I Don't Want to Go to Manhattan Today: A Personal Reflection on the 25th Anniversary of September 11th
In the summer of 2001, I moved to New York City for law school. My father had recently passed – way too young, and it helped me understand that if I tried and failed, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened to me.
So, in July I swapped my railroad-style apartment in the Allston neighborhood of Boston for a two-room apartment in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, just a stone’s throw from the East River. When I walked to the end of my street, I had a spectacular view of the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the Twin Towers, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Empire State Building. These landmarks were not only iconic and beautiful, but really helpful to keep me from getting helplessly lost in Manhattan. Long before there were navigational maps on our phones, the Twin Towers were my compass. I figured out how to get where I was going based on where they were in relation to me. They were so high that I could spot them from almost anywhere.
As a new transplant from Boston, I felt lucky because the Boston law firm where I had worked for years as a paralegal let me keep working part-time from their Manhattan office in midtown east in the Chrysler Center. I worked Tuesday and Thursday mornings around my class schedule.
I remember very clearly waking up on the morning of Tuesday, September 11th. I opened my eyes to an overwhelming feeling of dread and these words in my head, “I don’t want to go to Manhattan today.” At first, I sat on the edge of my bed thinking what an odd thought that was – not, “I don’t want to go to work today,” which seemed like a perfectly normal thought. But my thought was much more specific and unusual.
My apprehension was so pervasive that I started strategizing how I could get out of going to work. I could say that I had too much homework or that I wasn’t feeling well. But I reminded myself how lucky I was to have a job at a prestigious firm, making money while I was in school. I remembered that I had a deal getting ready to close. And I knew the partners I worked for were relying on me to get the job done. Reluctantly, I suited up, grabbed a very cute, but very uncomfortable pair of heels, and dragged myself out of my apartment and off to the subway headed toward the office on 42nd and Lexington. As I walked out the door, I decided to leave my windows open. After all, it was a beautiful day and I would be home by early afternoon. Even that felt wrong – leaving my windows open. But I resisted the urge to lock everything up.
When I arrived, I headed straight to my little, windowless office in the Chrysler Center. It was tucked next to the internal stairwell, and my new friend, Sylvia, had an office just at the top of the stairs on the next floor. Again, I felt lucky. I had moved to New York less than two months earlier and made a new friend – someone my own age who was already a lawyer. Someone who knew New York and who treated me like family almost instantaneously.
Once I got to my office, it was business as usual – almost. I sat at my desk and started drafting. But unlike most days, I turned on the radio on the alarm clock I kept on my desk. I always draft in silence. It helps me think. But on that day, I turned on the radio.
That’s how I first heard a breaking news report of “a helicopter or a prop plane” hitting one of the Twin Towers. Of course, soon enough we all learned what had really happened.
Rather swiftly, the entire office building was evacuated because it was a landmark skyscraper and there were concerns that it may be a target for more attacks. I remember hearing Sylvia yell to me from the top of the internal stairwell connecting our offices to come up and evacuate with her. And that’s what we did. What we didn’t do was stop to change back into our sneakers before we left the building.
Once we hit the ground, it became clear that we wouldn’t be returning to our offices. So, we headed west to Fifth Avenue where Sylvia’s sister worked. As we looked downtown, we could see a massive smoke plume obscuring where the Twin Towers should be. We also saw people lining the streets holding cell phones to their ears but not talking. Due to physical damage and an overwhelmed system, when the towers came down, so did the cell service. The only access we had to information came from the Blackberries we both carried. Mine looked like a pager and didn’t make phone calls, but we could send and receive emails from our work server – at least initially. We were both signed up for news reports from The New York Times, which made clear the country was under attack.
We also received an email from a colleague – a litigator who had been in the courthouse right around the corner from the Towers. He had sent a mass email to everyone in the firm asking someone to call his wife to tell her he was okay. So, we found a phone booth, stood in line, and Sylvia left a message for his wife.
By the time we arrived to fetch Sylvia’s sister, she was already gone, but we encountered a young woman behind the reception desk sobbing. Her boyfriend was a first responder. It sounded like she had received devastating news. I remember how helpless I felt to find anything to say that could possibly console her.
Next, we started walking north toward Central Park. Both Sylvia and her sister lived on the Upper West Side. We entered the Park on the east side to cut across town.
I remember thinking how surreal it felt. It was a gloriously beautiful day. As we made our way across the Great Lawn in Central Park occasionally complaining about our uncomfortable shoes, we could hear sirens heading south. We knew it wasn’t good.
When we finally arrived at Sylvia’s sister’s apartment, we were exhausted. And I’m pretty sure I was in shock. There was a massive TV in the living room. Sylvia and I sat down and for the first time had a view of what was going on downtown. And I wept.
Once we got ourselves together, we continued on to Sylvia’s apartment in the West 90s near Riverside. There, we felt safe and away from the chaos unfolding around us. But I knew I had to figure out how to get back to Brooklyn. Most of the Brooklyn subway lines crossed under the Twin Towers, which – clearly – were not going to be running. But that evening, a train was rerouted, and I hopped on it heading back home.
As I sat in the eerily quiet subway car hoping I was safe, I thought how much better it would be once I got to Brooklyn. But when I walked up the stairs from the subway station, I could barely see. The streets were empty, save for one elderly woman wearing a surgical mask and carrying a plastic grocery bag, and there were cyclones of debris whirling all around me made of office paper and who knows what else.
I squinted my eyes for protection and made my way to my apartment. When I opened my door, I was shocked to find that every crevice of my little home was covered in soot and debris owing to my having left the windows open all day. I stood there for a while wondering what it might contain and if it was sacrilege to clean it up. Realizing I couldn’t leave it this way, I closed all of the windows, grabbed a bucket and sponge, and started cleaning.
The next morning, I woke up, got dressed, grabbed my father’s prayer book that he had received when he was thirteen, and walked to the end of my street. As I stood across the East River from where the Twin Towers had been, I opened the book to the Mourner’s Kaddish – the Jewish prayer recited in memory of those who have passed – and I prayed for all of the people who were gone. Although we were hopeful that people were just lost and confused, my inner knowing told me that wasn’t true.
The days and weeks to come were a combination of sad and scary, but also hopeful. It seemed that we all banded together. If someone needed help, we did what we could. At first, we gave blood. Then, we cooked meals for first responders and dropped them off at our local fire stations, along with towels and anything else we thought might be useful. We supported each other. We were kind to each other. In the midst of our grief and concern, we rallied.
There wasn’t a New Yorker who wasn’t surrounded by death: the smell of death was everywhere, and so were the countless posters of missing New Yorkers lining every bulletin board and lamp post in the city.
I can’t stress this enough. I am so lucky. Not only was I always safe on that day, I didn’t lose anyone in the attacks. I met so many people who lost someone. My friend and fellow first year law student, Margot, lost childhood friends who were first responders, and most people she knew had lost people too: a parent, a cousin, a coworker, a friend. I often wondered how she kept putting one foot in front of the other – how she kept showing up for class every day, never complaining. Every weekend, there was another funeral, another wake, another memorial. But the consummate New Yorker that she was and still is, she rallied. She supported her friends and extended family, and she showed up time and time again.
I’ve thought about this day many times over the years. It’s always hard to think about – the sheer loss of human life. While I know loss of life, even of this magnitude, happens all the time all over the world, this was the first time it happened in my little corner of it.
I’ve always believed this was a memory I should record. But I wasn’t ready until now. Twenty-five years have given me the perspective to reflect from an understanding of who I am and who I have become since that morning I stood across the East River, holding my father’s prayer book. Distance hasn’t softened the sorrow, but it has shown me that even the most difficult experiences have something to teach us – something to offer us.
Here’s some of what the Autumn of 2001 taught me:
Trust your gut. I still think about the words in my head that morning, “I don’t want to go to Manhattan today.” Our intuition is part of the divine technology of our soul. It’s guidance that speaks quietly in the language of feeling rather than reason. Listen to it. Cultivate it. Trust it.
Even in the darkest times, we get to choose who we are and how we show up in the world. Leading with kindness and compassion is a choice each of us get to make every day. On September 11th, nobody was drafted into compassion. We simply showed up. Darkness invited us to choose who we would be, and we chose.
True friendship is priceless. Twenty-five years ago, Sylvia made sure I was safe, walked me halfway across Manhattan, and has been showing up ever since. And Margot, grieving for her hometown, taught me what it looks like to support people even when it’s hard.
And finally…
No amount of style is worth blistered feet. You never know when you’re going to walk half the length of Manhattan. Wear comfortable shoes.
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