Asbestos The following is a synopsis of my experience living below Chambers Street on September 11th 2001. Of course, we must first remember all those who lost loved ones and really suffered that day. My story is merely one of inconvenience.

When I woke up on September 11th 2001, I remembered that I moved my 9:30 am meeting with the Port Authority on the 88th floor of One World Trade Center to Friday so that I could vote in the special primary election. I looked out the window and it was one of most beautiful of days of all times. The sky was a piercing royal blue without a cloud in the sky. The air was clean and crisp. As I got to the front door of my apartment I turned around and went back to the windows and opened them up all the way. Fresh air was a something that I used to love to bring in to my house.

Then I went to the Surrogate's Courthouse on Chambers Street to vote and was at work at NYU by around 8:30 am. Then Larry came in to my office and said that his wife just called that a plane went over the campus so low that it almost hit Silver Towers.

We ran up to the roof and as we opened the door we could see fire coming out of the northern side of the World Trade Center. I work in a 12 story building that has an unobstructed view to the south. The whole was shaped like a plane. Within a matter of minutes, others made their way up to the roof and we contemplated whether this was an accident. But how could it be? The sky was so clear and it was hard to pick that angle out of the 360 possible degrees.

I then went downstairs to call my folks, but none of the phone lines would work. So I emailed my brother in California that I was okay and went back up to the roof. He was able to reach my folks.

By the time I got back everyone was in agreement that it was an intentional attack and then we saw another plane coming up the Hudson. At first I joked that it was like the coffee commercial where everyone looks out one side of the plane as it tilts. Then I said that the pilot is probably saying, "and off to your right you can see the World Trade Center on fire". Bt then the plane started to turn right into the path of the other tower and we started to yell at the plane to go away. But it was too late and we all stood there in disbelief as the second plane just flew into the building right in front of our eyes. We could see the fire and explosion coming through the building northwards.

People started to cry. I just made believe that this was not happening; it was just a bad movie. You could still see the shape of the first plane on the northern side of one building and fire shooting out of the other. My neighborhood was in flames.

Then the talk turned to will the buildings stand? Will they have to be made shorter? How long will it be for them to fix them? No one thought that they would be falling down shortly.

We began to see what we thought were parts of the building falling off. But upon closer inspection I could see that they were people jumping and not parts of the building at all. I saw enough and went back inside.

We were then busy on what to do with the 1,500 NYU students living downtown near the site. But all along I was more nervous since I live within 1,000 feet from the World Trade Center. I could see the large smoke clouds moving to the east covering my entire block. I just put it out of my mind and set up a television set in my office and tried to get some work done. But a crisis mentality has settled in and people just started to leave and go home. Normal business ended. We were in a surreal environment. Then came word of the other crashes and fear that this may escalate into a war.

Word trickeled down that the first building just came down and I went back to the roof. I couldn't believe what I saw and a large dust cloud now covered everything. You could see the people running up West Broadway and the dust following. You could start to smell the fires. I didn't want to see the next building go down so I returned to my office again. By this time, I was quite shaken. I tried to think about what I would do, and figured that I would sleep in the NYU gym with the students that night.

As five o'clock rolled around, very few people were left. It was very quiet and the students were milling around the Washington Square Park . I walked over to the gym, decided to just pick up a blanket and pillow and return to sleep by myself on my office floor. At least my office was carpeted and I would have a bathroom to myself. I stopped by the supermarket and bought a yogurt and returned to my office all alone. I went up to the roof one more time just to watch building Number 7 collapse. At that point, I knew that my apartment house would have no electricity, since that was where our power came from.

By darkness my office building was empty, but I had a little television, a computer with email access, a yogurt and a Camp Tarigo T shirt. So I used the T shirt as a pajama, put a sign on the door that I was sleeping there (I didn't know if the cleaning crew would come later that night and be scared by seeing me lying on the floor) and tried to go to sleep. I couldn't sleep. So I started writing emails all over the world of what happened. I fell asleep around 3 am and woke up at around 7 am.

I got dressed in the same clothes, got on my bicycle and started to ride down Broadway towards my apartment house. I wanted just to see that it was still standing and to try to get my medicines. As I approached Duane Street, Broadway started to turn white and the sidestreets looked like it snowed. The fire escapes were full of papers and it looked like a big ticker tape parade had been held in a snow storm. The dust started flying in my face as I rode and then I saw about 12 army men pointing their rifles at me. It reminded me of the picture of the girl putting a daisy into a rifle barrel, but I just got off my bike and started walking slowly to the military men in camouflage suits.

One started yelling at me that this area was under military control and that no one could go any further. I was standing at Broadway and Chambers Street and I pointed to my apartment house which is between Chambers and Warren Streets and asked if I go just go just 100 feet further and he said no.

I spotted a NYC police officer with a white shirt and I started to cry. I told him that I lived right across the street and I needed my colitis medicine and that it takes a week or so to get it sent to me and that I guess I was now homeless. He said okay, "You have 5 minutes" and he told the army man with the rifle to go with me. I asked him if he would go upstairs with me since the front door of my building was wide open and there was no electricity or lights in the hallways. But he declined when he realized that he would have to walk up 8 flights of stairs in the dark. So I started up. It was like the Poseidon Adventure movie. Some people were coming down the stairs as I went up. No one really stopped to talk.

I got to my door and opened it as I saw a beautiful winter wonderland scene. The dust sparkled in the light from the windows. White powder covered everything. I took one step inside and could see my footprint as I walked. I went to close the windows, I figured at least the dust would be able to settle a bit and went to get my medicines and empty the refrigerator of perishables, took a razor, vitamins and got some cash from my special hiding spot.

As a child I used to play what to take with you if the Nazis came. This time I left my passport and went for my deodorant stick. I also took out my camera and went up to the roof of my building to see if anything landed on it and what the area looked like. I took pictures of the white sidestreets and strangely enough the roof deck was all clean and not a flower disturbed. I guess the dust cloud was lower than 12 stories high when it got to Warren Street. I looked towards the Trade Center and the perfectly blue sky was broken by a white cloud. But the white cloud wasn't hanging in the sky, it was coming up from the ground. It was where the building once stood.

I carried my stuff downstairs and brought my perishables back to work to throw out north of Houston Street where I figured that a garbage truck would be able to get through. I was relieved to know that my house was still standing, but unsure of how many of my neighbors were still alive. It was then that the magnitude of the situation began to settle in.

I am not sure anymore if it was on the 11th or 12th, but I noticed a young boy from my apartment house walking alone near the gym. I asked where he was staying, and how his parents were. He had gotten separated and had no place to go. As we talked he saw a friend from his tennis group go by who lived in NYU housing. I matched them together and asked their parents to take him in and emailed the building management in case his parents contacted them. There were many little situations like that in the first few days.

By the second night I think I had spoken to my parents and I bought another yogurt and a can of tuna fish and had dinner and went to sleep. I stayed in my office until Rosh Hashanah when I went out to visit my folks for the holidays. Then I stayed in a bad hotel and then a nice one for a few weeks, until I started going home to clean up my place for a few hours every day until I felt safe to try to sleep there. By October I moved back in and by January I had all my utilities back on. I remember it was January 4, 2002 that my phone worked again.

We had no mail for months and had to go up to 34th Street and wait on line if we wanted mail. To this day, my post office is still closed. But we get mail on a regular basis… unfortunately. For months I had no bills or junk mail to schlep to my apartment.

By December the fires were out and I no longer cared which way the wind blowed. The burning odor was gone. Then we had months of wet streets and dust and noise and barricades. I felt like I lived in a gated community, since only people with ID's living in the area could get that close to the pit. I was in a hot spot of a frozen zone with Police as doormen. The name of the area was changing everyday. From the World Trade Center to ground zero, to the pile to the pit etc. Now it will a big construction site for the next 10 years.

When Century 21 reopened, when the subways reopened, and when I got my mail; I began getting a sense of normalcy. Then the tourists came by droves past my house. Some days it was hard to get my bike out of my house across the crowded sidewalks. It looked like Disneyland North.

My neighborhood took on a new importance in world history and everyone wanted to come and say that they were there. I just wanted to go home and figure out how to get my shopping done now that my main "mall" was destroyed.

My neighborhood used the World Trade Center as our local strip mall. I bought my homeowner's insurance there, my clothes and eye glasses. Borders, my local bookstore was only 4 short blocks from my house. All those people were gone, but I learned that most survived. I only know of a few people who died at the World Trade Center that day. So all and all I was quite fortunate.


I wrote the following article for a planning group newsletter, but it reflects my experiences after September 11, 2001

MY RETURN HOME TO NEAR "GROUND ZERO"

 Thanks to the new jargon of the day, I now live in a "hot spot" within a "frozen zone". For the past 21 years I have been an "urban pioneer" living near the World Trade Center (about 5 blocks to the northeast) and enjoying the quiet nights and being near the heart of old New York. Of course, my inconveniences are nothing when compared to those who have lost their loved ones, apartments, jobs, or the injured, but this article is to let the GALIP readers know what's happening to the residents near "Ground Zero".

First, you still need identification to prove that you live south of Chambers Street to be able to get through the various checkpoints. This means that friends, taxis, cars, and deliveries are excluded. But at least most residents are being allowed to return home. Temporary utility lines have been installed to give most residents power. The electric lines (and phone lines) were placed over the sidewalk and then hidden under wooden slabs. There are now thousands of tourists walking over these conduits without even noticing it.

Just as the United States has reconsidered it's stance and now appreciates New York City and even considers it part of America, I think that I am re-evaluating the need for tourists. Seeing those red double-decker tourist buses empty did send a chill down my back. Going to bars with only local faces can also be a bumber. Now I only wish that the "gawker tourists" who are coming down to see the destruction will take the effort to enter a small store and buy something. The crowds on the sidewalk are so great that those stores that are open are still losing income. The stores that have been closed for a month without insurance may not be re-opening. This will be a problem that landlords and shopkeepers will have to negotiate. What do you do when the government places you in a frozen zone where no one can come to see you?

Even after three weeks, when the winds change you still get a strong smell of burning rubber. The streets are being kept wet to keep the dust from rising. But the air outside is still cleaner than in my apartment. I still keep fans and air purifiers running. At night, ground zero glows like a movie set with bright white lights and a foggy mist, as heavy construction equipment goes up and down the streets.

Except for the subways (and Path) that will be out of service for probably a year, the rest of the neighborhood outside of the "hot spot" is coming back to life. We now have mail delivery, and phone service has returned to some people on my block. I will have to get cable television after living here for 21 years. The TV stations used to be broadcast from the World Trade Center so I used to have wonderful reception.

The problem areas will be Battery Park City (that has become an isolated community), the local economy, and overall morale. I predict that by Christmas my neighborhood will be back (except for Battery Park City) to where it was a few years ago with one big exception. There will be a large construction project going on day and night on the west side. Crowds will return and if the merchants can hold on, things will be okay by next year.

I'd like to invite all of the NYC area GALIP members to my apartment in January 2002 for a Downtown Manhattan Rebirth Party so that we can get to know each other better as GALIP members and can see for yourself how NYC is coming back. I hope by then that the frozen zone will melt and I won't be in a hot spot so people can come south of Chambers Street to visit.



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