From Nine Years Ago

September 14, 2001

I thought I'd let some of you know about my day yesterday.

I went into the city early for a 7:30 AM appointment with a patient. Walking down Lexington from Grand Central I could see the smoke. The patient didn't show up and I still haven't been able to connect with him. He's relatively new, an investment banker, and I realize I don't know where his office is. A couple came in at 8:15 for their appointment. He had seen the first plane hit and was obviously traumatized. They left at 9:15, and I didn't have any more appointments until 5:30 in the afternoon. All morning long I had been hearing sirens.

So I went for a walk. The first thing that I encountered was a block from my office, on 34th Street, where a convoy of some ten army vehicles were heading west. I headed downtown and crosstown, knowing that there were police barricades at 14th Street. When I got to Sixth Avenue, I got my first live view of the smoke-filled void. Those of you who are familiar with the city and have been around know what that feels like. I remember when I visited New York for the first time as a nine-year-old child, the Twin Towers were under construction, half-way high. In the years since I've lived in and around New York I've become quite accustomed to turning a corner here or walking down a street there and having them be a part of the landscape. The void is real.

Of course I was like all the other obnoxious New Yorkers with their cell phones and I was talking on it as I was going down the street. Engrossed by what I was witnessing and the conversation I was having on the phone, all of a sudden I realized that I had crossed 14th Street and gone through a police barricade without evening realizing it. The police were supposed to stop everyone and only let residents and emergency workers south of there, but in my jeans and preppy shirt I guess I just blended in with everyone and no one stopped me.

So further south I went. Now things were substantially different in that there were no cars or trucks driving around, except for emergency vehicles with flashing lights. There were few people on the street, mostly local residents who were out and trying to live their lives. People walking their dogs. Some shops were open, mostly corner delis and small restaurants. The smoke ever billowed before me as I went. I reached Houston Street, the second police checkpoint after the one at 14th. It was clear these guys were more intent on keeping people out. Appropriately. So I decided to walk to both ends of Houston and just see what was up. The street itself, one of the few two-way streets in Manhattan, is separated with a median running down the middle. On one side of the median, block after block, large dump trucks were parked. On the other side, again block after block, were refrigerated trailers -- as in tractor-trailers. Police were everywhere -- not just NYPD, but from all over the country. Soldiers or guardsmen with automatic rifles were visible. I walked to West Street, which runs along the Hudson River. There was a huge staging area for the emergency workers and volunteers at Pier 40 at the end of Houston. It was here that I got the view that is so familiar to us all of the New York skyline -- without the towers. I walked out to the median in the middle of West Street and just stood, stunned, watching the smoke rise above downtown. Behind me there was a group of police stopping all sorts of vehicles -- cars with flashing lights, police cars, dump trucks, supply trucks, busses filled with firemen. Each was stopped, some searched, some cars turned away. I watched as a group of firemen from somewhere -- there jackets said PRFD -- got out of a station wagon and came out to the median, waiting for a bus with some room to take them down to Ground Zero, as it's being called. Other trucks and busses would come back up on the other side from downtown -- busses empty, trucks filled with pieces of what used to be a building. As one person was quoted saying in the newspaper, "I never expected to see the World Trade Center go by me down the street."

I stood there for fifteen minutes or so. I wasn't alone. One guy was on his cell phone. I stayed off mine because there was something about being there that felt sacred. Other people were taking pictures -- press perhaps. Others were I suspect from the neighborhood, just out feeling I imagine as stunned as I did.

Then she arrived. Early twenties I suspect. I didn't notice her at first, but then I noticed that as some of the trucks were coming back up from the site, she would hold up a sheet of paper with the picture of someone on it. She would hold it up high, wanting the drivers to see the picture. She had a ream of paper, all with a copy of this picture of who, her sister? a friend? I don't know who the woman in the picture was, but she was beautiful, young, blond. Her nickname, according to what I saw on the paper as the woman came to the other side of the median to show the picture to the passing busses filled with firemen, her nickname was "Maggie." And she worked on the 96th floor of Tower 1.

I had to leave. I started back up Houston. It was noon. I was hungry. I needed not only food, I needed something familiar, something that felt okay. Dew Drop Inn. Great place on Greenwich Avenue. One of my favorites. I headed for it. Still no traffic, nowhere in Greenwich Village. Most shops were closed but some where open. The Dew Drop Inn was not. So I headed back north, bought a paper, went through the 14th Street barricade, and re-entered the free world. I was on Seventh Avenue, right at St. Vincent's Hospital, the primary ER for all of this. There were news trucks with their satellite dishes everywhere. One truck was covered with flyers like the ones the woman had on West Street. In fact, there was "Maggie" taped to the side of the truck. I would discover for the rest of the day that signs like these of missing people were up all over the city. I was close to Maryanne's. The first time I went to Maryanne's for Mexican food was 17 years ago when I was in seminary. Seemed like a good place to go back to.

Finishing lunch I realized I was close to St. Peter's Episcopal Church. The rector there, Dennis Winslow, is a good friend. He and his partner Mark live in a great apartment on the Jersey side of the Hudson. I had heard that they had heard the first plane come in low, and went out on their balcony and watched the whole thing. I was wondering how they were holding up, so I walked a few short blocks over to the church to see if Dennis was there. He was. He and Mark were having lunch, and were getting ready to return to the Seamen's Church Institute, a great old outreach agency downtown. In the middle of it. They said the institute was open to emergency workers, giving meals, water, a place to rest. What the institute didn't have was electricity, so they couldn't photocopy the flyer they had to get word out to the thousands of rescue workers telling them they were open for business. So Dennis had copied the flyer on the church copier. And they had some big boxes of candles and other supplies that they were taking downtown. They asked me if I wanted to go. I declined. I helped them load their van with the supplies, and then changed my mind. I decided to go. And so I'm heading back downtown, this time in a car.

As we anticipated getting to the checkpoint at 14th Street, I told them that if there was any problem I would get out and let them go on their way. They were both wearing clerical collars, which often works as a passport. The sexton from the parish was in the car with us. At Union Square, 14th Street and Broadway, we hit the first check point. Our ID's were all checked, Dennis told the police what we were up to, and they waved us through. Heading down Broadway, we were on the other side of town from where I had been earlier. We were downwind. The smoke hung over lower Broadway like fog. It smelled --reminding me of the rare times I've smelled a burning home. Somebody behind us -- the only other vehicle moving on lower Broadway besides us -- blew their siren to get by. At Houston Street again we had to go through a checkpoint. After the second checkpoint there were even fewer cars and people on the street. Like a ghost town. And yet I saw a woman, wearing a face mask so as not to breathe the dust, walking her dog, which did not have a face mask.

At Canal Street, we came to the third checkpoint.

I am blessed to be too young to have been drafted into Vietnam, and too old to have volunteered for the Persian Gulf. But I can sadly say that I have now been to a war zone.

Below Canal, everything began to be a little active again. There were people in the streets, clearly residents of the neighborhood, most wearing face masks or bandanas. Emergency vehicles were everywhere. Lots of people in camouflage with guns. Flags were flying. The air was thick with smoke and dust. Tension was palpable. And yet, at the same time, because it all of a sudden was so real and so immediate, there was not a sense of fear. People were doing their jobs.

We arrived at the Seamen's Church Institute and unloaded the van. Their appreciation of what we brought was filled with joy, and yet that appreciation was immediately followed by "Can you get us some hamburger and hot dog buns? Also, we need Advil, Tylenol..." and the list grew.

But first we had another task to do. We were to distribute the flyers. We were joined by a woman from General Seminary who had been volunteering down there. The four of us grabbed masks, and went out to pass out flyers and get them to the command centers. We got as far as Wall Street, but there we encountered huge numbers of workers standing around, looking. It seemed that they had evacuated "the pit" because of fears that One Liberty Plaza – a 55-story building -- was about to fall. We also discovered that word had spread around about the Seaman's Institute, and that for the current shift they didn't need the flyers. We decided to go back, and people later could spread the word for later shifts. No one was working at the moment, and so we headed back to the Institute.

Lots of firemen, police, and other rescue workers came through. They looked tired. They looked numb. They were grateful for a place for a rest. The people at Seamen's Institute welcomed them as if they were welcoming them into their homes. Truly astonishing. Hospitality in the middle of hell.

Dennis and Mark were going shopping. I needed to get back to my office. My 5:30 was to be a phone session with a hospital chaplain. I had two hours to walk the six or so miles back uptown. Passing through the checkpoints heading uptown was no problem. When I got to the twenties or so, I noticed people were looking at me strangely, and then realized I had a very dusty face mask on the top of my head.

Three sessions. What should have been a "light" day was capped off by one more intense experience, this one rather wonderful. As the Metro-North train pulled into the station at 125th Street on its way back to the comfort of the suburbs, a half dozen firemen got on the train, carrying their equipment, going back to whatever town they came from. And the entire car of passengers burst into applause.

I'm lucky. So far I don't know of anyone who I know who was in this hell. I'm lucky. The comfort of my life is not significantly challenged by these events. I'm lucky. I could go to that hell and then leave. And yet I know I do not even begin to know how much my life may have changed. I was interviewed this afternoon by the communications director of the Diocese of Connecticut for our diocesan paper, and she asked me if I was angry. A little. But not really. Not much. I'm still, like all of us, much too numb.

As I write this a woman is on Channel 5 with a picture of her husband who worked on the 107th floor. She just gave her home phone number if anyone might know anything. How can we not be numb? The alternative is too overwhelming.