Next week marks the twentieth anniversary of the bombing of the original World Trade Center.
For one terrible day, the resolve of the United States of America,nay, of all freedom-loving countries was tested by a bloodthirsty madman who sicced his goons on two of the buildings that define us as a nation and was almost about to destroy a third, but fortunately, was bested in the third attempt by the very people he wanted to obliterate.
I remember..because I. WAS. THERE.
September 11,2001. Just another late summer day in New York City.
The top story was Michael Jordan, of SPACE JAM and baseball fame, and oh, yeah, he used to play basketball for the Chicago Bulls,trying to play for the team he owned, the Washington Wizards, with President George Walker Bush's publicity efforts in support of his education program coming in a close second. I was working at a messenger company, whose name I'll withhold for privacy reasons,located on the 33rd Street side of 11 Penn Plaza, the base of operations for certain divisions of Macy's, and MuchMusic America, or, Fuse, as it had been rebranded, as well as American Movie Classics and its sister, the Independent Film Channel, and since everybody was coming back from vacation, my then-boss wanted everybody to give a million percent, ESPECIALLY me (Just thought I'd sneak in a little tribute to the Mary Tyler Moore show in memory of Mare's TV boss, the incredible Ed Asner.) Since the largest of my packages was all the way downtown, 14 Wall Street, to be exact, I decided to throw the playbook out the window, save the locals for later , (I didn't have a specific deadline, so what was the harm?) and focus on the other two downtowns, 375 Greenwich in Tribeca, and the Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank at One World Trade Center, a building that I had long regarded as a second home. Being a huge fan of this new channel called CNN, I took advantage of every possible opportunity to swing by its 1 WTC studios (before its move to 5 Penn )and say hi to the talent, many of whom wound up at local stations, the major broadcast networks, and a certain competitor who I will not name (AT LEAST FOR NOW.), and I also had the pleasure to intern as a traffic spotter for what was then called Shadow Traffic and is now Metro Networks. During my various visits to the WTC, I had the pleasure to meet Christopher Reeve ( a REAL superman to the end), sports artist LeRoy Neiman, Henny Youngman, Johnny Bench,and the legendary Lauren Bacall reading "The Night Before Christmas" as only she could, and speaking of which, the Trade Center's many retail outlets, from Thirteen/WNET to Warner Bros. Studio Store, afforded me many opportunities to play Santa and Hannukah Harry for my loved ones.
On what had started as a beautiful late summer day and what was supposed to be a day that was going to so busy I wouldn't even have time to stop and wave at my beloved New York Rangers as they hosted a "Welcome Home" rally at Penn Station, I entered the lobby of 1 WTC, smiling as if to say, "Hello, old friend, walked up to the security desk, showed my ID, passed inspection, took the elevator to the 25th floor, changed for the 44th, walked to Dai-Ichi, gave the receptionist her package, got her signature, bowed appreciatively and said, "Domo Arigrato," and proceded down to the Port Authority Trans Hudson commuter terminal for a personal hygiene break, and entered the Chambers Street 7th Avenue IRT station getting ready to take the #1 train to Franklin Street. The train was taking its own sweet time, so I decided to read a book (This was in those paleolithic days before you either read or heard books on the phone, as long as your Wi-Fi held out.) Just as I was starting to get into the book, if I may quote the afore-referenced masterpiece that Betty Bacall read so beautifully,out on the street there arose such a clatter, my fellow straphangers thought something MUST be the matter. Just then, a man in an FBI golf shirt ordered everybody to evacuate the station. Sure enough, something WAS the matter. We arrived at the surface to see 1 WTC, the building I had just visited, on fire. I thought it was either a small airplane flown by a novice, or an airborne version of the Exxon Valdez fiasco. (Captain got too drunk to keep driving, so he handed the controls over to the third mate.) I just decided to keep walking, like your typical jaded "Been-there-done-that" Noo Yawker, but then, without warning,another plane flew into 2 WTC, where the Observation Deck was located, boom boxes started picking up bulletins about a similar attack on the Pentagon,and it became abundantly clear: This was NO accident. (As I started running to my next stop in Tribeca, FOX News Channel, the network to which I alluded earlier where CNNers Stuart Varney and Lou Dobbs had defected, "killed" the sports scores scrolling on the bottom of the screen and started running bulletins about the unfolding developments. CNN, other networks, and local stations,soon followed suit, and many still do to this day, except FOX, which runs news tickers on FOX Business Network and News NOW From FOX, but not on the main network, except for the occasional FOX News Alert, but this is not the place for possible reasons why.)
Things really started to fall apart when it was reported that a plane crash landed in a field in the Pittsburgh suburb of Shanksville, PA. The world found out this was the mad scheme of Osama bin Laden, leader of the alQaeda terrorist movement. The planes were hijacked by his stooges who believed that by destroying the planes they would drift to Heaven and be seduced by virgins.
I had three more jobs to do after I dropped off the uptowns, but when I made Times Square,they paled in importance compared to the destruction of the World Trade Center I could only witness in horror. I only delivered one package and had to quickly return the other to its pick-up point at Madison Square Garden, the cathedral of basketball. Today, the gods were definitely not smiling.
If there was one positive takeaway, it had to be that if I had gone downtown later, you wouldn't be reading this.
September 11, 2001. 9/11. Attack On America. More like Attack On Civilization. It was the end of the world as I knew it, and I couldn't feel any less fine.
This may seem like typical shameless Steve self-promotion, but, if you're within the sound of my "voice," there's a smartphone, desktop, laptop, or smart TV near you,and on September 11 on 10:30 AM Eastern, make sure it's locked on http://www.emanuelnyc.org or Congregation Emanu-El's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn platforms or subscribe to the Temple Emanu-El YouTube channel, because Your Obedient Servant, who survived the worst terrorist attack in the history of the United States, will be reading the Torah blessings during the second of two special 9/11 weekend Sabbath Services. (Extra credit if you tune in the night before as Thomas VanEssen, FDNY commissioner on that fateful day, will be a special guest.) Trust me, even if you're not Jewish, you'll be glad you did.
Much love to my fellow hurricane survivors in the Tri-State, Boston, and Philly. have a safe and happy Labor Day weekend, and God Bless America and the First Responders who protect her.
Steve out.
