| I'm asking you to indulge me so I can tell you my experience of 9/11/01.
I was a recent college graduate, working on my second paid campaign, a race for a City Council seat in Manhattan. The district was the First Councilmanic District, which includes most of lower Manhattan - Battery Park, Tribeca, Wall Street, Lower East Side, Chinatown, Little Italy, SoHo, and small slivers of the East Village, Greenwich Village and the West Village.
9/11 was Primary Day.
That meant that the night before we had to make sure we had the following things done: money to pay the field workers hired to hand out the palm cards; that the palm cards were stacked in stacks of 50 and ready to be handed out to workers; and that everyone knew their responsibilities for the day.
I was dispatched around 6 PM on 9/10 to go get the money for the workers from the candidate, who was at her apartment. I was told to take a cab, so I would be back quicker. Unfortunately, after I got the money, I couldn't find a cab anywhere in Tribeca. So I'm walking down to the World Trade Center with thousands of dollars in my pocket so I can catch a train back to the campaign HQ, which was on the corner of Broadway and Houston Street. I remember walking through the mall that was on the first floor, marveling that it was so empty that night at such an early hour.
Once I got back to the campaign HQ, I made sure the palm cards were ready to go, a task that wasn't finished until nearly midnight. I went back to my brother's apartment to crash for a total of 4 hours before getting up to start the GOTV program.
I got up at 4:30 AM, and made it to the office at 5 AM. I was a Field Captain, responsible for making sure the poll workers were doing their jobs at a cluster of polling locations not too far from the campaign HQ.
Around 8:45 AM, I was walking past a polling location located in the basement of a St. Anthony's church on Sullivan St. I heard an explosion. Like everyone else, I looked up ... and saw a fireball in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. I immediately called the office, and one of our staffers, Blanca, answered. Blanca was one of my favorite people on that campaign ... she's a 4'11" dynamo. I told her that the election was likely going to be postponed ... She, not knowing what had just happened, laughed. My response was a bit harsh, but I said, "Blanca, go down the hall and go into the consultant's office, where you can see the WTC. You'll see a burning hole." I don't think she hung up ... I think she just dropped the phone and took off running.
Right after that phone call, a woman came up to me and asked to use my phone to call her husband. I just handed her the phone.
Then I got a call from the Field Director, my brother Rodd, telling me to make sure that my people were still working, that they were okay, and that they had water. So I walked a couple blocks north of Houston St over to the Children's Aid Society on Sullivan Street, where there was another polling station. While I was talking to the poll worker, I heard a woman scream in a way I hope I never hear again ... it was a blood-curdling scream of pure fright ... and I whipped my head around ... to see the second plane dip its wings into the South Tower.
At that point, I helped calm down the polling worker, helped him call his wife to let her know he was okay, and then went to the campaign HQ to find out what to do, as I couldn't make a call on my phone. Strangely enough, I could receive calls. And my mom called to make sure I, along with Rodd, was okay. I said I was ... and that Rodd was too, since we were almost a mile from the WTC.
For some reason, I had the urge to call my friend Danny. Danny, at that time, was working at our alma mater, Providence College, as an Admissions Recruiter. Of course, I didn't get him ... I got his voice mail. I left him the following message - "Danny, it's Ryan. Let everyone know I'm okay ... and do me a favor. Go to the Chapel and pray."
That was the last call I would be able to make on my cell phone in NYC for a couple of weeks. When I got back to the office, the campaign staff regrouped, and determined that we should make sure our poll workers were okay. We had something like 150 people on the street, including some that were mere blocks from the WTC. So all the field captains were told to go to their polling locations, and tell their people to head back to the Campaign HQ to get paid before heading home. It took me 2 and a half hours to do that.
As I was getting to my first polling location, I saw Asian tourists snapping photos of themselves with the burning Towers in the background. Moments later, I saw the first tower fall. I remember seeing one of the candidates running for the Council seat, Brad Hoylman, go running down the street to see what was happening once we heard and felt the rumbling of the first tower to fall. Folks were in absolute shock at that point.
The landmarks that we all used to orient ourselves in Lower Manhattan was missing a tower. Hundreds, if not thousands, had just died before our eyes.
Later, as I was trying to find my poll workers, and being VERY unsuccessful ... as it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. The streets of Manhattan were jammed with people milling about, crying, hugging, screaming. Folks were spreading rumors they were hearing on the news from person to person ... San Francisco had been attacked. Chicago had been attacked. The Pentagon had been attacked. I still trudged to all my polling locations, especially the one all the way down 6th Avenue, as it was the closest polling location I had closest to the WTC, probably 10 to 15 blocks away.
I don't recall seeing the second tower fall. All I remember is seeing it not there. When I got back to the campaign HQ, I saw one of our field workers ... covered in soot. He had been two blocks away from the first Tower when it fell. It took him almost 4 hours to get to the campaign HQ. The worst part of it all was he lived in the Bronx, some 220 blocks north from where the campaign HQ was. The island of Manhattan was in lockdown mode. The cabs were nowhere to be found. The subway wasn't running. The planes were not flying overhead. There was no one driving cars. The vehicles on the road were that of the police, the firefighters and the EMT's. The only way to get off the island was to walk off, or take the ferry across the Hudson River to New Jersey. Nothing was coming into the city.
The next day, my brother and I went to get breakfast at the diner down the street. We tried to find a paper so we could read it, but as soon as they were put out for sale, they were snatched up. Even the Italian newspapers that some newstands sold were gone! We met up with some friends and walked down to the Tower. The closest we could get was 5 blocks away. So we walked over to the West Side Highway, where we cheered all the fire trucks making their way down to find survivors.
I didn't get out of Manhattan until that night, when I went to my parent's house in New Rochelle by train. It was free. There was no one on it. And the normally bustling train station in New Rochelle, with hundreds of folks waiting to take the train into the city, was deserted. And the newspaper machines were full. No one had come to the train station that day. So I bought one, so I could read it. I still have it. |
