9/11: Media people
look back on that day
Like so many, they lost loved ones in the attacks.
By Toni Fitzgerald
Sep 9, 2011
The workday started like any other. There were emails to check, clients to tend to, coffee to be drunk.
But minutes into that morning, it became apparent that things weren't like any other day. Word began to spread around the office that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.
Curious, one media agency employee who worked near the Twin Towers, on Park Place, climbed up to the rooftop of his five-story office building.
What he saw will stay with him for the rest of his life.
"I actually saw the second plane hit," he remembers.
"Amazingly, because we've been wrongfully conditioned by crap like Michael Bay movies, it looked, well, phony. The plane seemed to just be wiggling there, and for a second or two I naively believed that all inside in were safe, that, save for a little office disruption on the affected floors, all involved would be safe."
They wouldn't, of course. No one would again. His office building was evacuated, and like many in New York City on that fateful day 10 years ago, he found himself wandering down the street, wondering what had just happened.
A decade later, he's still haunted by the memory.
"I still totally remember that weird noise as the second plane hit," he says. "Cannot truly get it out of my head. It is like no other noise I've ever heard, no noise I ever wish to hear again."
This man's recollection was one of many shared anonymously by readers of Media Life in a survey conducted earlier this week about the 10th anniversary of the attacks.
The results of the survey were clear. For media buyers and planners across the country, but especially those in New York City, Sept. 11 was a life-changing day.
Nearly half of Media Life readers say they were personally impacted by the terrorist attacks when they happened, and most say they continue to feel those effects all these years later.
Some had friends or acquaintances who perished at the World Trade Center. Others had loved ones there who narrowly escaped.
A few were actually close enough to the Twin Towers to see and hear the planes crash into them, and it's a moment that is seared in their memory forever.
A large number are still coming to terms with the attacks, whether out it's fear that our nation will be targeted again or guilt for surviving when they could have been among the dead.
Dozens of readers shared their 9/11 memories with Media Life in a survey posted earlier this week as our nation looks back on the 10th anniversary of the attacks that changed our world.
Their stories were by turn moving, inspiring, sad and hopeful as they remembered how they found out about the attacks.
"I live about 6 blocks from the WTC, and I was off that day," remembers one reader who worked at Mediaedge:cia at the time. "Ran to my back window and saw a gash in the tower, and then smoke and fire start going. I could see people in the windows. Ran to my roof and watched as it all went to hell. Called my supe (also my friend) at MEC to tell him to turn on the news. Watched people jump from the tower, saw the fireball from the second plane come right at me, sheets of paper flitting through the air like snow."
"[That night I] slept fully clothed, ready to bolt out the door in case they called for an evacuation, as the police told me it was a possibility."
One reader's father narrowly escaped dying in the attacks.
"My dad worked doing international business so he traveled a lot," says the reader, who was in high school at the time. "He was scheduled to be on the flight that crashed into tower 2, but he hopped on a plane that left the night before so he got stuck and had to rent a car and drive home. My mom called school and got me sent home. We were freaking out until we could get a hold of him. SO terrifying."
Another nearly lost a close friend.
"One of my best friends was late for a meeting on the 64th floor and was waiting for an elevator in the lobby when the first plane hit," the reader writes. "We did not find this out until later as he ran to a bar on Water Street and did not call his wife until later that afternoon. He told me he watched the second plane hit from a vantage point on Church Street, and then saw people jumping out the windows. At that point, he ran from the scene. Still cannot get those images out of his head to this day. He has not been the same."
And one reader's grandmother was evacuated from the surrounding area.
"My frail 95-year-old grandmother lived about 4 blocks from the WTC," the reader writes. "I could not go downtown to rescue her and was worried sick. Finally, near midnight on 9/11, I got a call informing me that she had been evacuated to a school further uptown and was able to take her to my apartment, where she stayed for several weeks, until it was safe for her to go home.
"For the rest of her life (she died in 2004, age 99) she would wonder aloud, 'Why am I still here when so many young people were taken?' and cry. She never really recovered from 9/11."
Even amidst the horror, some readers found hope in what they saw amidst the tragedy.
"Our office gathered around a TV while others stood out on the street watching the tragedy unfold," writers one reader. "Later in the afternoon I walked back up to Penn Station to try to get home to N.J. Penn Station was still locked and being swept for bombs. Thousands were clustered outside.
"I will never forget that when the doors were finally opened, everyone streamed in slowly and graciously. There was no panic. There was no shoving and pushing. We were all in shock, but our civility rose above our fear."
Readers sought solace in different ways.
"Stopped in a church on 5th Avenue on the way home [from work] and a man in the pew in back of me broke down -- he apparently was one of the last people out before the towers crumbled behind him," remembers one reader. "Touchingly, church volunteers clustered around him to offer comfort
"9/11 left me saddened in a way I hadn't felt since the Iranian hostage crisis," writes another reader. "A few weeks later, I drove to LA for a long-planned vacation. I had managed to get tickets to see a filming of 'Frasier'--which was appropriate since one of its creators/producers, David Angell, had died in one of the 9/11 crashes. There was a brief tribute before filming began on the Paramount soundstage, but we were encouraged to laugh--and laugh we did. It helped me begin the process of getting on with life as usual."
Getting back to that life was not easy. For 39 percent of readers, it took days for things at the office to return to normal. For 27 percent, normality returned within a week.
But for some it took much longer. Nine percent said they didn't feel normal until a month after the attacks, 6 percent said it took six months, and 6 percent said things never really did return to normal.
Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that a large majority of readers (64 percent) feel that the large amount of TV programming dedicated to the anniversary this weekend is appropriate. Just 14 percent feel that programming is inappropriate, and the rest are not sure yet.
Ten years later, readers remain reflective when they think back to that shocking day.
Here are some of the many eloquent and affecting thoughts readers shared:
"I think our lives as Americans have been permanently impacted by 9/11 in so many ways -- from how we travel, how we look at people and of course, the ongoing impact from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan."
"The Manhattan skyline will never be the same. Our country will never be the same. I still cry when I think of what happened that day."
"I live in fear of terrorism."
"One thing I miss from the aftermath was how New Yorkers came together and became friendlier. Unfortunately, that didn't last long, and the Bush Administration seized the opportunity to push their own agenda. The Iraq war has hurt our nation financially and otherwise, as one example, and it continues to do so."
"A quiet corner of my mind can still make me sit on the floor and weep when I think about [9/11], so most of the time I count blessings instead of problems."
"I feel the country lost some of its innocence that day, and I'm not sure we will ever get back to that feeling of security we once had. I have such vivid memories of that day even though I was not impacted on a personal level. The images, thoughts and my feelings as the days and weeks after 9/11 unfolded are burned into my memory forever."
"I think anti-Muslim sentiment in this country has grown tremendously as a result, and I think that's a real shame. The haters seem more justified in their beliefs, and the worst stereotypes of the religion have become the best-known to non-Muslims."
"My father-in-law was working downtown and we couldn't get any info for hours; a high school acquaintance did not survive; a close friend of the family just got out in time. I had a sense of guilt that I was safe in L.A. while all my family and friends were going through a horrible experience. I still feel guilty -- 10 years later."
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Media Life invites readers to continue to share their 9/11 stories, thoughts and reflections below in our comments section.
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