The memorial will honor 343 firefighters who lost their lives as a result of the September 11 attacks on Sunday, at 1pm At the Fire Museum, you can view a black marble-and-tile memorial as well as the helmet and bunker coat of FDNY Chaplain Mychal Judge, the first victim of the attacks.
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On 9/11/2001 I was serving overseas at a USA embassy.
Shock hit his face as he tried to find a way to make an announcement. All of a sudden you could hear the transmissions coming in on the police radio.
Ken Goldberg: I was in at work well before anything happened. He told me he had to stay, and he would be careful, but I could hear the anguish and helplessness in his voice.
More than 2,750 people were killed when two passenger jets destroyed the Twin Towers, the symbol of New York’s financial wealth and confidence. So that was the initial story, which seemed unusual at the time because it was a perfectly nice day.
“In that spilt second, I can remember thinking – it looks like a scene from a blockbuster disaster movie, only this isn’t a movie, it’s real life, and I can’t imagine how I can survive this”. After that, no one really knew anything and no one was overly focused on it.
“I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it”. When the second plane hit, people were running towards my office to say that they either saw it or felt it. Then everyone started walking down the stairs. We were on the 19th floor. All the people on the planes were killed, along with thousands of people in the buildings.
I left the classroom and met with friends. His public transit route was shut down, so he walked home 50 blocks. It was very quiet. He went back and forth from the hotel room to the street, watching and calling people he thought would be in touch with Tracy.
When I got to class, my professor was visibly shaken. He plunged into the smoke-filled stairwell and saw a man struggling with his seeing-eye dog, and a paraplegic being carried down the stairs.
While working on a group of images in the eighties that he said were meant to illustrate “the monumental scale of lower Manhattan’s skyscrapers”, Rose created many frames that showed the towers as they often appeared then, as ubiquitous but incidental: glimpsed as part of the skyline, at the end of a southbound street or rising above a cluster of other structures. I remember feeling (like) I wish I could do something more to help than just take pictures, but that was the task I knew how to do and so I carried on.
Ken: I had a cell phone.
In the days that followed, I heard her story unfold. He called his mother, her parents, his former branch back in Sioux Falls, South Dakota – anyone he thought she might also reach out to.
It was very quiet on the train, very unusual. Let’s have faith. Once again we went to work on a chain (bucket) brigade.
So many of us can’t avoid choking up when we try to talk about the awesome courage and generosity of the American people that day and in the following days.
Emily: Was there a general sense of panic?
Ken: People were definitely anxious, but it was very quiet. I think he may have arrived on board one of the ferries from Manhattan. “We don’t know if it was a private aircraft…” We were able to get away from all the worst stuff though.
She turned on the news and looked out to see a fire in one of the buildings, but didn’t feel that she was in danger until the first building collapsed, she said. People covered in ash, police cars whizzing by, cars trying to get out of Manhattan.
Emily: Was your office building damaged at all?
Ken: My building probably had some minor damage from when the towers fell, some broken windows, but for the most part it wasn’t damaged.
While he was there, Mr. Barber took a photo of a woman who lost many friends and co-workers at Cantor Fitzgerald. There were a few in your grade.
Emily: Yeah, I remember. There were two kids in my grade whose fathers died that day.
What was it like when you got back home to Ridgewood and got to the house? “After the smoke had cleared (literally), the emptiness in the sky downtown was to me terribly painful”. It was like a war was starting or something. When I got into the office building, nearly all employees were gathered in the large company dining area watching large screens.
Emily: What happened in the weeks after? It was wonderful to see that city bounce back.
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“He told me what was happening, and the next several hours was spent canceling media for our largest client, which was an online travel agent”. The towers seemed to buckle, then just melt. How could these buildings actually be down?
