Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: JAMES & KATHLEEN (A 9/11 STORY) By James Kazalis The atmosphere was the clearest I could recollect in my personal history. No small or distant detail could go unnoticed that day. I arrived at Hoboken train terminal and without hesitation chose the ferry instead of the PATH train to cross the Hudson River. While crossing the river my eyes drew towards the early morning sun reflecting off the immigration center on Ellis Island. I thought of my grandparents arriving there 100 years earlier from Lithuania. This early morning thought was broken as my ferry entered the looming shadow of the North tower of the World Trade Center. Once the ferry docked at the World Financial Center, I walked briskly with the other commuters towards the Winter Garden. No other labor force could have walked with such early morning vigor and determination as a Wall Street commuter. It was this hurried pace that was a warm-up for the tempo of just another workday in lower Manhattan. I went inside the Winter Garden. I walked past the tall elegant palm trees. These trees channeled me to the concentric marble staircase leading upward to the pedestrian bridge. This bridge would carry me over West Street to the World Trade Center. Having crossed the bridge, I went outside again. I was now on the World Trade Center property. I passed within a few feet of the North side of the North tower and entered Austin Tobin Plaza. On my left was the raised black marble fountain with Koenig's sphere as it's centerpiece and to my right was the outdoor elevated metallic stage where music concerts were held during the summer. I noticed the how precise the alignment was of all the white folding chairs in front of the stage. They appeared ready for the next audience. I entered the South tower. I was at work early that day. I started my computer and began attacking the pile of paperwork on my desk. At about 3/4 of an hour into the workday, I heard a muffled explosion. I stood up and peered over the top of my cubicle partition, saw nothing, sat down and went back to work. About one minute later I heard the hysterical cries of a secretary. This time when I looked outside, I saw white paper, almost identical to what was in my own hand at that time, encircling the outside of my building at the 67th floor level. All I knew was that an office above me opened up to the outside. I hit Ctrl+Alt+Del on my computer to lock it. I put on my jacket, grabbed my briefcase and went to the nearest stairwell. The stairwell had many people descending from the upper floors. However it was not choked nor was there panic. It was a steady stream of many people walking down in pairs. When I reached the 44th floor sky lobby, I noticed many people milling around and wondering. The wall-mounted flat screen television above the entrance to the cafeteria was displaying a business news station. I could see the electronic ticker tape moving from right to left on the bottom of the TV monitor. A rumor in the lobby was circulating that a single engine plane or a helicopter had hit the North tower. Events were downplayed frequently that day. An announcement came across the public address system. "An airplane had hit One World Trade but the integrity of Two World Trade was okay". This message was repeated once more. I heard two young men say they were going return to work as they headed towards their elevator. As I took a few steps towards someone I recognized, some great force struck my building. It felt like the floor was being violently pushed under my feet. While falling to the floor, the steady repeating rhythm of time suddenly stopped. I instantly developed tunnel vision and my depth perception did not extend beyond twenty feet. My eyes focused on a nearby out-of-service elevator. The impact had created a shock wave through the entire building that forced dust at a high velocity from all four sides of the elevator doors to the inside of the lobby. I was now prone on the floor. Pandemonium erupted and filled the sky lobby. I picked myself up. I noticed that my monthly rail pass popped out of my briefcase and was lying on the floor. Even though it was only a few feet away, I would have to go against the grain of the moving crowd, as they were all heading toward the exit. But I needed the rail pass to get home. I never understood why anyone did not collide or brush into me. I retrieved it uneventfully. I turned around and began to proceed down the stairwell again. Kathleen worked directly across the World Trade Center in Jersey City. Her building was located behind the Colgate clock. A co-worker told Kathleen that one of the twin towers was on fire. All went outside to the parking garage to observe. As she looked across the Hudson River she saw a commercial Jetliner enter her panorama from her right. It seemed to come from just in front of the Statue of Liberty. She could not understand why this airplane was maneuvering so low at such a high rate of speed. She did not associate this plane and the World Trade Center fire as being connected. At the moment the plane struck the South tower James's name was embedded in her primal scream. She had hoped he escaped unharmed but if he did not she hoped he died instantly. Kathleen was assisted back to her desk, where for two and a half hours she waited with her left hand clamped to the telephone receiver waiting for his call. I descended a story or two from the sky lobby then all downward movement halted. Stopping and waiting were never in any prior drills and for that reason tension began to build. People whom worked on the lower floors beneath the sky lobby now began the evacuation process and entered the stairwell all at once. One young man a few rows behind me started to push the woman in front of him. I and a few others turned around and gave him an unfavorable glance. That was all that was needed. Within a minute or two, which seemed a lot longer, the procession down renewed. There were two more delays encountered. After the second delay it got increasingly warm. The amount of people, combined with no air conditioning in the stairwells made this happen. Once I descended to around the twentieth floor, the pace began to pick up and the procession seemed to spread out but never disappear. The lower floors now appeared vacant. I could now descend at a quicker pace. Finally the last exit door opened and I had reached the mezzanine level. The mezzanine was one floor above the lobby level but was at the same level as the outside Plaza. I was being directed by a security guard to descend to the lobby level via the escalator. The escalator power was turned off. There was a delay here because of the amount of people at this level were from multiple stairwells. While I was waiting for my turn, I looked outside in the Plaza. This was the same area I had walked through moments earlier on my way to work. I could not recognize anything. Everything was charred, smoldering or on fire. Debris was everywhere. At that exact moment I saw an outside support beam about 20 to 30 feet long, hit the ground. Each end of the polished steel beam alternately hit the ground until it stopped. Both ends of that steel support were on fire. My rational mind had a very difficult time understanding what I was seeing and what made this happen. God had spared me from identifying the details of the charred items in the Plaza. Later I learned that I was looking at human remains. As I descended the escalator to the lobby area, I saw a team of about six firemen. A port authority maintenance worker was trying unsuccessfully to fully open a revolving door to aid them in entering the South tower. The firemen were carrying equipment and apparatus to combat the fire. The tallest of the firemen and the leader yelled loudly and intensely. He could not tolerate this delay. He had to get himself and his men inside. The revolving door then opened and all six men went in. I exited though one of the other doors. I was out of the South tower and in the concourse. The first thing I noticed was all the retail stores were closed. I have never seen that on a weekday. Then a female port authority police officer shouted and directed me to move towards her quickly and to exit at Five World Trade. When I looked to my left I saw all one dozen descending escalators to the PATH with their power off and vacant. I went past J. Crew, by Ecce Panis bakery and finally I was waiting in line next to Tourneau jewelers at the base of the ascending escalator in Five World Trade Center. At the exact moment I exited Five World Trade Center, plainclothes policemen were just outside the door shouting instructions. "Keep walking quickly, do not turn around and do not look up", was repeatedly barked. Proceeding east, on my left were a few EMT people tending to prone victims. To my right I saw what looked like a professional photographer capturing images above. I crossed Church Street and proceeded on the sidewalk up Fulton Street along with others. Still looking forward I could see crowds of people on Broadway looking high up over my head with horrified and anguished expressions on their faces. As I got closer to them, I could now hear their gasps and cries. I decided it was time for me to look. I stopped, sidestepped left, turned around and braced myself with my right hand grasped around the ancient iron fence surrounding Saint Paul's church. I inhaled deeply. Both towers were on fire. The tower I worked in had more flames. I saw huge holes in both buildings about 3/4 of the way up. I had recently read a book on the construction of The World Trade Center and I knew the outside walls structurally supported it. I did not feel comfortable where I was. My thoughts now turned to Kathleen. I had to find a telephone. I started walking north up Broadway. People were in the street, on the sidewalk, everywhere. All eyes focused high above and in the opposite direction I was walking. The first public phones near City Hall Park had lengthy human lines. The people on the phones were not brief. They wanted to tell as many people as possible that they were safe. Some callers started making second and even third phone calls. Those waiting in line objected loudly. I continued walking north. Coffee shops, restaurants and fast food establishments all were closed or in the process of closing. When I got near Canal Street I heard a loud noise that was a combination of a roar and rumble. That noise was instantly overrode with the cries and screams of people in the street near me. The South Tower had come down. I did not turn around. I had not felt this kind of deliberate devastation since I was in South Vietnam 34 years earlier. I wondered who lived. I wondered who died. I knew that Kathleen did not know I was still alive. My paced picked up. My strategy was that I should still head north but not on Broadway. My chances of finding a public phone should improve. My destination was the Port Authority Bus Station. I had just approached Union Square Park when I heard the same cries as before. The North Tower was gone. I turned around to look at the giant cloud of dust and saw the void where two tall modern structures to human civilization, peace and trade once stood. I was on Fifth Avenue. I was still looking for a public phone but the lines of people were even longer. I reached 34th Street. Suddenly a chill went through my body. I recognized the base of the building I was standing next to. I looked up. I was at the bottom of the Empire State Building. How careless I was to place myself next to the now tallest building in New York City and a possible target. I picked up my pace even more. Adrenaline was at record levels in my body. Finally I reached the bus station and found it closed. I thought of the familiar banks and banks of telephones inside going unused. In what seemed like my continued effort not to stay in one place, I decided to head west on 42nd Street to the Hudson River. I passed a parked police car that just arrived from lower Manhattan. It was covered in ash and dust. All of the windows in the car were gone. Just a few blocks from the river I saw somebody step out of a restaurant. I was shocked that a restaurant was still open. I went inside and found a public phone on the wall and nobody using it. I thought it must be broken. I picked up the receiver and heard a dial tone. I felt so relieved to have that power and potential of communicating with the outside world. Kathleen's work phone number was normally located in the easy recall section of my brain. But the events of that morning altered my normal thought process. I could not consciously remember her phone number. After a few frustrating seconds, I just went ahead and dialed. I hoped somehow my finger knew her number. The telephone barely started to ring when Kathleen picked up the receiver. It was the most emotional exchange ever in our combined lives. We both started to speak over each other's words. She was emotionally thrilled to hear my voice. I said "it's me, I'm ok, and I love you". The words really had no meaning, but the life emitting them did. The phone call did not last more than a minute or two. The time was 11:20 AM. I told her I would get home but did not know how or when. Once I hung up the receiver, I took a deep unencumbered breath. I was not far from the midtown ferry docks. Once I got to the docking area, I found huge lines. It was difficult to determine where the lines began, where they ended and or even how wide they were. There was little supervision with the exception of a few NY Waterway employees trying to maintain some order. Considering the size of the crowds, which looked like it was in the tens of thousands, it was amazing the calmness that existed. There was an African- American uniformed employee whom had a beaming smile on her face. I could not remember the exact reassuring words she chose but it did not matter. Whatever those specific words were, it made everyone within the sound of her voice feel a whole lot better. It was the first ordinary, overt, positive gesture made by one human being to another since the tragedy began. West Street had no traffic on it with the exception of an occasional emergency vehicle. When a vehicle did drive by there were no sirens or horns. There was no one else on the road. They all headed south to the giant smoke and dust cloud in lower Manhattan. Then I noticed something really unusual. A young couple was roller-blading south on West Street. They seemed to either ignore or did not see the Dunkirk size lines less than ten feet from them. They also did not notice the smoke rising from ground zero. They just continued to skate like nothing was out of place. I could not discern whether they were very athletically disciplined or just the most oblivious idiots on earth that day. While there was some chatter in line, it was for such a huge crowd quiet. Because no one definitely knew what had happened, no one felt compelled to talk. America was stunned. I turned on my radio that was is in my briefcase to a local AM station. I heard of a plane hitting the Pentagon and another going down in Western Pennsylvania. The word terrorists was used a lot. Someone in line whom knew something about piloting aircraft said it must have been teams of multiple hijackers and not individuals acting alone. After a few minutes I realized that the radio newscasters were doing nothing more than speculating and rehashing. I turned off my radio and no one in line objected. I realized how empty and quiet the sky was. There were no sounds of propellers, jet engines or helicopters. If thoughts contained any sound at all, that day they could be heard. Additional ferries were being pressed into service and the line instead of getting longer began to shorten and move in a serpentine fashion towards the docks. I was not concerned about the particular destination of the ferry. As long as it crossed the Hudson River and put me a step closer to home. After about thirty minutes I finally boarded a ferry that would bring me back to Hoboken Station. The ferry pushed across the calm Hudson. I welcomed the noise of the ferry's engines. I looked at lower Manhattan and saw the smoke drifting upward. Perhaps the smoke would carry the unfortunate souls of those lost that day to a better world. My thoughts then concentrated on a specific group of people. How helpless, angry and silent all people serving in uniform must have felt. Their job was designed to protect ordinary citizens but instead found themselves as nothing more than remote television viewers observing this horrific attack. When the ferry finally docked I noticed a significant number of official personnel waiting. As I stepped off the ferry they repeatedly asked if anyone worked in the World Trade Center. I was directed to my right just outside the terminal. I thought perhaps they wanted an eyewitness accounting of the tragedy, but instead I found myself waiting in a line to be decontaminated. In front of me was a man in a pure white decontamination suit, respirator and holding a fire hose over his shoulder. I made a mild attempt of protest indicating I had no dust or any contaminants on me. Many people evacuating the World Trade Center had prescience of mind to leave the downtown area. After all, once out of the building, we knew we would not return to work that day. But I was wise enough to know that protesting made little difference. I was going to get hosed. I lifted my arms up from my side until they were parallel to the ground. My briefcase was in my left hand. As the hose dispensed a fine spray I slowly turned in a 360 degree arc. It took no more than a few seconds. They handed me a white towel and directed me to a triage area where medical personnel examined me. They asked me several times if I was okay. Finally they released me and I left with the white towel around my neck as a souvenir. I walked into the train station looking for the boarding schedule. The station was packed with people wanting to get home. I saw that in about 45 minutes a train would depart to my home destination. I boarded the train, found a seat and waited. In about ten minutes both the conductor and engineer came into my passenger car. They began to argue about whether the train should leave on schedule or to wait and fill the train with passengers and then leave. Based on their conflicting viewpoints it appeared that nothing was going to happen. In a few minutes I heard what either was a bullhorn or a faint public address announcement. I could not hear exactly what was broadcast. Within a few seconds and while looking out the train window, I saw about 40 to 60 commuters streaming out of the terminal in a dead run. I never saw so many people in such a condensed formation, sprinting at such a remarkably fast pace. They had left the terminal because of a rumor that someone had discovered a bomb. People in my passenger car began to exit the train and terminal. I was unsure of what was happening. Considering all I had already experienced, I made a decision to remain composed. Just outside the terminal the sprinting commuters finally stopped and assembled. This group seemingly could not or would not separate. It was a peculiar site. The same New Jersey Transit official with the bullhorn that started the stampede, tried to tell this frightened group that it was a false alarm. They did not believe him. They did not move, separate or re-enter the terminal for some time. Trying to rid myself from this transportation nightmare, I now looked for a different train to get home. On the schedule board I saw a train due to leave in fifteen minutes that would take me to the town adjacent to my hometown. I boarded it and the train left the station. As my train traversed the meadowlands the feathery plumes of tall reeds moved past my window. Any other day going home and this procession of nature could invoke a light thought or two. That day they just moved endlessly past my window. The first train stop was mine. I got off the train, found a phone and called Kathleen whom was now home. I needed to make a deliberate gesture to put my life back on the same emotional track as I started the day with. There was a pastry shop next to the train station. I was seated on an outdoor bench eating a lemon ice when Kathleen's car arrived. We greeted one another affectionately, calmly and went home together. THE END Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story9393.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2003-07-28 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 151.198.162.142