A Journalist in Times Square
I wrote this email to my goddaughter, who grew up in California, on August 28, 2006. She was 10 years old at the time, and she had asked me where I was on September 11, 2001.
So on Sept. 11 I woke up early so I could go vote that morning. I did not turn the TV on since I wanted to get out of the house soon. I walked to the polling station (where you vote) and voted. Then I took the train to work, as I always did. [I lived then on West 176th Street in Washington Heights, one of the northernmost neighborhoods of Manhattan—I had grown up in the Bronx. I worked at Urban Latino magazine, down on Varick Street in the West Village, about 30 blocks from the World Trade Center. That meant I had to traverse the length of the island daily.]
When I got about halfway down on my way, we stopped at one of the stations along 42nd Street, which is the center of the city. The conductor announced that the train was being held in the station because a small airplane had crashed onto the antenna of the World Trade Center. All the passengers in the car started grumbling since we were all going to be late for work. So I decided to get out onto the street and take a taxi the rest of the way.
When I got up on the surface there were a lot of people walking in every direction and many of them huddled in groups talking about something major that had just happened. Then I saw some people, especially women, running up the street away from downtown. So I got nervous and checked how much money I had in my wallet. Exactly $2! Not enough to get me to work or home. So I started walking toward the bank, which was closer to the center of Times Square.
As I got closer to Times Square there were many more people in the area—thousands—and traffic had stopped. Everyone was looking up at the giant television monitors on the sides of the buildings in Times Square. CNN was on and they were showing video of a plane hitting one of the towers. I was stunned. It was so surreal and unbelievable. And it was happening about 50 blocks away from where I was standing.