SEPTEMBER 11
“One of the elevator doors was slightly open and there was black smoke coming out of the elevator shaft and I felt really trapped and was trying to figure out do I stay on line for stairwell C or do I go back to where I was coming from.”– Gerry, North Tower
”And as I got on the highway to head home I heard the fire department issue their total recall for all firemen…. I knew that the fire department does not issue total recalls and that they had never done something like that. I just thought OK we’re at war.”– Anne
“On September 11, we were trying to figure out what to do when my neighbor looked out the window and saw the top of the tower start to tilt and screamed to get in the back room. We ran into their back room which has no windows and basically just prepared to die.”– Gail, area resident
“…people were yelling “Don’t look back, keep moving!” I walked about half a block and I did look back and was astounded to see both towers on fire… then I just needed to get to phone to let my family know that I wasn’t dead.” – Gerry, North Tower
”I picked the girls up and of course their first question was “Where’s Daddy?” and I said I don’t know, were gonna wait until Daddy would be off duty to call the firehouse so we were going to wait to 8 o’clock. I made it to 7:30. ”– Anne
”When I got home on September 11 my wife Denise was at the front door yelling at me. She had my helmet in her hand and she’s saying “Where have you been! Don’t you know what‘s going on? They’re all dead…you have to get in there right now.”- Paul, firefighter
”I got back to my parents house about 8 o’clock that evening and my Dad picked me up at the train station and when my Dad saw me he gave me a big bear hug and just started to cry. It was the first time in my life that I had ever seen him cry. He said we have to pray, Katie, we have to pray for Bob. ” – Kate
”…I went right up to them and I said “Joe, where’s your Dad, where’s the command post?” And he looked at me and he said “Paul, I have to go home to my mother because my father is under this rubble”. – Paul, NYC firefighter
”One of my friend’s father suggested that I volunteer for the Salvation Army. I went in for an interview and they asked me what talent I had. I don’t any talents….and finally I thought well I’m Italian….I can cook. So they assigned me to the food truck at the Medical Examiners Office. ” – Bridget, Salvation Army volunteer
”When I think of the Trade Center, when I close my eyes and I think of what I saw that night what I see is paper, papers swirling, never stopping just swirling around and around. I did not see one piece of furniture or anything to show that this was office space. ” – Paul. NYC Firefighter
”The site looked like war to me, like you were in a bad war movie…they gave you a hand drawn map that showed you where you were standing and where the different buildings would have been. You could tell that there was nobody in there. ” – Anne
”I think to myself there were 5 guys in each of those planes on September 11 out to do their worst and they did bad, but afterwards 500 thousand people came down here to volunteer and more would have come if they could. ”– Gail, area resident
”The iron fence that enclosed Saint Paul’s churchyard had been transformed into an impromptu memorial….on the sidewalk in front of the chapel was a rickety music stand on which a notebook had been placed for people to record their thoughts. After staring at the notebook for a bit I walked up to it and wrote “I got out of the World Trade Center on September 11thand I’m very sorry for those who did not.” That really sums up why I do tours and pay tribute. ” Gerry, North Tower
”… I look to the future and think of my nieces and nephews and friends children, a whole entire generation of people being born with a completely different skyline then the one that I grew up with and it’s important for them to know what was there before. ” – Kate