The Towers
My father commuted every day into lower Manhattan from our home in suburban New Jersey. At 7:36 am he boarded a Jersey Central train into Jersey City and then crossed the Hudson River by ferry, with all of the city, from the George Washington Bridge to the Statue of Liberty, splayed out in front of him. He walked the final blocks from the Liberty Street Ferry Terminal to the Woolworth building, once the tallest building in the world, where he shared an office on the 34th floor facing west.
As a young boy, I would peer out from his office window, marveling at the boat traffic — ferries, tugboats, ocean liners — moving slowly along the Hudson River. Off to the left you could see planes flying in and out of Newark Airport. In the late 1960s, that view was partially blocked by the rising twin towers of the World Trade Center. I remember watching them go up, floor by floor, with cranes extended far into the sky to hoist construction materials.
I didn’t actually enter the towers until much later, in February of 2001, traveling by high-speed, ear-popping elevator up to the observation deck on the 107th floor of the south tower. The view of the city in the fading winter sun was stunning. My wife and I had our pictures taken standing at west-facing windows.
By then I was a biomedical researcher living in Alberta, Canada. When I arrived at work on the morning of September 11, 2001, I could hear the radio blaring from my lab even before I got to the door. As I entered and reached to turn the radio down, I heard the report: the north tower of the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. It was still unclear what kind of plane and whether it was an accident, but a few minutes later came the update: the south tower was pierced by a second plane. Reports from the Pentagon and Shanksville, PA followed quickly. It was clear the United States was under some form of attack.
It was still early in the age of the Internet — TV streaming didn’t exist, so I jogged the short distance back to my house and turned on the TV. The live footage was unreal — smoke poured from gaping, blackened holes in the World Trade Center towers, jet fuel-fed-fires raging out of control. Trapped office workers leapt from smashed windows to escape the orange flames. At 9:58 am local time the south tower collapsed in an enormous cloud of grey dust and smoke; the north tower fell 30 minutes later. My wife and I sat speechless. 2,763 people died at the site that day.
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Moving back to the United States after 9/11 was jarring: blustery rhetoric that flamed more wars and death in the Middle East, the ongoing epidemic of domestic gun violence, and more recently, the xenophobia and dishonesty of Donald Trump. The Canada we left behind felt kinder, more open-hearted. We retired to Vermont because family is here, but also as an emotional midway point. Vermonters care about their communities and each other, and political views are based mostly on practicality, almost a mini-Canada embedded in the northeast US.
I recently visited the World Trade Center Memorial, my first time back since the planes struck. The magnificent new One World Trade Center sits just yards north of where the towers had stood and offers the same spectacular, 360° views from its observation deck, but each direction now comes with an emotional charge. The Woolworth Building sits a few blocks east, its art deco exterior still a city landmark, but it is now surrounded by taller buildings, and the 34th floor has been converted to luxury condominiums. To the west lies the Hudson River, still busy with boat traffic, including heavily armed police boats. The concrete caverns of Manhattan spread north all the way to the George Washington Bridge, barely visible in the haze. The twin reflecting pools that mark the footprints of the original towers lie to the south. The dark granite walls surrounding the water are etched with the names of the people who died on 9/11, the somber tone interrupted by sparks of color from random flowers still being placed on the walls by family, loved ones, and complete strangers 20 years later.
The lower tip of the city bustles, pedestrians, cars, and trucks going about their business, but the feeling of September 11, 2001 lingers, a dark memory hovering over that small patch of ground, a scar that those of us who witnessed the stark tragedy and lived will carry forever. I didn’t lose anyone I knew in the attack, but we all lost something that day.
[This story appeared in the VTDigger.]
