Briefly (probably not), I’ll say, that day… hours before everything occurred, I was working the overnight shift as a TV news video editor for “Today in New York”, NBC’s local, morning news. It was a very slow, boring shift and I had been sitting in my edit bay, cyber-browsing through Amazon.com, making a random “wish list” for myself… four to be exact; I recall this because my friend who escaped and survived the falling Twin Towers of the World Trade Center would later (coincidentally? I think not) buy me everything that was listed on that date for my birthday on September 27th. Finally, after staying 40 minutes beyond my scheduled tour to play on the computer, I left.
Ten minutes later, the first plane would hit.
I was clueless, and took my usual morning stroll home from Rockefeller Plaza, on 49th Street, to my old, studio apartment on the Upper(-Upper) East Side of Manhattan on 106th Street and Lexington Avenue. My only alarm was passing parked cars with radios on, hearing the same somber voice of a man stating that there was a fire near Wall Street.
Two other clues of there being something wrong, that later, would become clear to me were:
- My cell phone kept giving me a busy signal when I tried to dial out, making me think that I had no service (and had forgotten to pay the bill).
- When I grew tired of walking, and decided to take the 86th Street train, the rest of the way home, all service was shut down.
I finally realized what had happened when my little sister, Lori, in Florida at the time, called my home number to find out whether or not I was okay, and said that everybody’s phone lines were busy from all the calls being made and to turn on the TV.
It was so surreal to watch my colleague, Walter Perez, reporting on not one, but two planes hitting the Twin Towers. I was then jolted to watch him instinctively duck for cover as the second build suddenly crashed More
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ChocolateGeisha Spills the Sake!™ 