One Thousand Feet from Ground Zero
Tuesday September 11, 2001
For those of you who know where I live, it is 1,000 feet from the former World Trade Center. Since I cannot go home, I am sleeping in at my office tonight. I needed to make my own pillow, bed, and pajamas!
I am a bit shook up. I was watching it occur from the roof of my building at work as it all happened. I don’t know what condition my apartment is in and I left my windows open to boot.
So much of what happened will not be felt for a while, but so many staff people that I know at the Port Authority etc. are now gone. To me, the shops at the WTC were my local stores. The whole thing looked like a volcano erupting with ash falling after a rush of black smoke.
It was so strange to watch. It didn’t seem real. The sky was perfectly blue with no clouds at all when the planes just flew like lightning bugs to a flame. Then the explosions looked like a "B" thrill movie. The plane just flew in the southern side and the flames shot out the other side. Then later the buildings dropped like the implosions that you see on the news.
I will hang in there and hope to be able to get home soon. But in comparison I am quite lucky and grateful to be alive.
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
My apartment is still there. Those of you who know me well will see the humor in my first day of being homeless. I woke up and heard that they are letting residents down to see their apartments, so I decided to go. There is no water, electricity, gas or telephone service past Chambers Street, but I got on my bicycle and traveled south from NYU.
I had no problem getting permission to pass through Houston Street and Canal Street, but when I rode down Broadway towards Chambers Street, I was stopped by 6 military soldiers pointing their rifles at me. I thought of that 1960s poster of the daisy in the gun barrel. I got off the bike and politely spoke to the soldier and showed him my drivers license. (I finally got a use out of it since I don’t own a car).
He was emphatic. No pedestrians past this point. I asked to speak to whoever was in charge and saw a NYC police lieutenant in a white shirt. I went up to him and was going to explain that I needed my medicine, but I just broke down and cried. Men cannot stand women crying, but they really don’t know how to handle men crying. I asked for his help and pointed to my apartment house. It was just one block away.
He let me pass and asked the soldier to walk with me.
Broadway was clean of debris and those parade cleaning trucks cleaned the white powder from the street. Large equipment was traveling south on Broadway and over to Church Street. Military people, Con Ed, NYC Police were all over the place. Side streets were still covered with white powder.
I got to my building and the soldier said to go up and come down in five minutes. So I walked up the 8 flights of stairs. The stairs and hallways have windows in my building, so even without electricity it wasn’t too dark. I got my medicine and wanted to water my plants but forgot that the toilet bowl had water in the tank. I should have used it, but I was too upset to think properly. So I hope my plants will make it.
As a child I used to play the game of "the Nazis are coming, you have five minutes to pack, what will you take?" Here I had five minutes to pack what you need for the week. So I took a sleeping bag, toiletries, a book, towel and night light.
I then went up to the roof to see what’s up. The space in the sky where the World Trade Center used to stand is still covered with smoke. Side streets are still covered with white stuff. The roof deck and flowers are in perfect condition. The wind blew away the white powder. My apartment has more white stuff covering everything than Broadway or the roof deck does. I don’t know if it is asbestos, so I will wait until NYU tests their apartments downtown to see if I should worry.
If all goes well, things should be back to normal in ten years.
Rick Landsman is the chair of the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Children of Holocaust Survivors.