Bay Ridge on 9/11/2001
The towers were hit early in the morning. I was at school with my students when it happened. Immediately, parents flooded the school to pick up their children. Within an hour the school was 3/4 empty. As I walked home from school, I started calling my friends who worked in the city. Many people were using their phones, that I couldn’t get a signal.
My best friend worked in the World Trade Center area, but not in the towers. I continued to call her, but I wasn’t able to reach her for several hours. We were friends from high school and rented a house in Borough Park. We were the type of friends who called each other every five minutes, so I knew something was wrong. Four hours after the towers were hit, she walked through the front door. Her business suit was dusty, her shoes were wrecked and she looked like she had been through a fire. She was running late that morning and when she arrived in the city, the first tower had been hit. She turned around to go back on the train and there was no train, so she walked over the bridge and walked home from Manhattan.
After she told me about her ordeal walking home, she showered and asked me to go to Century’s on 86th Street because she ruined her shoes and wouldn’t be able to wear them to work the following day. (Later we found out that there would be no work for anyone the following day). We drove to 86th Street and it looked like a ghost town. Some stores left on their lights, but they were all closed. There was only 3 other people on 86th Street with us. There were no cars racing back and forth on the strip because everyone was home.
We drove across 5th Avenue from 86th to 60th Street and saw no more than 8-10 people. Small deli’s, pizza shops and stores were all closed. People were home with their families.
Hugs,
marlene
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