Where Were You on Septemeber 11, 2001?

9/11/2001 was nine years ago today, I was living on 29th and 8th in Manhattan. It had always been a dream of mine to live in the city before I turned 30. I was 27 back then.

I remember sitting at my desk in the old 18th Street & 6th Avenue offices of America Online. It was before 9am and I received an IM from my buddy Chris who worked for a big financial firm, it may have been Lehman Brothers or Goldman Sachs, I forget. His message said something about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. I thought it was so odd, why would the pilot be flying so low? What a horrible accident. I felt bad for everyone involved. At that time, I had no idea the accident was to become one of America's most devastating tragedies.

A few minutes later, he sent another IM saying the other tower was hit. This obviously was not an accident. Everyone in the office began buzzing about it. People were shocked and confused. Within about twenty  minutes, the office became eerily quiet as security descended upon our desks. They escorted us down several flights of stairs. We were not to use the elevator.

We stood outside the AOL building staring up at the smokey sky only a few miles away from where we were. Shock and horror are the only words I can think of to describe our faces. It was sheer chaos. Like a horror movie, only it wasn't a movie, it was real and it was going on around us.

I proceeded to walk home slowly. It was such a beautiful sunny day. Much like it is today. I remember cars pulled over to the side with their car stereos blaring the news. I remember people desperately trying to make calls on their cell phones, me included. I remember lines of people standing near pay phones. I remember mascara running down tearful faces of impeccably dressed girls leaving their offices in confusion.

I remember arriving home to my tiny studio apartment and finding a man tiling the lobby as if it were any other day. I remember my best friend, Scott somehow getting in touch with me. He couldn't get home to Queens, so we met up and went for a burger at a local McDonald's on 8th and 27th.

I remember after a few minutes, the owner of that McDonald's asking everyone to leave. He was closing up for the day even though it was early afternoon. I remember friends who couldn't get home, sitting on my bed-- there wasn't much seating in my 20x20 apartment. We huddled around the TV. They drank Heineken and sucked on Marlboro Lights and talked.

I remember not having to work that week. I remember wanting to get home to my mom's house on Long Island. I remember Penn Station on September 12, filled with armed National Guardsmen. I remember feeling safe upon arriving to my mom's house. I remember watching horrifying news story after news story. I remember hearing about firemen and policemen killed. I remember hearing about Long Islanders who thought they were simply going to work that day never coming home again. I remember the tears and the heartache I felt for everyone who lost someone. I felt guilty to be alive in a strange way.

A part of me died that day and I will never forget.

The Day My Mom Cried

I think when you're a kid, you rarely see your mom or dad cry. Sure you'd see them laugh at your silly jokes. You'd see them all excited Christmas morning watching you open gifts from Santa. You'd see them angry after you dropped an ice cream cone on the rug. But crying? That hits you really hard. It's then that you realize something is very wrong. It scares you and makes you feel helpless and the image may stay with you for quite a while.

When I was eight, all of my relatives were alive and well. At that point, I had never been to a funeral and thankfully everyone was fairly healthy and stable. There were no horrible accidents and not much sadness to speak of from what I remember. My folks rarely fought in front of us. They only yelled at us kids, not each other. Everyone was upbeat most of the time. I had never seen my parents cry. I guess we were lucky.

It was almost three weeks before Christmas when it happened and for some reason I'll always remember it.

John Lennon was shot on the evening of December 8, 1980. I don't think we found out until the morning of the 9th. If that was the case, it was a Tuesday. I remember hearing it on the old clock radio near my parents' bed while we were getting ready for school. I think at this point in my life, it was one of the worst news stories I had ever heard. It was a year before Ronald Reagan was shot and six years before the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded killing teacher Christa McAuliffe.


Eerie photo of Yoko & John in front of the Dakota in 1980 taken by Allan Tannenbaum.


I was never a serious John Lennon or Beatles fan, but my mom was. She had tickets to see them but her folks wouldn't let her go. They were really strict, old-school parents. She had all of their albums. Other than The Beatles, my mom wasn't a big music fan from what I remember. Sure, she liked music, but she wasn't fanatical about any particular group or celeb the way I was.

To this day, she'll say something like, "I really like that song they keep playing, by that guy... he sings about being 15 and having 100 years to live." She loves the iPod I gave her filled with hits from the '60s through the early '90s. She just wasn't someone who had an extensive record collection or talked about how hot Robert Plant was - the way my mother-in-law does. But Mom just really loved the Beatles. I remember when I was small and looking through all of her Beatles albums -- the sleeves and covers were literally falling apart from being handled and played so often.

The news of John Lennon's murder was such a shock to me at that age. Of course I realize today kids deal with a lot more devastation than the murder of a legendary musical icon. From 9/11 to Katrina to the war in Iraq we'll be fighting forever it seems like.

There's just something about witnessing or hearing about an assassination that knocks the wind out of you. I can't explain it and maybe I'm alone in feeling that way. I mean, bad news is bad news, I know. Our parents had the shock of Martin Luther King and two Kennedy assassinations. With an assassination, the person didn't have a chance. It wasn't like some gun-toting loon knocked on their door and they chose to answer it. These are people who were just trying to get home or waving to fans or getting into their limo. They were totally unaware.

Mom cried that morning. I think she even stayed home from her teaching job that day. Something she never did. She cried over "the senseless death of the most peaceful man" I believe she called it. I cried because Mom cried. I cried because someone hurt someone so badly that it made my mom cry. I couldn't believe a man was shot with a gun for no real reason. Little did I know, people are shot down every day for no real reason. But whatever, I just remember that morning as the very first time I saw my mother cry. As we near the 29th anniversary of John Lennon's death, I wonder if my mom will remember that day the same way I remember it.

Thanks for listening.


Yoko & John leaving the Dakota, so depressing if you think about it now.