Tuesday again

The fact that today’s 9/11 anniversary is the first on a Tuesday may not mean much to most people. But, for me, it serves as a reminder that 9/11 means something very different to those of us who were living in New York at the time than it does to the rest of the country. The fact that 9/11 was a Tuesday, and more specifically, the second Tuesday in September, meant that it was primary day in New York. That meant that I was on my way to work from my polling place as the day’s horrific events unfolded.  It also meant that at least some people who might have otherwise been at work in the World Trade Center that morning were late for work as they returned from the polls. For me, and for many others who saw the plume of smoke that lingered over the city for days, who smelled the acrid aroma of that smoke for weeks, who walked past the Missing posters daily, 9/11 was a local event. It wasn’t about Afghanistan, or Iraq, or the “War on Terror.” It was about an attack on our city. On our home. My memories of the immediate post-9/11 period have little to do with President Bush, Al Qaeda or Congress. What I do remember is wandering a crowded city, unsure how to respond, as shell-shocked survivors struggled uptown from Ground Zero. I remember seeing the first fighter plane soar over the city at midday, and feeling my initial fear turn to relief as I realized that it was one of ours. And glancing around at my fellow New Yorkers, who had all craned their necks to look at the jet in unison, and had looked back down with the same wary look of relief.

To this day, I still think of 9/11 primarily as an attack New York. Yes, I know that the Pentagon was also attacked, and that United 93 was intended to strike another Washington target (though many of its brave passengers hailed from the New York area). As a New Yorker, I read the daily profiles of victims in The New York Times with almost religious commitment. As a New Yorker, I was reminded of 9/11 every day for years, whether it was by seeing what I still think of as a hole in the sky on a daily basis, or by taking the PATH train once its downtown station was reopened, and having to watch tourists pose for pictures next to the sign defiantly defining the station’s location: World Trade Center. And as a New Yorker, I can’t help but think of the firefighters who died recently in the former Deutsche Bank building as the latest victims of the September 11th attacks. Six years later, 9/11 remains a painful wound in New York, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 5:12 am