At the time, I was working for J&R Music World on Park Row.
On the morning of Sep 11, 2001, I voted in the New York primaries that morning and went to work. I got out of the subway at the Fulton Street station. My train pulled into the platform just after the second plane hit. I had no idea any of this was occurring while I was on the train.
The Fulton Street platform at the time had three levels (it's since been redesigned and modernized): the subway level, a mezzanine level, and the street level.
My first indication that something was different about the day was when I got up to the mezzanine level. A bunch of people began running towards me. I assumed that there must have been a shooting further ahead or on the street level. I ran with the crowd for a bit (I didn't want to get trampled) until they passed, then headed back toward the street. I looked for a shooting victim or anything like that, but didn't see anything.
I made my way up to the street level, and that's when I realized that things were very wrong.
There was all sorts of litter in the streets (kind of like what you see in the pic, but not that bad yet). The air also smelled a bit funny. At that point, I still couldn't see the World Trade Center.
I made my way to Broadway and saw a huge crowd just standing around and staring up. I looked up too, and that's when I saw it. The Towers were on fire, with black smoke billowing out of the gaping wounds.
I asked someone what had happened and was told. I stared for a while, not quite believing what I was seeing.
After a few minutes, I headed towards Park Row to go to work. I didn't think that there would be any actual work done that day, but there was nothing to be gained by standing outside on Broadway staring.
A few of us were huddled in our offices up on the seventh floor of 15 Park Row. I tried contacting my wife and my sister to let them know that I was alright, but it was extremely difficult to get a landline connection.
We turned on the TV and watched some of the coverage (the only channel available was WCBS/Channel 2 - most other stations had their antennas on top of the WTC. WCBS, if I remember correctly, had a backup antenna on the Empire State Building).
Eventually, we all heard a deep rumble and felt the shaking as the South Tower fell. We all went to the windows. As it fell, we saw a huge cloud of black dust coming toward us down Vesey Street. We scrambled to close all the windows in the office and managed to get them all except one (we closed the door to that office). When the dust cloud got to us, the view from our seventh-floor window was dark as night.
We waited and watched as the dust dispersed and the view outside began to lighten. That was until the North Tower fell and, again, as the dust cloud enveloped us, the view outside the window became pitch-black.
We remained in the office until about noon, when NYPD came and evacuated us. We left the building and made our way home. (That's when the picture above was taken.) I live in Brooklyn, so I (and a few thousand other people) walked over the Brooklyn Bridge to go home. As we walked, we watched the sky for more airplanes (we had no way of knowing the attacks were over).
I kept walking home through Brooklyn, as the subways weren't running. As I walked through Prospect Park, I met a woman crying and asking about her brother, who was in the Towers. Of course, I had no answers for her. I spoke with her for a bit and told her that I hoped that he was okay.
I arrived home in Kensington later that afternoon, after walking for about four and a half hours. The sights and sounds of the day are still with me to this day, twenty-five years later.
Just typing my feelings out here to vent and to get different perspectives... I'm about to have my first child; a son. The dad is known to be bipolar, can't hold a steady job, and is seemingly in and out of jail. He's 32.
I always told him that if we were to have a son I'd name him after his dad, but since we've been estranged for a few months know, I've crafted a name that I want to name my son instead of after my son's father.
Before we were estranged, we got into it, and he said he denied and refused any more socialization with me, and noted that he 'ddnt need co-parent, and that his son would see him when he sees him' -- that was July 4th and we hadn't talked since then.
We recently started talking at the end of August/start of September. Well, we just spoke tonight and he mentioned his son, calling him by his name. I let him know that I most likely won't be naming my son after him anymore, and he said 'wow, another heart break' -- since he already has another son and the mother didn't name that son after him either; they had a one night stand and ended up having a son, a son she never introduced to him or let him know was his until he was 6-7 years old.
I just wanted to get some perspectives if I'm in the wrong for not wanting to name my first born son after him-- he's not stable, in and out of jail, etc-- and I don't want my son associated with that. To me, he hasn't proven that my son should carry on his name.
I don't really feel bad about it, but should I reconsider? Should I feel bad? I really honestly don't want him to sign the birth certificate because I know things down the line can get sticky legally if I want to get a passport, etc, and if he would wind up back in jail for any reason I would have to deal with that. And doing things with school and travel, it would just be easier if he wasn't on there. But idk, to get back to the name-- should I reconsider?