Voices of 9/11: Walter Walker — NYC Resident, WTC Volunteer

As Salem Patch worked to gather Salemites' memories from Sept. 11, 2011, Contributor Kevin Letourneau spoke with several residents who had a front row seat to the events on that fateful day.

Another had blood connections to the city, even though she was thousands of miles away.

We'll be sharing some of the stories Kevin gathered until Friday, when we'll provide snapshots of memories from all these residents interviewed.

The following interview was conducted on film by Kevin Letourneau. The narrative was written by Aubry Bracco.

 

Walter Walker

Current Salem resident, resident of New York City from 1988 to 2005.

Sept. 10, 2001

On Sept. 10, 2001, while out to dinner with his girlfriend and a couple of friends in Manhattan, Walter Walker met an officer from the Port Authority Police Department.

The officer, who had a "charming" personality, was wearing a T-shirt that made an impression — Gowanus Yacht Club.

"If any of you know Brooklyn or…that piece of New York, there is nothing about the Gowanus Canal that could ever be a yacht club," Walker explained, "but I thought that was a great T-shirt."

That night, Walker returned home to Brooklyn.

Though Walker's personal loss in the tragedy that ensued the next day was "minimal," the officer in the Gowanus Yacht Club T-shirt still stands out in Walker's mind.

"He went missing and was lost. He seemed to have gone into the towers and was there at the time," Walker said. "We never did find out what happened to him."

 

Sept. 11, 2001

Like most Americans, Walker said, he watched the events of Sept. 11 unfold on television.

But beyond the television was a view of the towers from his balcony.

"I did see the plume of smoke as the first tower fell, and realized that we were part of something eerie and something pretty strange," he said.

By 12:30 or 1 p.m. on that day, Walker said, everything was quiet.

"There wasn't a plane, there wasn't anything in sight. There was no noise, which was pretty hard to imagine. This corridor that I lived in was air traffic for LaGuardia, for JFK, for Westchester Airport, and there was just not a hum, not a plane in sight except for the F-15 fighters flying up and down the Hudson at 1,00 feet off the river."


The Aftermath

Three or four days after watching the tragedy from his balcony and on television, Walker volunteered at Ground Zero.

While there, Walker received an assignment to deliver dog booties for canines working on the site.

"The sniffer dogs were getting their pads burned badly," he explained.

After delivering the booties, Walker said he "took the opportunity to walk around."

"It was pretty eerie," he said, "[like] a cinematic ending to a bad sci-fi film…There were large, huge pieces of super structure six and seven stories high, jutting out of the ground and the enormous rank of bad air and heat coming off of everything that was down there."

"It was hard to take the issue that as many people perished there as had. It never really escapes you."

Just the other day, Walker said he spoke with someone about the images from that day.

"The photographs you see today are adequate. I didn't have a camera with me at thet time. I was just as happy not to," he said. "The mental photographs are very strong, they stay with you forever."

10 Years Later

Today, Walker said he believes the addition of the memorial ponds at Ground Zero "seem pretty appropriate to me. It seems to me that that's the kind of still and tranquility that ought to go in the space."

As for rebuilding the towers, "I don't know, maybe that's not the best thing to do under the circumstances. On the other hand, I think it's maybe just as well that we move on with life and start rebuilding that part of Manhattan like we would if it were any other part of the city if it were hit by a natural disaster. [We'll] see what the next century will bring in terms of some peace in the court."