The Rise on the Thruway
Sep. 11th, 2003 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
womzillaThis is a piece I wrote for NYRSF's September 11th commemorative issue in October, 2001.
Our pet rats--Fawn and Buddy--had been on antibiotics for two weeks but they weren't sneezing any less, so we made another appointment for them at the vets for Tuesday morning. I placed the cages in the car, started up, and immediately turned on the radio. Since it was still early morning, I switched to my default morning listening, just in time to hear WNYC's Mark Hilan say, "We're interrupting Morning Edition to return to what appears to be our continuing coverage of the events at the World Trade Center. We've just heard that a second plane has collided with the building. . . ."
I tried calling home, but my mobile refused to make a connection; I assumed that if the towers were on fire, that would interfere with all broadcasting and communications. Actually, in retrospect, it seems that mostly it was just that the network was immediately overwhelmed. So I drove off to the vets without being able to alert![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
supergee and nellorat. I figured (correctly) that nellorat's sisters would call her and tell her about it soon enough.
The vet's office was playing a Lite Music station which periodically gave utterly inadequate updates on the progress of the catastrophe. One of the other visitors was in phone contact with his wife, and announced to us when the south tower fell. In retrospect, I don't really miss having been flooded with information and misinformation during the first hour.
The rats and I headed home (the vet assured us that the rats were breathing healthily and that the sneezing was probably just very mild allergies). About a mile south of my house on the New York State Thruway is a small rise from which the Manhattan skyline is very visible on clear days, and September 11 was a beautiful day in lower New York, vibrant blue skies with no clouds visible. I was speeding south on the Thruway when the radio told me that the north tower had collapsed. I reached that rise thirty seconds later to see the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and, all the way to the right, a tower of black smoke a mile high where the two loose teeth of the WTC had been. I would very much have liked to have been a minute earlier and gotten a chance to see at least the north tower one last time.
I arrived home a few minutes later and turned on the TV. The lower end of my cable dial is mostly broadcast stations, but on channel 6 is HBO. The broadcast stations were all, of course, showing nothing but the catastrophe; HBO was showing X-Men. I didn't find the movie more unbelievable than the news.
I spent most of the remainder of the day online. E-mail and Usenet were much better sources of the news I needed to hear--how my friends were. The answers, in order of importance, were "alive," "home," "scared," and "angry." I signed in on Bill Shunn's "New York people check-in page" many hours before it was overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of people flooding it with requests for help. By mid-afternoon, the sentence "The right wing has their Reichstag fire now" had given words to the fear in my head. Salon.com's note that "The space station commander could see the smoke rising above New York" confirmed that I was, in fact, living in the future, and not the one I had hoped for.
I returned to work on Sept. 13 (at that time, I was working in Manhattan, reasonably far from the WTC, but travel into the city was difficult and discouraged). Here's something I posted to the newsgroup rec.arts.sf.fandom (rasff)that evening:
Saturday, I posted this:
Other people suggested "Owners of the Empire State Building wanted to take back "Tallest Building in New York"; "One of the Marvel supervillains, to prevent the release of the Spiderman movie"; "The city fathers of Carthage, in a long considered revenge"; "The computer industry. Lots of companies will need to buy new hardware"; and "The estate of Irving Berlin. "God Bless America" is still under copyright."
Sunday, I posted this:
I still fear that. Never far from my mind is the irony of an unelected president lecturing the world on the damage done to democracy worldwide. I have, however, stopped flinching at the American flag; I have finally learned, again, to love it as the symbol of my country, not just the right wing.
On Sept. 11, In Mamaroneck (a Westchester village on the Sound), the owner of an Amoco gas station was verbally harassed--the assailant threatened to come back and blow the station up. Apparently rumors had spread that the staff of the Amoco had been celebrating the catastrophe, waving the Afghan flag, etc.
The owner of the store is Italian, though born in Argentina, and has lived in the US for 31 years. None of his staff are Arab, or Asian at all.
I visited lower Manhattan a week after the attack. The twisted hulk of the south tower already seemed like a beloved landmark, because I had seen it in so many photographs, the perfectly artful curve of the last remnant of the perfectly rectangular towers. The plaza looked like a construction site; what was truly unreal, and unnerving, was everything around the wreckage--shining buildings with hundreds of broken windows, streets empty of all traffic except armored cars, delis closed at midday with an inch of that awful yellow-grey powder standing on the three-dimensional lettering of their storefront signs. And everywhere police and soldiers, not threatening, quite polite even, just keeping people moving up and down Broadway. The stench of burning plastic and wood and bodies had already faded.
And today, October 13, I write this:
Peace to you and yours. Life continues; mankind endures; hope prevails.
I am angrier than I can possibly express about how the two years since the Big Terrible have been conducted by the occupying power in Washington. But anyone who reads my journal regularly knows that already.
Our pet rats--Fawn and Buddy--had been on antibiotics for two weeks but they weren't sneezing any less, so we made another appointment for them at the vets for Tuesday morning. I placed the cages in the car, started up, and immediately turned on the radio. Since it was still early morning, I switched to my default morning listening, just in time to hear WNYC's Mark Hilan say, "We're interrupting Morning Edition to return to what appears to be our continuing coverage of the events at the World Trade Center. We've just heard that a second plane has collided with the building. . . ."
I tried calling home, but my mobile refused to make a connection; I assumed that if the towers were on fire, that would interfere with all broadcasting and communications. Actually, in retrospect, it seems that mostly it was just that the network was immediately overwhelmed. So I drove off to the vets without being able to alert
supergee and nellorat. I figured (correctly) that nellorat's sisters would call her and tell her about it soon enough. The vet's office was playing a Lite Music station which periodically gave utterly inadequate updates on the progress of the catastrophe. One of the other visitors was in phone contact with his wife, and announced to us when the south tower fell. In retrospect, I don't really miss having been flooded with information and misinformation during the first hour.
The rats and I headed home (the vet assured us that the rats were breathing healthily and that the sneezing was probably just very mild allergies). About a mile south of my house on the New York State Thruway is a small rise from which the Manhattan skyline is very visible on clear days, and September 11 was a beautiful day in lower New York, vibrant blue skies with no clouds visible. I was speeding south on the Thruway when the radio told me that the north tower had collapsed. I reached that rise thirty seconds later to see the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and, all the way to the right, a tower of black smoke a mile high where the two loose teeth of the WTC had been. I would very much have liked to have been a minute earlier and gotten a chance to see at least the north tower one last time.
I arrived home a few minutes later and turned on the TV. The lower end of my cable dial is mostly broadcast stations, but on channel 6 is HBO. The broadcast stations were all, of course, showing nothing but the catastrophe; HBO was showing X-Men. I didn't find the movie more unbelievable than the news.
I spent most of the remainder of the day online. E-mail and Usenet were much better sources of the news I needed to hear--how my friends were. The answers, in order of importance, were "alive," "home," "scared," and "angry." I signed in on Bill Shunn's "New York people check-in page" many hours before it was overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of people flooding it with requests for help. By mid-afternoon, the sentence "The right wing has their Reichstag fire now" had given words to the fear in my head. Salon.com's note that "The space station commander could see the smoke rising above New York" confirmed that I was, in fact, living in the future, and not the one I had hoped for.
I returned to work on Sept. 13 (at that time, I was working in Manhattan, reasonably far from the WTC, but travel into the city was difficult and discouraged). Here's something I posted to the newsgroup rec.arts.sf.fandom (rasff)that evening:
Today was the first day back in the office for most of us at Unplugged. I got in later than usual (subway problems), but one of my officemates was even later. He walked in looking glum but solid, and I gave him a high-five (hey, we're alive; it could be worse). He walked two more steps to his desk, sat down, and immediately started wailing.
I yelped, "What? What's wrong?" and turned around. He was holding a business card from his desk--I didn't see the name, but I immediately recognized the Sun logo on it. Before he could say anything, I said, "They're all alive. Everyone from Sun made it out safely. Janice said so on rasff."
Thank you, Janice [Gelb]. Thank you, Jim Ellis and Steve Bellovin. Thank you, everyone.
Saturday, I posted this:
For the last several days, the gallows-humor factory in my brain has been suggesting unlikely scenarios for Tuesday's abomination. Foremost among them are:
A. Someone wanted to buy the land of World Trade Plaza at fire-sale rates from the Port Authority. Culprit: Donald Trump. (I originally suggested Lex Luthor. Trump has less realistic hair, though.)
B. Racist baseball fans wanted to stop Barry Bonds from breaking Mark McGuire's record.
C. Deranged railroad boosters wanted to keep people from flying. (Amtrak has reported that its business has doubled in the past three days.)
D. For the last few days, the Nattering Nabobs of Cable News have talked about only the abomination, taking attention away from . . . Gary Condit!
Other people suggested "Owners of the Empire State Building wanted to take back "Tallest Building in New York"; "One of the Marvel supervillains, to prevent the release of the Spiderman movie"; "The city fathers of Carthage, in a long considered revenge"; "The computer industry. Lots of companies will need to buy new hardware"; and "The estate of Irving Berlin. "God Bless America" is still under copyright."
Sunday, I posted this:
The biggest problem facing the US over the next few months is managing to respond to the 911 abomination in such a way that it doesn't leave us permanently in a state of undeclared war against everyone and everything.
I still fear that. Never far from my mind is the irony of an unelected president lecturing the world on the damage done to democracy worldwide. I have, however, stopped flinching at the American flag; I have finally learned, again, to love it as the symbol of my country, not just the right wing.
On Sept. 11, In Mamaroneck (a Westchester village on the Sound), the owner of an Amoco gas station was verbally harassed--the assailant threatened to come back and blow the station up. Apparently rumors had spread that the staff of the Amoco had been celebrating the catastrophe, waving the Afghan flag, etc.
The owner of the store is Italian, though born in Argentina, and has lived in the US for 31 years. None of his staff are Arab, or Asian at all.
I visited lower Manhattan a week after the attack. The twisted hulk of the south tower already seemed like a beloved landmark, because I had seen it in so many photographs, the perfectly artful curve of the last remnant of the perfectly rectangular towers. The plaza looked like a construction site; what was truly unreal, and unnerving, was everything around the wreckage--shining buildings with hundreds of broken windows, streets empty of all traffic except armored cars, delis closed at midday with an inch of that awful yellow-grey powder standing on the three-dimensional lettering of their storefront signs. And everywhere police and soldiers, not threatening, quite polite even, just keeping people moving up and down Broadway. The stench of burning plastic and wood and bodies had already faded.
And today, October 13, I write this:
I think that three unthinkable things have happened:
The world has realized it loves the US.
The US has realized it loves New York.
And New York has realized it loved the World Trade Center.
Peace to you and yours. Life continues; mankind endures; hope prevails.
I am angrier than I can possibly express about how the two years since the Big Terrible have been conducted by the occupying power in Washington. But anyone who reads my journal regularly knows that already.
