Five years ago this morning, I had just voted (in the primary election for Mayor), and was walking to work, listening to Morning Edition on my earphones. At about 8:50, the broadcast was interrupted by a report that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. At that point, information was sketchy. It could have been a small prop plane, and the first thing I thought of was that picture from the 40s of a plane crashing into the Empire State Building. By the time I reached the office, there were rumors of a second plane hitting the other tower. Convinced that this just couldn’t be right, I removed my headphones and headed to the cafeteria for a bowl of oatmeal.

Of course, I was wrong—and had no way of knowing just how wrong I was. Yet, as I learned the horrific truth, I couldn’t help but think that stopping for breakfast while thousands of people were dying a couple of miles away was a greviously callous act. Later in the day, I sought penance by attempting to donate blood (and was turned away from several hospitals). Still later, I began volunteering for the Red Cross at the Family Assistance Center on Pier 94, and helped launch nyrelief, an online bulletin board for New Yorkers looking for volunteer opportunities.

Volunteering at the FAC may not have washed away the survivor guilt I felt, but it was the right thing to do. Most of my time there, I was in a Red Cross file room, sorting the thousands of aid requests that had come in from those touched directly by the attacks, along with those touched only peripherally; requests came in from as far away as South Jersey and Putnam County, many from those whose livelihoods had been temporarily interrupted by the closing of Lower Manhattan. Those that came from victims’ families were handed over to the head of the unit for high-priority processing. I still remember her—like many of the Red Cross volunteers, she was a retiree from the midwest or south—cradling one of those files. “These are my babies,” she said, maternal instinct kicking in as she tried to find something in her Red Cross training that would help her make it all better for the family.

My one encounter with the families was October 28, 2001, when I volunteered for urn duty. In hopes of giving the families—many of whom would never have a body to bury—something they could hold onto to remember their loved ones, the city had created a series of wooden urns and filled them with dirt from Ground Zero. Each urn was placed in a box with a flag and a metal plate that could be engraved. One by one, the family members came to us and accepted our solemn offering. We had a prepared statement—“the citizens of the City of New York offer our sincere condolences. This urn is our gift in honor and memory of your loss”—and our unprepared responses. Hugs, words of commiseration, a hand to hold. One woman burst into tears as she approached my table. Another smiled stiffly and said, “I know it’s strange that I’m smiling. I’m just happy to have some closure.”

That was my last day at the pier. Soon thereafter, the Family Assistance Center, which had hitherto been run by the City, was handed over to FEMA, and its character changed overnight. Under the City’s management, it had largely been controlled by organizations like the Red Cross and Safe Horizon, which filled it with a sense of mission—and compassion. The walls were lined with drawings sent in by schoolchildren around the country; volunteers fed the “clients” as they awaited services; flowers were everywhere. Under FEMA, it quickly became a bureaucratic processing center, focused on one thing: getting the paperwork done and moving on. Even the children’s drawings were taken down, as if they’d somehow distract from the mission at hand.

To this day, I can’t help but remember those days spent in the cavernous pier as among the most meaningful in my life. The day we handed out the urns, The New York Times ran an item in which it singled out the FAC, calling it a “bright spot,” and saying that “many victims’ relatives expressed amazement at the sensitive and efficient treatment they received from a wide range of agencies, including the Red Cross, represented at the center.” I’ll always be proud to have been a part of it—though, more than anything, I’ll always wish I hadn’t had to.

Five years ago, this site wasn’t a blog. It was an infrequently updated personal page that housed little more than my resume and an archive of some of my old dead-trees writing. But I did manage to update it shortly after 9/11. Here’s what I wrote:

I spent one night working near the top of the World Trade Center. I don’t remember who I was working for—it was a one-off temp job, and I rarely kept track of the firms I worked for on that basis. It might have been Cantor Fitzgerald; it might have been AON; it might have been Sandler O’Neil; or it might have been a firm that moved out years ago. While I don’t remember the name of my temporary employer—or even which of the two towers I worked in—I remember just about everything else about that night, including the date: July 4, 1986.

For those too young to remember, July 4, 1986 was the centennial celebration of the Statue of Liberty. New York’s harbor was filled with tall ships, there were speeches and marching bands, and 1.5 billion television viewers watched Ronald Reagan rededicate the statue. The celebration also included what remains to this day the world’s largest fireworks display, created by Long Island’s Grucci family.

On July 3, I got a call from a temp agency asking if I’d be interested in work the next evening. Having recently finished college, I did a fair amount of odd-hours temp and freelance office work in those days, working for large corporations on evenings and weekends, so that I could pursue my writing on weekdays. So, when the agencies had an assignment for a hard-to-fill time—like the evening of July 4, during the biggest celebration in the city’s history—they knew to call me.

I immediately accepted the assignment, knowing two things that the agency probably hadn’t thought about: One was that there would almost definitely be virtually no work to do that night—not only was it July 4, but it was the Friday of what was, for many, a four-day weekend. More importantly, it was a chance to have a unique experience: To see a fireworks display not from the usual vantage point of ground level, but from a hundred stories up, looking down on the pyrotechnics.

When I got there, I saw immediately that my first assumption was correct. There were several temps there, along with a manager—and no work to be done. This was, after all, a year before the market crash of 1987, and it was routine for large companies to bring in temps at odd hours and keep them idling, on the off chance that someone would need to get some work done.

After a couple of hours, my second assumption was also proven correct. Given permission to view the fireworks, another temp and I wandered the deserted halls until we found a large office with an unobstructed view of the harbor. What we saw was a sight like no other. The sky glowed with reds, blues, greens, golds and whites. Starbursts bathed the statue and lit up the harbor for miles. From a hundred stories up, the fireworks took on the grace and beauty of a water ballet, viewed from a camera miles above.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve thought of that night whenever I’ve seen fireworks: each year on July 4th; on Chinese New Year when I was living in Hong Kong; and even at Disneyworld, during their daily light show. This week, as the lower Manhattan skyline was cruelly illuminated, I thought of that night once again.

My time at the top of the World Trade Center was brief, as it should have been. Like fireworks, which disappear into the ether so quickly that they’re gone before you have a chance to truly expeience them, a one-night temp assignment is something that, the next morning, seems like a half-remembered dream.

The Trade Center itself, however, should have lasted many lifetimes—and the lives of those who perished inside were far too brief. As I write these words, Sandler is missing over 60 employees, AON is still missing about 200 of its workers, and Cantor Fitzgerald is missing over 700 of its employees. I don’t know if I worked directly with any of the victims that night. Unlike far too many New Yorkers, so far I don’t have any close friends among the missing. And, if the Trade Center itself now sometimes seems like a half-remembered dream, it’s because my mind still can’t accept the reality of what happened to it and the thousands of people inside.

But I know that I’ll never look at fireworks the same way again. Each time I see them, I’ll try to remember what I saw and felt that night, and as the glow fades, I’ll think of those whose own chance to shine faded far, far too quickly.

New York, September 16, 2001

border-color: black;
border-width:1px;” src=”http://aycu02.webshots.com/image/3601/2004256081430760726_rs.jpg” alt=”kirok” />As “Star Trek” turns 40, the franchise seems to be suffering from something of a midlife crisis. And, like quadragenerians everywhere, Trek is reacting by trying to reclaim its lost youth. Not only is the next Trek film slated to be the upcoming “Star Fleet Academy” flick, featuring young Kirk and Spock, but Paramount now plans to issue remastered versions of the original series, complete with CGI spaceships and digital crewmen. While I can live with “Star Fleet Academy”—the concept has been kicking around for decades—the remastered episodes are particularly irksome. Sure, you can do some great effects with CGI. But so what? Part of the fun of the original series is watching those clunky models go through their paces—and sometimes even experiencing real awe at what the model-builders were able to accomplish with stone knives and bearskins. What’s next? Digital Klingons with cranial ridges? As a Trek fan for well over 30 years (the first convention I attended was the unfortunately named “Star Trek Tennial” in 1976), I’d much rather commemorate the 40th by celebrating the old episodes as they were—not by trying, Lucas-style, to turn them into some kind of Disneyland simulacrum of the real thing (and let’s not forget that even Lucas has finally decided to reissue his originals). It’s no wonder that the Trek product generating the most buzz this anniversary year isn’t the remastered original series or the upcoming flick; instead, it’s the fan-produced “Star Trek New Voyages.” “New Voyages” is a loving tribute to the original series, with cheesy performances (James Cawley, pictured above, plays Kirk as something of a hybrid of Shatner, Jim Carrey and Elvis), inscruitable plots that weave story lines from a half-dozen episodes with winking nods at the fans (I still don’t know exactly what happened in “In Harms Way,” but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it), and sets and costumes that mimic the original series down to almost the last detail (no cranial ridges for these Klingons, yo). It’s no surprise, then, that episodes of the fan series include appearances by Walter Koenig and George Takei, and bear the imprimatur of Eugene “Rod” Roddenbery and D.C. Fontana. While Paramount is fixated on revising the past, “New Voyages” is an unabashed, unashamed celebration of Trek’s history, salt shakers and all. So, happy birthday, Trek. You’ll live long and prosper—with or without Paramount’s help.

PC Magazine has a list out of the “Top 99 Undiscovered Web Sites.” I can only assume that the magazine is using the term “undiscovered” the same way your second grade teacher did; sure, Columbus “discovered” America, but that was hardly news to the thousands of Native Americans who were already there for thousands of years. Among PC Mag’s “discoveries” are Download Squad (one of my old stomping grounds), Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch and Michael Masnick’s TechDirt. So, props to Jordan and crew for making the list. And I guess I’ll have to wait for next year for PC Mag to “discover” Digg and Slashdot.