Court of Antiochus

I was sheduled to fly to Toronto at around 10:30 pm on that day, I remember waking up early morining LA time to pack my bag, I was too lazy to do it the night before. Anyways, while I was packing the phone rang, it was my sister, I told her to bugger off cause I was in a hurry, so she said, "where do you think you're going, there are no planes to fly you there, turn on the TV". So, I did, and there it was in living color. While I continued my conversation with her, the first tower collapsed to my amazment.

 

Coincidentally, I rescheduled that same Toronto flight Nov 12, 2001, when the Queens plane crash occured, obviously, I had to cancel again, when I saw it on TV. Since then, I'm very wary booking flights to Toronto.

I watched the atrocity from my window and fire escape. My brother was in a building adjacent to the Trade Center. After sending his charges home he called me. I asked him what the blazes he was doing in the office and ordered him out. As soon as he left, his building collapsed. Later, he told me that the plaza was loaded with 'meat' - the parts of people who jumped from the towers. He could hear thuds as the jumpers hit the ground and their bodies were broken apart. A cousin had left his office for a cigarette break in the plaza when his tower was hit. A cigarette saved him for another time. Another cousin's kid was welding on a bridge over West Street when they were approached by firemen to rescue some of their comrades trapped in a crushed fire truck. The kids went to work but were soon ordered to leave because the other tower was about to collapse. They refused and had to be forcibly removed. Our fire house in Brooklyn, Squad 1, lost 12 of its complement of 30 men. Its neighbors responded generously. Clouds of smoke and ash lasted for days. Amongst the many volunteers, a couple of guys came up from Texas with a barbecue truck and supplied the workers with food - gratis. A restaurant did likewise.

 

I saw those towers grow from a hole in the ground and was a small part of the syndicates that raised the money to build them. I questioned their utility in an area already so congested. Four or five buildings of much smaller size, and at a significantly smaller cost, could have been built on the dilapidated water fronts of New Jersey and/or Brooklyn and have supplied as many square feet of usable space. Every thirteenth floor of the towers was an engine room for the supplying of building services. One could hold a dinner party in one of the water valves. When completed, space went begging and the towers were filled with municipal and state offices and non-trade firms. Leases had to be offered at most favorable terms in order to get tenants. If the towers weren't there, something else would have been hit by those.... In the end those ... missed the most important financial building in the world and I don't mean the NYSE.

I remember going to school and walking into the classroom. The moment I walked in I saw the first plane crash as the teacher put on the news. I did not know what the big deal was until I saw buses lining up at the school. (I live in Pittsburgh where one of the plane's crashed.) To think that terrorists could have the ability to take out a school was terrible. You could tell the expression of the teacher's was not normal. All I remember was that all over every single channel was that news report.

 

That day, terrorists were defined but more imporantly hereoes were defined.

I remember coming home from school that day and my sister was sitting in front of the computer. She told me the Twin towers had been destroyed, and I thought she was just exaggerating the damage ( I had thought that something in the building had blown up - not necesserily a terrorist attack) when she said that the entire buildings had "completely" collapsed after planes had been flown into them, I still couldn't believe it.

It was then that I rushed to watch it on the news, and I remember just sitting there stunned and flicking through some of the channels, seeing the same images of the planes crashing into the buildings and then seeing them collapse.

I was at work here in Hot'lanta. I had just driven in from Charlotte the night before where on September 10th I had bought my new Subaru WRX. I was on a high and couldn't wait to take people in the office on rides. Life was good, business was great.

 

Taking folks for rides turned out to be a way to get all our stunned minds occupied on something else for a few moments.

 

At that time I worked for a commercial aircraft parts distributor as a Supply Chain Manager. So, other than mourning for the victims, Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh CRAP!!! was honestly going through my head that morning and for a while afterwards.

 

I knew it was only a matter of time that I was about to be part of the collateral economic damage... I stared out the window at a car that was going to mildly strain my budget even with bonuses. All airlines started loosing their a$$es after that day and my bonuses dried up. (My salary wasn't great without 'em) I lasted until early 2004 until I just couldn't take it anymore & resigned.

 

The other thing that went through my head was "Yep, I knew it." I was on station in 1998 when we attacked Bin Laden's camps. I participated in that and sent letters at the time expressing my opinion that things would escalate as a result...

 

We woke up in a different world on September 12th, 2001 and I don't like it one bit.

I was asleep. Not very glamorous, but eventually I woke to a phone call from an Indian friend of mine living in Arizona. We talked about what it all meant and what it would mean for a 'brown skin' like him (not racist we're good friends). The most memorable thing for me on that day was looking out of my apartment and seeing this Muslim family in a jalopy of a car parked across the street. They looked terrified for their lives, probably having fled wherever they lived due to irate neighbors and I felt very sorry for that.

I did try to post previously, but it was too splenetic, so I discarded it. We saw the live TV broadcast and sat in grim silence.Our hearts went out to those who suffered, and those who still do.

It was the twilight zone between my little scope of reality and reality.

Seven original architect's drawings and pictures compliments of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

 

http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=mo...um&album=51

Wow! Thanks Gaius!

 

I saw an interesting thing on the news that because the WTC was so tall, the top of the towers experienced two extra minutes of sunlight after the sun had set.

Since one could see clear through to Pennsylvania from the top, I would guess that that is so. One could also see the curvature of the Earth.

 

If one looks at the Verrazano Bridge from afar, the towers look as if you are seeing them through a fish eye lens.

 

The Port used to take us on boat rides around the harbor. Barrels of shrimp and all sorts of goodies. One could (and I did - along with sundry) swim in the booze.