A City She Had Never Seen Before: Northborough Resident Recounts 9/11

Story submitted by Alyssa Degon

I was living in Manhattan on 9/11, and left for work earlier than usual to vote in a small local election. While signing in at the voting booth, one of the poll workers with a small portable radio had just learned that a plane had hit one of the Towers. I immediately imagined that a small private plane had accidentally crashed into the Tower. Then I thought, wait, aren't people already at work?

I boarded the subway to head downtown. At that time, I worked on 9th Street, near Astor Place. My subway dispatched passengers before my stop, saying the subway had been shut down. That was very strange. As I walked the rest of the way to work, on that sunny, blue-skyed day, I passed hundreds of people standing outside their office buildings, trying to get a better look at what was happening downtown. The crowd was somewhat excited, but not upset or nervous, as no one could have imagined the horror that was transpiring at the WTC, at the Pentagon, or in Pennsylvania at that time. It was inconceivable.

I finally arrived at work, where everyone was gathered around TVs watching the terrible news unfold. By then, the second Tower had been hit, and as we continued to watch the live coverage, the first Tower fell. My anxious and sad coworkers and I became completely panicked.

If the Tower could fall, what else was planned for us here on Manhattan Island? Anything was possible. No one knew what was safe or what to do, but we all wanted the same thing: to go home and be with family. And with that, we all fled the building, heading in different directions, wishing each other good luck.

My apartment was 50 blocks north, so with no subways running, I instead walked 15 blocks to my sister's apartment. We stayed huddled there watching the TV and trying to get in touch with family members for the rest of the day. My parents were on a return flight from a vacation in Paris; we later learned that they had been rerouted mid-flight to London where they had to stay for almost a week before they could get home again. Our family friend in Vermont turned out to be our "command central" since we couldn't reach my sister in Massachusetts nor could my parents get through to us from London.

We were thrilled to learn that everyone in our immediate family was ok. 

My sister and brother-in-law had friends staying with them that week. They were a newly married couple, just moved to NYC and starting new jobs.  9/11 was their friend's wife first day at her new job, right near the World Trade Center. She was born in Germany and English was a second language to her. Her husband anxiously paced my sister's apartment as we waited to get word of her safety. Cell phones were completely jammed that day. Hours later she appeared, carrying her heels, feet bleeding. She had walked, along with hundreds of others, over 30 blocks to reach us. She cried uncontrollably as she finally connected with her parents in Germany on the phone, as news has already spread worldwide.

My office was shut down that week, since we were below 14th Street which was considered a contamination zone for all the dust. I helped hang signs on street posts for emergency supplies that were needed downtown: eye drops, tissues, bottled water. I wandered the city with coworkers and friends, stunned. Hundreds gathered in Union Square and other public areas to grieve together, exchange stories, and bond.

A coworker who lived in Brooklyn reported that papers from the Twin Towers office buildings had drifted across the East River and landed gently in her backyard. While waiting for a subway one day, a complete stranger asked me if I had lost anyone in the Towers. I hadn't, and neither had she, but it had become the common bond for all New Yorkers. It was not the NYC I had ever known before.