My 9/11 Experience — 20 years later
By: Jennifer M Ludden
Tags: New York, NYC, September 11, Life, Remembering

One person’s recollection of something she has spent two decades trying to leave in the past.

The morning was clear and sunny, and from the moment I stepped through the door at the top of the brownstone’s stoop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn I decided that I would walk through the park near my apartment to hop on the L train to get to my temp job in the Financial District, instead of catching the closer G subway line, which would connect to the A train and put the longer walk through the giant skyscrapers on Lower Manhattan. I put my headphones on and enjoyed the weather as the U2’s Beautiful Day album became my morning soundtrack while I walked through Greenpoint and into Williamsburg to catch the L train.

Humanity squeezed in to metal tubes hurtling themselves through concrete tunnels under the Hudson and below the city buildings. In the last year, the subway had become routine to me. I was constantly running up and down steps, listening to buskers playing their varied instruments, waiting for trains, grabbing the poles at uncomfortable angles, and spending time in a sea of people who didn’t say much to each other. I was managing to barely pay my bills by bartending and doing oﬃce admin temp work throughout the city, which meant that I had learned the whole subway system very quickly. I transferred from the L train to the 4/5/6 train headed downtown. The train arrived at the Fulton Street station, and I quickly walked out to the platform and then up the concrete steps. When I walked onto the street the world seemed slightly askew. Everyone was looking up and behind me. I turned around and looked up myself. The sun glinted oﬀ the sides of the buildings and there were papers falling from the sky. I heard someone say something about a plane or helicopter, but it didn’t make logical sense to me. Did someone manage to fly a helicopter around downtown Manhattan and throw ads from it? That could make sense, not necessarily sane, but definitely plausible.

I needed get to work. Today was my second day at an Israeli-based computer company named Camelot. I was covering for the company’s receptionist who was out on vacation for the week, and the task was pretty simple — answer the phone, push the buttons, use the phone extension list. My Midwest work ethic told me that I didn’t want to be late.

As I walked the block to the oﬃce, I called my mom who was at her work in Illinois. I told her “Hey momma. There’s something going on here, but I’m not sure what it is. You should turn on the news.”

“Are you okay?” She asked.

My mom wasn’t the biggest fan of me moving to New York, so I tried to keep my voice steady despite the concern growing in my gut. “Yeah. I’m fine. I’m just here in downtown going to my temp job. I’ll find out what’s happening when I get there. I’ll call you later. Gotta go. Love you.”

“Love you too, sweetie.”

I snapped my phone closed and entered the glass doors of the skyscraper’s lobby. People were scurrying in and out, chattering with questions and comments. I entered the elevator and pushed “9” while checking my watch to make sure I wasn’t late. When I entered the chaos in the oﬃce, nobody cared about my punctuality. A group of people were gathered around the receptionist’s desk, and the phone was ringing oﬀ the hook. One of the company’s managers was manning the phones, and she was not about to make me deal with the calls coming in. As she answered call after call I could hear her talking to spouses that were calling to see if their significant other had made it to the oﬃce yet, and corporate owners were calling from the other side of the world to check on everyone. Piece by piece, things began to take shape.

The internet didn’t work. Cell phone reception was spotty. A co-worker arrived to explain that he’d seen a plane with “American” written on the side hit one of the Trade Center towers. People kept asking questions, trying to make sense, hoping to talk him out of the facts he knew to be true. Nothing changed what he saw.

From behind came the high squeal of a jet plane which is usually reserved for runway landings. The sound passed over us, and then an earthquake followed. The building shook and we held our breath. Our view was blocked by the tall buildings surrounding us, and the man who had seen “American” ran outside to see what was happening and promised to report back. I was frozen with uncertainty. Part of me was anxious to run and help, find out what was happening, get to the problem and help fix it. But something else held me in my place. Even though I wanted to move, I felt like I had hands on my shoulders keeping me still, and I reasoned to myself that I should stay in case these Camelot people needed my help. I watched people trying to tune in to radio stations, get the internet to work, and talk to concerned family members. I stood there helpless. Then another sound came rolling in.

It was a low rumble that grew louder and closer, and a shadow crept toward us reflected in the sides of the buildings surrounding us. A woman screamed “We’re all gonna die!” She ran past me towards the stairs. I calmly turned and followed her, as did many others. Looking back, nine flights of stairs isn’t too bad, especially in comparison with the 100 flights of stairs others had to traverse in the Towers. When I arrived back in the building lobby, outside the glass wall the world was grey. A thick cloud hovered. We halted. The lobby door opened, and a woman covered in ash and dirt came in. And then a man, and another man, and one more woman. They found their way to the fountain in the lobby and began to remove the ash from their skin. The upper floors streamed into the lobby and we all stared at the cloud outside. I came to the realization I might not be able to get back to Brooklyn. My friend Christy lived on Manhattan — the Upper East Side, which was a long walk, but nonetheless had no bridges or tunnels to cross. My cell phone had signal, and I managed to reach her. She wasn’t sure whether she would have to go to work, so she told me she’d call me back after she talked to her boss. My cell phone didn’t work any more that day.

The people filling the lobby had no clue the extent of what was happening, but it didn’t stop everyone from guessing and trying to figure it out.

Could everyone have made it out? Of course. I hope so. Where will we go? How long should we stay? It can’t have been real planes.

A few fire fighters in full gear walked in and talked to the security guard. The security guard asked everyone to prepare for evacuation. When the fire fighters turned to leave, there was another rumbling, and people were running down the street in front of the glass wall as the cloud returned to chase them down and envelop them. The fire department ran into the cloud. Part of me wanted to go with them. Maybe I could stop it. Maybe I could help.

Some people were crying, but I just sat quiet in stunned silence. Words weren’t enough. Someone decided that it would be safe to return upstairs, so we did. We tried the internet. We answered the phone. We waited. Evacuation time arrived, and a tall husky man from the oﬃce told me he needed to go to Brooklyn and would walk with me. He handed me a navy blue baseball cap that read “Camelot” in white letters, explaining that I could use it to cover my hair from the dust cloud, and also suggested I use my black sweater to cover my mouth from breathing in whatever was in the air. I walked back down the stairs and out the front door of the lobby with these strangers. I stopped and looked left, toward the place where all the ash and dust emanated. I wanted to go left. I wanted to know for myself. I wanted to heal, to help, to save, do something to make anything different. I turned right instead. I still regret that right turn even though it was probably for the best. The tall man and I followed the line of people from all over downtown walking toward the Manhattan bridge, some of whom were covered head to toe in ash and debris.

The Manhattan bridge was a full, steady stream of people. Like a mantra, I kept

thinking “Did everyone get out? I hope they got out. They could’ve got out.” Many people on the bridge were cursed with the same question, wondering it aloud to each other. The sound of another plane appeared, it was oﬀ to my right headed from downtown toward uptown. It was moving fast and I wondered if this plane would hit the bridge, which was clearly visible and packed with people. And, if that didn’t kill me, whatever was in the Hudson River after I fell into it certainly would. A fighter jet appeared above and I did not fall in to the Hudson river. Sharp relief washed over me for a moment until I looked back to the smoke filling the air of lower Manhattan. It looked like two smokestacks I would have seen at a midwest factory in my childhood. And despite the sweater over my face, the smell of burning metal overpowered my senses. I turned my back to the nightmare and continued over the bridge.

When we reached the other side, I parted ways with the tall, Camelot man. I never saw him again. I found a G train stop that would get me close to home. As I walked into this station, I was leery and anxious, worried that the subways may be compromised too, but I got on the train anyway. I arrived at the Greenpoint station stop I avoided earlier in the day, and walked 3 blocks home, up the stoop and the stairs to the 2nd floor apartment, through the door and straight to the phone. The land line was working; I called my mom at her work. Her receptionist answered and all I could muster was “Can I talk to my mom?” She transferred me immediately. My mom was relieved, she thought I would have been in the middle of it all, helping people when everything fell down, and I thought “So did I. Why wasn’t I?” I didn’t tell her that, though. I was happy to ease her mind, but then I couldn’t talk about it any more and we hung up. I just didn’t have words to explain what happened or how I felt. So I stopped feeling for awhile. I didn’t know what to do. I was home alone and couldn’t reach my two roommates so I decided to do something sensible with my time and focused on my pile of laundry — I gathered it, walked down the block to the laundromat, and when I turned the corner I saw that the street outside the laundromat oﬀered a straight view of what was left of the towers. Once I got settled in to the regularity of the laundry, I found myself drawn back out to the street while I waited for the washer to finish. I stared at the dust clouds that hovered where the towers used to be. At the time, I thought just the tops had fallen off. The dust was in such a tight column, it was like the ghost of the towers hung around to confuse everyone. It was a few more hours before I found out that everything had collapsed.

For days the count of the dead fluctuated. Photos and flyers with missing people and phone numbers of their loved ones lined parks and message boards throughout the city, and Union Square turned into the hub of searching and remembering. People lit candles, and strangers comforted each other. Everyone — strangers, friends, co-workers, bodega buyers and sellers, and subway riders — they all communicated honestly and thoughtfully as we made our way through the weeks that followed, checking in on whether any family or friends were unaccounted for, sharing stories of the experience, and being constantly kind to all fellow New Yorkers. Remarkably, it was a tragic and magical time in the city. There was a love on everyone’s sleeve born from the terror and disaster of that day.

I’ve carried this story and experience with me for 20 years. I always wanted to share it, but never really felt comfortable doing so. It’s a real conversation stopper, and how often do any of us want to talk about the most traumatic experiences of our life? I’ve shared it here and there, usually if asked or to help someone understand some of the quirks that came from that day, like how I can’t stand the smell of burning metal, low flying planes make me jump, and I am almost always on alert for the possibility of disaster. Every thing that happens to us becomes a part of us, our own personal story whether we talk about it or not. And the other part of the story that I haven’t been telling involves quite a few “what ifs” that have haunted me for 20 years. If I had taken the other train that morning, I would have taken the G train to the A train and gotten oﬀ at the stop under the World Trade Center at the same time as the planes hit. If I had left the oﬃce after the second plane hit, and before the towers fell, would it have fallen on me? If I had turned left instead of right during evacuation, would I have been injured, could I have helped someone, would I have seen things that would completely change the person I am today, for good or bad? I will never stop wondering did I let myself down, or did I save myself?