Remembering on 9/11

I grew up on Eagle Terrace, a few streets below Eagle Rock Reservation, and from my bedroom window I watched the World Trade Center being built.  You see, our house was located due east of lower Manhattan, half-way up the first mountain. By coincidence, my eastern-facing window provided the perfect view – right between two houses across the street, and just high enough above the trees – of the spot where the Twin Towers would rise into the sky.

Actually, my experience with the Trade Center construction goes back even further to viewing the excavation work for the Towers’ foundation from my father’s office window at 140 West Street, across the street from the site.  I don’t remember my age at the time, but do remember looking down from about 20 stories up and seeing the tube that held the PATH trains suspended above this massive hole filled with construction vehicles that looked like my brothers’ toy trucks.

A few years later, much to my delight, I realized the two narrow structures that had sprouted on the horizon were soon to be the tallest buildings in the world.  And as I grew, so too did the buildings.  At times it was in fits and starts, months without visible progress, with one tower rising much faster than the other.  In daylight, they took the blue-grey cast of the rest of the City skyline.  At night, their silhouettes were dotted with construction lights.  The glass sheathing which provided spectacular reflections at sunset came much later.

Because my family felt a strong connection with the Twin Towers, we were determined to be among the first to experience the outdoor observation deck when it opened around 1973.  My memory of the visit is still vivid.  Initially, we stopped at the indoor observatory. With my heart in my throat, I braved the step down to lean against the window and peek 107 stories straight down to the plaza.  The rooftop view at 110 stories actually was far more pleasant, as you walked along an outdoor deck set back from the edge of the building.  With the fear of looking down eliminated, one could only look up and out.  I recall feeling as if I was truly on top of the world.

In the ensuing years, I visited the Trade Center infrequently.  Working in mid-town, my job rarely took me downtown.  However, in 1992, I worked on a project with the Port Authority and had a meeting with several clients down there.  My final visit was sightseeing with my brother-in-law, his new wife and our family in early 2000.  On a chilly Saturday morning with the harbor wrapped in a light fog, we took the two-stop elevator ride to the top.  At the indoor observatory, I once again pressed my face against the glass – this time alongside my five-year-old son.  As I took photos of the family with a view of Liberty Island behind them, I never, ever imagined the horrors that would take place on that spot.

Ten years ago today, a set of structures that took nearly a decade to complete and was so emblematic of American prominence was -- in a few short hours -- reduced to rubble.  But the real tragedy that day was not in the loss of two symbolic buildings, but in the loss of so many innocent lives – husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends.  As I was living in White Plains, N.Y., at the time, I couldn’t get to the Reservation to see the dark sky first-hand, but I felt the pain in my heart. 

I was blessed to escape the suffering of so many who lost loved ones that day.  I had great worry about my youngest brother, who worked at 140 West Street.  It wasn’t until 3:30 that afternoon when we heard he was safe, and I immediately said a prayer of thanksgiving, followed by a prayer for all those who would never get that call with good news.

I’ve been many times to the 9/11 Memorial at Eagle Rock Reservation.  Where as a child, I used to shimmy up the spike-topped wall to glimpse the sights below and beyond the mountain, I now pass the marble tablets with the names of the victims, touching the inscriptions of people I knew, and remember.

At the unveiling this week of the World Trade Center piece of steel that now sits at Eagle Rock Reservation directly due east of the site of the Twin Towers, Governor Christie so poignantly reminded us that while life changed for everyone on September 11, 2001, for most of us the hardship and sense of loss are intermittent.  But for those whose loved ones perished ten years ago today, the pain and loss are constant – never to go away.  My thoughts and prayers are with them today and always.