mikehudack: john: My 9/11 story. I lived with my family in Tribeca on the corner of Greenwich and Chambers Street, three blocks north of the towers. When you had kids and lived downtown, the WTC was NYC’s answer to the suburban mall - a place to go when the weather was bad and the kids could run around. We spent a lot of time there. It was my daughter’s first day of kindergarden on West 13th Street.  My son was a baby and home in the apt with a babysitter. After watching the planes hit, we began a series of very anxious phone calls with the babysitter, who was in shock and couldn’t leave the apartment. After the buildings collapsed (which enveloped our building with dust and small debris), my wife, 5-year-old daughter and I starting running downtown, against the stream of people fleeing uptown, to get my son and babysitter out. I can still see the faces of the people walking by us, and the crowds stopped to look at the bizarre suddenly empty skyline and awful scene. We stopped in a Soho hardware store and grabbed some dust masks. Mobile phones went dead so we stopped in a bakery - whose owner was beyond terrified because her daughter was stuck in Stuyvesant HS near the towers. She let us use the phone to make a final call to the babysitter. We walked to our building and got her and my son out safely. We didn’t know what to do next. We started to walk north and randomly ran into an old friend, Gene DeRose and his family, who insisted we stay with them.  We spent the next two days in the red zone of ground zero, with no electricity, taking it all in and trying to figure out what to do next. Gene and I woke up very early, still dark, on 9/12 and went to try and find milk. Our local deli in Tribeca was open with candles and generators - and giving free food (and milk) to the neighbors and emergency workers. Amazing scene. We ended up living in borrowed apartments and hotels, eventually moving back home. We had a mobile McDonald’s truck parked literally in front of our door giving free food to the workers, and the pit burned for months. Why didn’t we leave, move? This was our home, our neighborhood and city - which is how most of us felt.  Terrorism was brand new to NYer’s, but we reacted the appropriate way. We refused to give in to the fear. Eventually we did move - but on our terms, not there’s. Sad and scary time. I was living in San Francisco on September 11, 2001. I got up to go to work like any other morning, turning on the TV to watch the news like any other day. But the image on the news was not any other image. It was a picture of the twin towers burning while Katie Couric explained what was going on. And then the picture changed. To an image of the Pentagon with a gaping, smoking hole in the side. I remember sitting on the end of my bed, trying to wrap my head around that sight while the same phrase repeated itself over and over in my head. My Dad works at the Pentagon. Once I could move, I damn near broke something getting across the room to call my mom. When she picked up, all I got out before my voice broke was “Mom, is Daddy…” She told me that he’d gone to work and she hadn’t heard from him. I could tell she was trying to keep from losing it, so I let her get off the phone. It was 7:30 in the morning. I sat on the floor staring at the television for a while, and then the phone calls started. My dad’s brothers in Boise, my mom’s brother in Huntington Beach, my grandparents in San Diego. None of them could get through to my mom, so they called me. I eventually went to work, it was better than sitting in my apartment alone (my roommate was out of town). Half the office was out because they closed the bridges, but I sat at my desk and waited for the phone to ring. Finally, at 2 in the afternoon, it rang and I heard my dad’s voice at the other end. He was home, shaken but unhurt. We talked for a bit and then he told me he loved me and got off the phone to call my sister. It was like I’d been holding my breath for 7 hours and could suddenly breathe again. The whole day hit me and I just started sobbing; for myself, for my dad, for all the people whose wait that day ended with a different kind of phone call. I was very lucky on 9/11 and I know it. I never get off the phone with my parents without telling them that I love them.

mikehudack:

john:

My 9/11 story.

I lived with my family in Tribeca on the corner of Greenwich and Chambers Street, three blocks north of the towers. When you had kids and lived downtown, the WTC was NYC’s answer to the suburban mall - a place to go when the weather was bad and the kids could run around. We spent a lot of time there.

It was my daughter’s first day of kindergarden on West 13th Street.  My son was a baby and home in the apt with a babysitter.

After watching the planes hit, we began a series of very anxious phone calls with the babysitter, who was in shock and couldn’t leave the apartment. After the buildings collapsed (which enveloped our building with dust and small debris), my wife, 5-year-old daughter and I starting running downtown, against the stream of people fleeing uptown, to get my son and babysitter out. I can still see the faces of the people walking by us, and the crowds stopped to look at the bizarre suddenly empty skyline and awful scene.

We stopped in a Soho hardware store and grabbed some dust masks. Mobile phones went dead so we stopped in a bakery - whose owner was beyond terrified because her daughter was stuck in Stuyvesant HS near the towers. She let us use the phone to make a final call to the babysitter.

We walked to our building and got her and my son out safely.

We didn’t know what to do next. We started to walk north and randomly ran into an old friend, Gene DeRose and his family, who insisted we stay with them.  We spent the next two days in the red zone of ground zero, with no electricity, taking it all in and trying to figure out what to do next. Gene and I woke up very early, still dark, on 9/12 and went to try and find milk. Our local deli in Tribeca was open with candles and generators - and giving free food (and milk) to the neighbors and emergency workers. Amazing scene.

We ended up living in borrowed apartments and hotels, eventually moving back home. We had a mobile McDonald’s truck parked literally in front of our door giving free food to the workers, and the pit burned for months.

Why didn’t we leave, move? This was our home, our neighborhood and city - which is how most of us felt.  Terrorism was brand new to NYer’s, but we reacted the appropriate way. We refused to give in to the fear.

Eventually we did move - but on our terms, not there’s.

Sad and scary time.

I was living in San Francisco on September 11, 2001. I got up to go to work like any other morning, turning on the TV to watch the news like any other day. But the image on the news was not any other image. It was a picture of the twin towers burning while Katie Couric explained what was going on. And then the picture changed. To an image of the Pentagon with a gaping, smoking hole in the side. I remember sitting on the end of my bed, trying to wrap my head around that sight while the same phrase repeated itself over and over in my head.

My Dad works at the Pentagon.

Once I could move, I damn near broke something getting across the room to call my mom. When she picked up, all I got out before my voice broke was “Mom, is Daddy…” She told me that he’d gone to work and she hadn’t heard from him. I could tell she was trying to keep from losing it, so I let her get off the phone. It was 7:30 in the morning. I sat on the floor staring at the television for a while, and then the phone calls started. My dad’s brothers in Boise, my mom’s brother in Huntington Beach, my grandparents in San Diego. None of them could get through to my mom, so they called me.

I eventually went to work, it was better than sitting in my apartment alone (my roommate was out of town). Half the office was out because they closed the bridges, but I sat at my desk and waited for the phone to ring. Finally, at 2 in the afternoon, it rang and I heard my dad’s voice at the other end. He was home, shaken but unhurt. We talked for a bit and then he told me he loved me and got off the phone to call my sister. It was like I’d been holding my breath for 7 hours and could suddenly breathe again. The whole day hit me and I just started sobbing; for myself, for my dad, for all the people whose wait that day ended with a different kind of phone call.

I was very lucky on 9/11 and I know it. I never get off the phone with my parents without telling them that I love them.

130 notes
  1. thenightdances reblogged this from andmegansaid and added:
    Wow, that was an amazing story.
  2. alainainthekeyof reblogged this from thewonderfulcarpenter
  3. singulus reblogged this from john and added:
    11 September 2001 : Least...Thanks To : John Maloney ♥
  4. elwhit reblogged this from john and added:
    Oof. Reading this nearly knocked
  5. helloxander reblogged this from mikehudack
  6. lydialouwho reblogged this from andmegansaid
  7. pmoehring reblogged this from john and added:
    weeks, seeing mostly happy...funny stuff. Now this. Hey John, thats a great story!
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