Reflections for Sept 11th
Sep. 9th, 2005 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aamusedinatxI am one of the lucky ones, I suppose. I had no direct or even second-hand losses in the events of September 11th, not in New York, not in Washington DC, not in the fields of Pennsylvania.
This happened when I lived part of the year in New York, part of the year in San Jose. I ran the East Coast event production studio from our sales office on the 25th floor of the Chrysler building. I had many friends there, in DC and family in Philly.
The eeriest thing I can say for first-hand is that 10 days earlier me and 3 others from my company were on the 108th floor of the South Tower making a final sales pitch to AON for an intranet marketing solution. Within hours that morning of September 11th, it was apparent to us that we were the only ones still left standing from that meeting. The published list of employees lost by AON later confirmed this.
Prior to this, I had a week's holiday scheduled. Me, my sister and a friend of hers had rented an apartment in the East 50s and had a whole list of activities scheduled for the week we were there, including a show or two, shopping, museums and dinner reservations at Windows of the World. My sister and I conferred and decided that if planes were flying, we were still going.
Since my events unit covered the news in chat and web streaming, I spent a long time in my office trying to send messages out to clients and vendors offering good wishes and support, as well as pushing updates live as frequently as possible. My office phone rang. I picked it up and heard my mother's voice on the other end.
...
Thanks Ma. Who are you going to kill if something happens to me? I shrugged it off, what else could I do.
We went. We had a good holiday, we had a party in our apartment where over 15 people came from 4 countries to mingle with the 50 or so native New Yorkers (all part of an internet community I belonged to at the time) to offer comfort and hope and relief that those we knew had come out okay.
Sunday the 7th of October, we took the subway as far south down Broadway as we could and then we walked. It was me, and several friends including one from Belgium and one from the Netherlands. My friend Scott, who worked for a paper in Maryland was also with us. We paused at the iron fence of City Hall to sign the banners of condolences. We saw still hundreds upon hundreds of handmade fliers looking for missing loved ones. You could smell the stench of burning metal, plastic, and other things you didn't want to contemplate.
By the time we got to the barricades by the Cathedral the crowd was easily 2000 people yet you could hear a pin drop. No one spoke. I was standing in the press of the crowd. There were easily 4 rows of people in front of me and I am a rather short person. I could see above the heads of those in front of me and that was about it. I wasn't even sure what I was there to see really...what to expect to see. I held my Nikon 950 over my head and shot.
Later that evening, after dinner, Scott and I sat relaxing at my rented flat. I pulled the flash card from my camera and jacked it into the laptop to off load the day's photos. When we got to the one I'd taken blind, over my head in the crowd we both froze.
Scott summed it up well.
"Oh, fuck Mer...unfortunately, that's a really good photo."
I knew what he meant by that sentiment. I did get published a few places, outside of the US, and I received two checks for the piece even though I only asked for name credit. I endorsed those checks over to the Robin Hood foundation to help the victims. This caused a huge fight with my husband at the time, he wanted me to keep them. I refused and it was ridiculous for him even to suggest. The total was less than 300.00 and would make very little difference to our personal finances at the time.
Sunday will be a quiet day for me. Quiet in respect and observance, but mostly in respect for those who have a much harder time with this day of memorial then I do.
Oh, and the picture, here it is.
This happened when I lived part of the year in New York, part of the year in San Jose. I ran the East Coast event production studio from our sales office on the 25th floor of the Chrysler building. I had many friends there, in DC and family in Philly.
The eeriest thing I can say for first-hand is that 10 days earlier me and 3 others from my company were on the 108th floor of the South Tower making a final sales pitch to AON for an intranet marketing solution. Within hours that morning of September 11th, it was apparent to us that we were the only ones still left standing from that meeting. The published list of employees lost by AON later confirmed this.
Prior to this, I had a week's holiday scheduled. Me, my sister and a friend of hers had rented an apartment in the East 50s and had a whole list of activities scheduled for the week we were there, including a show or two, shopping, museums and dinner reservations at Windows of the World. My sister and I conferred and decided that if planes were flying, we were still going.
Since my events unit covered the news in chat and web streaming, I spent a long time in my office trying to send messages out to clients and vendors offering good wishes and support, as well as pushing updates live as frequently as possible. My office phone rang. I picked it up and heard my mother's voice on the other end.
"If anything happens to your baby sister, I'll kill you."
...
Thanks Ma. Who are you going to kill if something happens to me? I shrugged it off, what else could I do.
We went. We had a good holiday, we had a party in our apartment where over 15 people came from 4 countries to mingle with the 50 or so native New Yorkers (all part of an internet community I belonged to at the time) to offer comfort and hope and relief that those we knew had come out okay.
Sunday the 7th of October, we took the subway as far south down Broadway as we could and then we walked. It was me, and several friends including one from Belgium and one from the Netherlands. My friend Scott, who worked for a paper in Maryland was also with us. We paused at the iron fence of City Hall to sign the banners of condolences. We saw still hundreds upon hundreds of handmade fliers looking for missing loved ones. You could smell the stench of burning metal, plastic, and other things you didn't want to contemplate.
By the time we got to the barricades by the Cathedral the crowd was easily 2000 people yet you could hear a pin drop. No one spoke. I was standing in the press of the crowd. There were easily 4 rows of people in front of me and I am a rather short person. I could see above the heads of those in front of me and that was about it. I wasn't even sure what I was there to see really...what to expect to see. I held my Nikon 950 over my head and shot.
Later that evening, after dinner, Scott and I sat relaxing at my rented flat. I pulled the flash card from my camera and jacked it into the laptop to off load the day's photos. When we got to the one I'd taken blind, over my head in the crowd we both froze.
Scott summed it up well.
"Oh, fuck Mer...unfortunately, that's a really good photo."
I knew what he meant by that sentiment. I did get published a few places, outside of the US, and I received two checks for the piece even though I only asked for name credit. I endorsed those checks over to the Robin Hood foundation to help the victims. This caused a huge fight with my husband at the time, he wanted me to keep them. I refused and it was ridiculous for him even to suggest. The total was less than 300.00 and would make very little difference to our personal finances at the time.
Sunday will be a quiet day for me. Quiet in respect and observance, but mostly in respect for those who have a much harder time with this day of memorial then I do.
Oh, and the picture, here it is.
