09-11-2003, 07:06 PM
I got into work early that day, about 8:20. Work, at the time, was split between Lakewood, NJ, and an office between 30th and 31st on 5th Ave - I only went to the NYC office on Tuesdays. And indeed, it was a Tuesday.
When I got in, I started helping an executive with his new Palm VIIx, setting it up, and using AvantGo to sync websites onto it.
Everything is going fine, AvantGo is doing its sync.... then it slows to a crawl. First thought, ah shit, something's fucked with our internet connection. Opened IE, tried yahoo.com.... no go. CNN.com.... nothing. OpieAnthony.com.... what the fuck? It came right up. I didn't go reading any threads, because ya never know what you might find (little did I know that I would have found out what was going on there)....
He also had some Jewish news site in the sync (the company was VERY Jewish, especially the top execs - all family).... so I tried that site. It took a few refreshes to get something to come up, and when it did, we saw "plane hits World Trade Center". We both had the same thought: Eh, some idiot in a Cessna, just another JFK Jr. or something. I even remember mentioning that the Empire State Building got hit long ago, but that was in dense fog... hmm.. weird....
A few more refreshes on the same site produced "two planes hit World Trade Center"......... uh oh. Now something is up. We rush out of his office to find another exec and two exec assistants huddled around a radio, shushing us when we ask what the hell's going on.... but we knew. By then it was 9:20.
The realization only came later, that from 8:45 until we left his office, we'd heard constant sirens on 5th Ave, a major route downtown... we were on the 4th floor, you just learn to ignore sirens, they happen all the time.
I went back to my desk, to look at my laptop, see what I could see. I was still able to sign onto AOL, so that was good, and that's where I got up-to-date on what was happening. I also turned on my walkman, to see what the Sports Guys had to say. The worst thing that came up in all of the news reports was "there are still other planes in the air that haven't been accounted for".
And here I am, three blocks from the Empire State Building, watching footage of 767's obliterating the WTC. So, I got scared.
I helped the mailroom guy set up a TV as best we could - it had no antenna, paperclips and tinfoil was all we had to work with, but it was enough to see both towers go down.
Back at my desk, listening to Don and Mike, there was a moment where the radio went silent. For a good few seconds. I jumped up, and ran to the window facing the Empire State (where the WNEW broadcast comes from).... okay, whew, it was still there.
People were IMing me, telling me to get the fuck out. And go where? I live in Jersey, I'm not walking to the GWB. (Hadn't thought of the NY Waterway ferry, but it still wouldn't have done much good.) So I just waited. It was announced that around 4:15, NJ Transit would be turned back on. My co-worker, Kathy, lived in Princeton, and I was in Trenton, so we took the same train line. We waited for her dad, who walked up from downtown.... he couldn't get his car out of the parking garage. We all walked down to Penn, and caught the first train we could get on, with people from all over, with all sorts of stories. Some had been in the towers.
Going back to Lakewood the next day was awful, because no one understood. It was business as usual, while I was just thinking, are you CRAZY? Don't you know what happened yesterday?! That was the worst part for me.... 75 miles out of the city, no one gave a shit, one day after it happened.
As for right now, seeing pictures of the towers, as they were.... it's sad, but it also pisses me off, because I hate what's going up in their place. It's not the same. It's not New York.
When I got in, I started helping an executive with his new Palm VIIx, setting it up, and using AvantGo to sync websites onto it.
Everything is going fine, AvantGo is doing its sync.... then it slows to a crawl. First thought, ah shit, something's fucked with our internet connection. Opened IE, tried yahoo.com.... no go. CNN.com.... nothing. OpieAnthony.com.... what the fuck? It came right up. I didn't go reading any threads, because ya never know what you might find (little did I know that I would have found out what was going on there)....
He also had some Jewish news site in the sync (the company was VERY Jewish, especially the top execs - all family).... so I tried that site. It took a few refreshes to get something to come up, and when it did, we saw "plane hits World Trade Center". We both had the same thought: Eh, some idiot in a Cessna, just another JFK Jr. or something. I even remember mentioning that the Empire State Building got hit long ago, but that was in dense fog... hmm.. weird....
A few more refreshes on the same site produced "two planes hit World Trade Center"......... uh oh. Now something is up. We rush out of his office to find another exec and two exec assistants huddled around a radio, shushing us when we ask what the hell's going on.... but we knew. By then it was 9:20.
The realization only came later, that from 8:45 until we left his office, we'd heard constant sirens on 5th Ave, a major route downtown... we were on the 4th floor, you just learn to ignore sirens, they happen all the time.
I went back to my desk, to look at my laptop, see what I could see. I was still able to sign onto AOL, so that was good, and that's where I got up-to-date on what was happening. I also turned on my walkman, to see what the Sports Guys had to say. The worst thing that came up in all of the news reports was "there are still other planes in the air that haven't been accounted for".
And here I am, three blocks from the Empire State Building, watching footage of 767's obliterating the WTC. So, I got scared.
I helped the mailroom guy set up a TV as best we could - it had no antenna, paperclips and tinfoil was all we had to work with, but it was enough to see both towers go down.
Back at my desk, listening to Don and Mike, there was a moment where the radio went silent. For a good few seconds. I jumped up, and ran to the window facing the Empire State (where the WNEW broadcast comes from).... okay, whew, it was still there.
People were IMing me, telling me to get the fuck out. And go where? I live in Jersey, I'm not walking to the GWB. (Hadn't thought of the NY Waterway ferry, but it still wouldn't have done much good.) So I just waited. It was announced that around 4:15, NJ Transit would be turned back on. My co-worker, Kathy, lived in Princeton, and I was in Trenton, so we took the same train line. We waited for her dad, who walked up from downtown.... he couldn't get his car out of the parking garage. We all walked down to Penn, and caught the first train we could get on, with people from all over, with all sorts of stories. Some had been in the towers.
Going back to Lakewood the next day was awful, because no one understood. It was business as usual, while I was just thinking, are you CRAZY? Don't you know what happened yesterday?! That was the worst part for me.... 75 miles out of the city, no one gave a shit, one day after it happened.
As for right now, seeing pictures of the towers, as they were.... it's sad, but it also pisses me off, because I hate what's going up in their place. It's not the same. It's not New York.
<center><img src="http://www.yourmomsbox.net/ftl/ftl-oldtimey.gif"></center>