You are currently viewing the stories for September, 2001
Star Struck
by Amy Portnoy 09/22/2001Neighborhood: World Trade Center
“You have star quality. “ My aunt once wrote this to me in a get-well letter. It had been our joke; years before, she had been the nanny in the house of a well-known film director, and these were the only words his parrot knew. And now my aunt had actually said them to me. […]
Scenes From The Brooklyn Bridge
by Jim Merlis 09/21/2001Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights
I was in the shower when our building shook! My wife yelled out and I ran out of the shower and saw that the second tower had been hit. It was then we knew that it was a terrorist hit. It was so difficult to fathom. I decided I wasn’t going to let a terrorist […]
Don’t Look Back
by Kevin McLeod 09/21/2001Neighborhood: World Trade Center
September 11, 9:30AM I was still nursing a baseball hangover from the previous night, a game that never started. Just as warm-ups were finishing, a 43 minute downpour erased all hopes of watching Roger Clemens add one minor record to his ego, winningest percentage among 20 game winners. Goers huddled near the concessions, splitting peanuts […]
The View From Long Island Part Ii
by Adam Baer 09/20/2001Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad
Outside a Fresh Fields market in Manhasset, there is a parking lot large enough to hold one hundred cars. Now, there are only to be found seven Mercedes Benz SUVs, four Range Rovers, two of the BMW convertibles that the new James Bond drives, one Hummer, three Audio A8s, a smattering of Inifitis, Acuras, and […]
Ob Gyn Wtc
by Kevin McLeod 09/15/2001Neighborhood: Midtown
My Sister was silent on the Saturday following the WTC collapse. We were in the country trying to degauss our heads from the city’s pain. She was an OB on call in the emergency room when the planes hit. I cooked and the rest of the family drank caffeine on the deck, in the sun. […]
On Giving Blood
by Carolyn Murnick 09/14/2001Neighborhood: Upper West Side
On the day it happened we walked briskly to the hospital almost before our emotions had time to respond. Our eyes stung from the sun and our heads pounded from the hangovers which prompted us to remark that the blood we were about to donate might still have a good deal of alcohol in it. […]
So Big Vitality
by Christian Bonnard 09/12/2001Neighborhood: All Over, Letter From Abroad
TWO MONTHS AGO I DECIDED TO VISIT NY WITH MY SON ROMAIN. NY HAS A SO BIG VITALITY AND A SO BEAUTIFUL COSMOPOLITAIN PEOPLE THAT I THINK IT IS A VERY GOOD EXAMPLE OF LIFE FOR MY SON. AND IT IS !!!! WE VISITED MANY PLACES OF NY AND OF COURSE THE TWINS. AT THE […]
Long Term Professional Service
by Thomas Beller 09/11/2001Neighborhood: World Trade Center
From 1965, when the World Trade Center was in its planning stages, until 1972, Edith Iglauer was a frequent visitor to the construction site of the World Trade Center, researching an article about the building’s foundation, known as “The Big Bathtub.” The article, ‘The Biggest Foundation’, appeared in the New Yorker on November 4th, 1972. […]
Peace Dreams
by Didi Menussi 09/11/2001Neighborhood: All Over, Letter From Abroad
And again they are dancing on the roof. And again they hand out candies in the street. And the level of their joy rises in proportion to the number of casualties reported. And the grandpa who dreamed about peace, I mean dreamed until yesterday, kisses his grandaughter during her sleep, in the hope that her […]
The Politics of Twenty Fifth and Madison
by Vince Passaro 09/11/2001Neighborhood: All Over, Manhattan
So it began at the dry cleaners, at five past nine, when someone said a plane had hit the World Trade Center, and Chris, the Jamaican tailor, turned from his sewing machine in the front window and said, “Two. Two planes have hit the towers. Both of them.” The dry cleaner is Le Kang, an […]
This is Bad
by Elizabeth Grove 09/11/2001Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights
The story unfolded quickly, but with the usual peculiar sense that we are always on the verge of being at the end of the event. We always think that what we can fathom is all there is to fathom. Like during a blackout, when our first thought is always, “Oh! My lights are off.” For […]
She Was On The 92nd Floor
by Josh Gilbert 09/11/2001Neighborhood: World Trade Center
All of us who were in Manhattan on September 11th have our own harrowing, freakish and scary stories to tell, but of all the stories I heard directly that day, my neighbor Jennifer’s story takes the cake: Jennifer was on the 92nd floor of 2 World Trade Center on Tuesday morning. She looked out her […]