by
Steve Lazarowitz
October 2001
A TRIBUTE
On Tuesday September 11, 2001, the two tallest buildings in New York City were destroyed when two hijacked passenger jets were intentionally flown into them.
This is not a hard sentence to type. It is almost an impossible sentence to digest.
I live in New York City. I have been to the World Trade Center many times. The Twin Towers were the cornerstone of the famous New York skyline. When he was alive, my father worked out of an office there. More recently, I dealt with an attorney in one of the buildings. I had recently purchased tickets to see Riverdance there, at the second floor Tickets location. A man I know owned a jewelry store on the concourse, which was destroyed along with the rest of the building. He was nearby at his Nassau Street location, only a couple of blocks away, when the towers fell. Close enough to see it, feel it, hear it. He shared his experience with me and I felt a fraction of his fear and pain.
It was like a black blizzard. The overused cliché, he couldn't see his hand before his face, was literally true. He ran into his store, took rolls of paper towels, wet them and stuffed them under the door to keep the smoke out. He stuffed more around the rest of the perimeter. Some time later, when he tried to open the gate, four women slid under it, struggling to stay out of harm's way. He closed it quickly, fearing a riot if he left it open longer. The women were covered with soot. Everything was. When it was over, nine inches of soot covered every inch of sidewalk, buried cars. Chucks of stone and metal rained from the skies. Many that managed to escape the fires, perished in the minutes the followed the collapse.
This is the single largest terrorist attack ever perpetrated in the United States. It left in its wake corpses, injuries, grief, anger and despair. Yet for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
People waited on line across the country, and even in other countries, as much as eight hours to donate blood. Forces were mobilized. Volunteers were everywhere, working round the clock to try to rescue the few survivors trapped in the rubble. The United States of America, in fact the entire world, has been drawn together in a way that nothing less could have accomplished. Sort of like the family members you only see at funerals.
A state of emergency was declared. How appropriate that the attack took place on 9/11, the very telephone number we call to report emergencies. A bit of synchronicity in a day filled with a few brave escapes, but dominated primarily by tragedy.
Perhaps they will rebuild the World Trade Center, but they can not take away our lost innocence. Terrorism was something that didn't happen here. It happened in third world countries. It happened in Europe. It happened in the Middle East. Not here. Not on American Soil. We were comfortable in our isolation, but no longer.
We can not close our eyes again. Sometimes at night, I hear a siren and wonder if something was blown up. Sometimes I close my eyes and see the image of a jet flying into one of the two towers and exploding. Or the images of people leaping to their deaths, to avoid being burned alive. Or the images of dead police officers and firefighters who gave their lives to save others.
September 11, 2001 changed the lives of countless millions of people. There were more planes. More targets. One of the planes crashed in Pennsylvania. The passengers learned via cell phone what had happened to the other planes, they fought and the plane went down. At least, that's the story the media has pieced together. If true, the passengers on that flight are heroes, but will never receive the medals they so richly deserve.
Life must go on. Life will go on. We try to put this behind us, but it will never truly be behind us. Not at least, in this generation. For no one that has lived through it, will ever again feel secure crossing a bridge or attending a baseball game.
I will still cross bridges and go to games. I will not let the terrorists win. I have something they do not have. I have courage.
September 11th 2001 will live forever in my mind as an ending and a beginning. We have suffered an assault. We have woken up. The United States is now part of the world, for better or worse, in a way it has never been before.
It was entirely too high a price to pay, but it is important not to forget that no event is entirely bad. There is always something that may be salvaged. Even the phoenix rose from the ashes. So too shall we rise from this event, bleeding and battered, but standing prouder and stronger than ever before.
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