9/11 Attack, 2001 SEVS

From MemoryArchive

Who: Sevs
What: 9/11 Attack
When: 9/11/2001
Where: NYC

I got out of the L train on 6th Ave & 14th street. I didn’t notice anything as I went to open the door to the store I worked at. Once inside I realized that there were more people than usual in the street and they weren’t walking they were standing and staring.

So I went outside to see what they were looking at, at first I still couldn’t see anything (a building was blocking my view downtown), it wasn’t till I crossed the street I could see the World Trade Center was on fire. I thought “Holy shit the building's on fire!” Then I saw a co-worker and they said they saw a plane hit the building when they were crossing the Brooklyn Bridge (he rode a bicycle to work). Most people in the street were talking about that fact, was it on fire or did a plane really hit the building? I went inside the store where I worked and turned on the radio;that’s when we heard all the reports. Then oddly enough I got a call from my mom asking if I was alright and if a saw what was going on. This is strange because all the phones were not really working, ground lines were working a little bit you would have to dial about 4 times to get thorough – cell phones, forget it. I knew the whole thing was not good when I heard the reports of the Pentagon being hit also.

After some time I went out into the street and was watching the building burn and sparkles falling from the building (I guess it was all the glass). As I was standing there I could hear a noise, a mixture of people gasping and an engine sound. I realized I had just seen another plane hit the second tower.

I stood there shocked. That’s when we decided to lock up the store and everyone try to get home. Word was getting out that the trains were shut down; luckily I worked in a bike store and everyone took a bike to get home. On the other hand we were being rushed in the store from people wanting to buy bikes, but there was not really anything we could do because the power was out, so no credit card machine, etc. I decided to try and pick up my roommate who worked on 59 Street and Lexington. The streets were packed with people trying to get out of the city, I felt like I was in a movie, it was very surreal. I really couldn’t ride the bike that much because the streets were so packed with people. When I finally got uptown my roommate was crying but she was happy to see me. What normally would be a 15 minute bike ride took me 2 hours.

We were trying to decide if we should stay in Central Park or make our way to Brooklyn. I remember crossing the Queens Borough Bridge with a million other people and the Twin Towers on fire in the background. Again very surreal. Once in Queens people were great. People were outside their homes handing out water. We were also very lucky because the G train was running. We hopped on and got very close to our home, from there we rode a bike the rest of the way (I towed her on the BMX pegs). When we got home we sat on the roof and watched the city burning. We didn’t have any TV; the towers for the stations were on the Twin Towers.