What I saw from 5th Avenue and 10th at 09:59 09/11/2001

Everyone has their own 9/11 story - here's mine.

I was 18 years old on September 11th, 2001. I was new to New York and had just started my freshman year at NYU. I had moved to the city less than two weeks earlier.

Me circa early September 2001, on the free IKEA bus

I happened to be "accidentally" running late to my Tuesday morning 8:45AM Statistics class (which I hated) and heard a ruckus around Washington Square Park, then saw crowds of people running towards 5th Avenue (which afforded a direct line of sight to the two WTC towers). So I followed them.

I was less than 20 blocks away, standing in the middle of the intersection of 5th and 10th Street, looking down the avenue. I made it there shortly after the second plane hit, which seemed to be the moment at which the collective emotion changed from curiosity and concern to panic and terror - because at that point it had become clear that some sort of deliberate attack on a massive scale was taking place.

About 45 minutes later, an enormous grey cloud seemed to engulf the top of the South Tower. I couldn't quite comprehend what I was seeing and initially thought that the cloud was just smoke from the fire billowing upward. I could not tell, in the first few seconds, that the entire building...the ENTIRE 103 floors, a city unto itself...had collapsed. Things only clicked when I not so much as heard but felt a great upward pressure coming from beneath my feet. There was a deep, subliminal rolling BOOM like an earthquake that seemed to go on and on forever - it must have been at least 30 seconds - as, up ahead and terrifyingly close, huge sheets of steel and glass peeled away and the shockwave surged up the avenue.

Chaos erupted. People screamed and scattered. The majority fled north. I think we all believed that the entire island of Manhattan was about to go up in flames. Frozen for a few moments, I stared at a man to my left who stood on the corner, transfixed in horror, yelling over and over again to no one in particular, "OH SHIT NO. OH SHIT NO."

I ran west, back to my NYU dorm - I was panicking and it was the only safe place I could think of. I arrived to find the lobby of the building crammed wall-to-wall with bodies, most of whom were not students but regular people from off the street. Ashen and sweating we crowded around the large flatscreen TV, too stricken for words or comforting gestures. It was only a few more minutes before we watched, together, as the second tower fell on live television, its majestic antenna descending slowly to the ground like the mast of a sinking ship

Washington Square Park, exactly 16 blocks from Ground Zero, was literally my doorstep. By nightfall the air was hazy with dust; the stench of smoke and burning plastic was everywhere and it smelled sour, like death. Oceans of candles and flowers lay on the ground. People wandered around aimlessly, in a daze. But what really got me were the fences. Overnight, the chainlink gates had been wallpapered in photographs and posters: "MISSING." "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?" "THIS IS MY WIFE. PLEASE CALL." I thought of the South Tower and what I had seen, the way it looked and the sound it had made as it fell. Even though rescue efforts were frantically underway, I knew in my heart they would never find anyone alive in there. How could they?

The next day I tried to make my way south on foot, where I was turned away at Canal Street by an MP with a dog and a machine gun. In all my 18 years as a sheltered suburban little white girl I had never seen an MP with a dog and a machine gun before, and so I stood there for a second, staring at him. He stared back at me. I was alone and astonished. He probably thought I was 12. "You have to turn around," he said at last, and after a second added - sadly, almost affectionately - "...hon." He sounded like he might have been from the south.

The entire area below 14th Street had been evacuated of all vehicular traffic, so I wandered back up right smack the middle of Broadway. It didn't matter. No one was there. Everything was empty. Everything had changed.

Lower Broadway reopened to vehicle traffic - Ground Zero cloud in the distance

Photos from Washington Square