be different ongoingly on a micro and macro scale. "Normal" will be redefined on many levels.

It is inconceivable that Mayor Giuliani will be leaving his office in less than three months. G-d bless this man for his fortitude and sensitivity, reflecting the tone of what we all feel here. On a Sunday morning talk show he said he believes the friction between NYC and the rest of the country is most likely gone.

I wonder if living in a state of siege like this is similar to life in Beirut or Jerusalem. I realize the inconveniences I currently go through are less than nothing when compared to...