Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > New York > New York City
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 05-11-2012, 07:08 AM
 
Location: Denver/Atlanta
6,083 posts, read 10,665,276 times
Reputation: 5872

Advertisements

I was in 3rd grade (in Denver) and my mom came to pick me up from work as she was in a panic. They had just evacuated downtown Denver & there was so much traffic. As we waited in traffic, the radio was on and all I could here was people panicking and the news anchors updating us on the event. We got home and I asked my mom what was happening. Her and my dad were just too shocked to say anything.

I didn't figure out what happened until about 2 years layer.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 05-11-2012, 09:09 AM
 
531 posts, read 2,895,513 times
Reputation: 579
Strangest things I saw that day (other than the obvious of a plane crashing into a building):

-Random papers from the offices in WTC scattered everywhere. I was about a mile away and after 2nd plane hit, we left the building we were in and started walking uptown. The papers were everywhere on the ground and falling on our heads. We just started picking them up and looking at them. So strange to see the random, insignificant paperwork falling all around you and know that the offices it came from where completely destroyed.
-Guy in a suit peeing in front of everyone near South Street Seaport. When you gotta go, I guess...
-A sudden burst of police, ambulance, and fire trucks once the towers came down. We were walking along the FDR uptown and didn't know the buildings had collapsed. Suddenly speeding down the FDR were all these emergency vehicles.
-A line of people at payphones trying to make calls out, but all lines were dead. Then someone in our group managed to get a call out on their cell phone and heard that Pentagon had been hit, towers had collapsed, plane crashed in PA. I remember scolding them and saying "These are all rumors, don't be ridiculous, it's impossible for towers to collapse". Obviously I was wrong.
-People hanging out in Central Park like a normal day as if nothing had happened--tanning, playing with a frisbee, biking, etc. I walked through the park about 4pm and it was so odd to see this when it was essentially Armageddon just a few miles downtown.
-Every sidewalk headed uptown just jammed with people. I know this sounds strange but it was almost a party atmosphere. It wasn't like people were crying or seemed scared or anything.
-The smell on my clothes that night and the smell in the air. I lived in the West 80's at the time and the smell just kept getting worse everyday for the next week or so. Just a nasty toxic smell that went all the way uptown.

Yes, subways were closed and some buses were running but they were packed. I walked from the southern tip of Manhattan to West 80's. Took me hours.

Crazy, crazy day.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-11-2012, 09:34 AM
 
1,153 posts, read 2,137,314 times
Reputation: 784
I was living in Albion, NY. It's a small Rural town 40 mins outside of Rochester. I remember being in American History (with a teacher I hated). I was doing my usual sleeping in class when one of the other History teachers came in and told us that a plane hit the WTC. I didn't even know what the WTC was anyways so I just ignored it. Went back to sleeping. After my class people were in the lobby and the TV was on, they showed the towers being hit. I was deff confused and then each class was roughly the same until the end of the day. Trying to piece together whats going on. We found out that they collapsed and after that each discussion was about what happened and how terrible it was. I remember one classmate being distressed because her dad was a local politican and he was in NYC for work. He ended up being fine by the way.

I got home after school and sat there watching everything with my parents. Went to my room and put on the radio while I worked on a school assignment. I remember just extreme dread. I remember wanting to rush to Ground Zero to help them. If I was older, I bet I would have. It changed everything. There was a lot of fear and a lot of confusion. Almost felt like the world was ending. I will never forget my feeling of being lost and upset for the people lost.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-11-2012, 10:11 AM
 
Location: NYC
3,073 posts, read 5,482,685 times
Reputation: 2998
Quote:
Originally Posted by usedtobeanyer View Post
Strangest things I saw that day (other than the obvious of a plane crashing into a building):

-Random papers from the offices in WTC scattered everywhere. I was about a mile away and after 2nd plane hit, we left the building we were in and started walking uptown. The papers were everywhere on the ground and falling on our heads. We just started picking them up and looking at them. So strange to see the random, insignificant paperwork falling all around you and know that the offices it came from where completely destroyed.
-Guy in a suit peeing in front of everyone near South Street Seaport. When you gotta go, I guess...
-A sudden burst of police, ambulance, and fire trucks once the towers came down. We were walking along the FDR uptown and didn't know the buildings had collapsed. Suddenly speeding down the FDR were all these emergency vehicles.
-A line of people at payphones trying to make calls out, but all lines were dead. Then someone in our group managed to get a call out on their cell phone and heard that Pentagon had been hit, towers had collapsed, plane crashed in PA. I remember scolding them and saying "These are all rumors, don't be ridiculous, it's impossible for towers to collapse". Obviously I was wrong.
-People hanging out in Central Park like a normal day as if nothing had happened--tanning, playing with a frisbee, biking, etc. I walked through the park about 4pm and it was so odd to see this when it was essentially Armageddon just a few miles downtown.
-Every sidewalk headed uptown just jammed with people. I know this sounds strange but it was almost a party atmosphere. It wasn't like people were crying or seemed scared or anything.

-The smell on my clothes that night and the smell in the air. I lived in the West 80's at the time and the smell just kept getting worse everyday for the next week or so. Just a nasty toxic smell that went all the way uptown.

Yes, subways were closed and some buses were running but they were packed. I walked from the southern tip of Manhattan to West 80's. Took me hours.

Crazy, crazy day.

These two things I found disturbing as well. I was in the middle of it all downtown (worked right on Broadway by the towers) and me and a co-worker went uptown to get away from the chaos and once we were up there, it was the craziest thing to see people just carrying about their days like it was a normal day! I remember saying to her "do they realize what just happened downtown?" I found it extremely off putting and kind of disgusting.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-11-2012, 12:28 PM
 
12,115 posts, read 33,612,872 times
Reputation: 3865
i was at my computer in my apartment on September 12th in central Riverdale. i had the windows open and i think i noticed the awful smell that was blowing in the breeze from the south
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-11-2012, 03:32 PM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,293 posts, read 84,292,537 times
Reputation: 114641
Quote:
Originally Posted by jen5276 View Post
These two things I found disturbing as well. I was in the middle of it all downtown (worked right on Broadway by the towers) and me and a co-worker went uptown to get away from the chaos and once we were up there, it was the craziest thing to see people just carrying about their days like it was a normal day! I remember saying to her "do they realize what just happened downtown?" I found it extremely off putting and kind of disgusting.
That was bizarre. I'd gotten out of the north tower, saw horrible things, saw and heard the south tower go down and ran from its crowd, walked all the way to midtown, then some woman handed me a flyer with a coupon for $2 off per yard of fabric. On the next block a man in a long coat and black hat was preaching that it was the end of the world and we should all repent. On the next block some guy was standing at a fruit stand shopping for fruit. Just picking up containers of berries and examining them closely and setting them down and picking up another one. I watched him for a few minutes and started to laugh. Not a normal laugh, an "I'm-losing-my-mind" laugh. The World Trade Center was smoking in ruins, I didn't yet know who I knew was dead but I knew for sure that people were dead, and this guy was concerned about the quality of the berries at a street fruit stand.

I left and walked another block or two and ran smack into a friend who also worked in One WTC but up in the 80's. I'd wondered if she made it out, and there she was on the same sidewalk as me in midtown, also alone. We went and bought a sixpack of beer and walked to the river to see if we could get a boat across to Jersey. (We did. The Circle Line was ferrying people across.) By the end of the week, we knew that more than 80 of our coworkers were dead.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-11-2012, 03:39 PM
bg7
 
7,694 posts, read 10,528,591 times
Reputation: 15298
Whenever I smell that electrical fire/burning rubber type smell I get a Pavlovian response - a feeling of dread and tension creeps up on me. I also cannot watch documentaries about it either.
Probably the worst day of my life, and I have no wish to be reminded of it.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-11-2012, 04:10 PM
 
12,115 posts, read 33,612,872 times
Reputation: 3865
my neighborhood in central Riverdale, normally quiet in the evenings, was DEAD that evening. was it because everybody was indoors watching the news?

tho normally quiet, there were still people on the streets but on the eve of 9/11 there was NOBODY
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-11-2012, 06:25 PM
 
Location: Staten Island, New York
3,727 posts, read 7,019,840 times
Reputation: 3753
Quote:
Originally Posted by bg7 View Post
Whenever I smell that electrical fire/burning rubber type smell I get a Pavlovian response - a feeling of dread and tension creeps up on me. I also cannot watch documentaries about it either.
Probably the worst day of my life, and I have no wish to be reminded of it.

I sometimes get a weird 'flash' of that smell. Very disturbing.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-11-2012, 09:22 PM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,293 posts, read 84,292,537 times
Reputation: 114641
Quote:
Originally Posted by NYChistorygal View Post
I sometimes get a weird 'flash' of that smell. Very disturbing.
I have smelled it while watched video of the day on TV. One time I realized I had my hands over my nose because I was smelling it.

We're all a little "touched".
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:



Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > New York > New York City
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:24 PM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top