I can’t front. I haven’t felt right in my own city since that day. It is six years afterward and I still feel uneasy. I have lived in NYC for about 90% of my life. I lived in Harlem during the crack explosion of the 80’s. I was here in the early 90’s when we were averaging nearly 3000 murders per year. And despite that, I can’t remember EVER being tense walking around my city.
Have the terrorists really won or am I just in need of therapy? I am not really sure. I know that NYC, and America in general, feels radically different to me. I don’t like crowds anymore. I don’t like riding the trains or buses either. I know that being stuck in traffic on a bridge makes my heartbeat race.
Some things haven’t changed. There are tons people making money off of the death of the victims. There are movies and retrospectives planned for today in addition to the special commemorative songs that you hear on the radio. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC are devoting most of the day to the 9/11 anniversary. I don’t know about others but I don’t have any real desire to keep reliving that day from a few years ago. I saw things that day that I never thought I would see in my city. It was surreal. I vividly remember things like:
- The fear for my loved ones. Were my children, wife, and mother safe? Those were my first thoughts.
- Walking across the 59th street bridge into Manhattan while everyone was leaving the city. The bridge was packed with people, but it was dead quiet.
- The looks on peoples faces. Especially the ones covered in ash. Everyone was is in some state of group shock.
- The looks on the faces of the emergency workers, especially the firemen.
- The smoke cloud and the hazy glow of fire from where the towers stood.
- The lack of communication. Since nearly all land line and cellphone service was inundated and overwhelmed with people trying to locate their loved ones. Local telephone communication was basically out. I remember that the only way I was able to reach my cousin who worked in the areas hit was by AOL instant messenger.
- The smell. I still don’t know what it was that smelled so bad. Debris, smoke, burning bodies, ash….who knows. It was everywhere. That smell lasted for months after the attack.
- The day after, no one, and I mean no one was on the streets. Not one single person or moving car for almost as far as he eye could see. Those of you familiar with New York would know how unnatural that would be. There is always movement on the street regardless of the time of day. A taxi, a bum, a vendor, a bunch people just sitting on the stoop. Someone. On an island of over 8 million, no one was outside and nothing was moving.
- Looking up in the sky and not seeing a single thing in the air except the Apache helicopters and F16s patrolling the skies over Manhattan.
- And the worst……the fliers on every bus stop and open wall with the faces and histories of everybody that was “missing”. That bothered me for months.
Luckily I didn’t personally lose people that in that event. However it was a day that changed me, and not for the better.