Two Down

Ten years ago, today.

It started like any other day, with my usual walk down Second Avenue from 79th Street to my office on East 46th Street.

Somewhere in the 50’s things changed.

Sirens started wailing and all types of emergency vehicles, (including those ominous black SUVs with blacked-out windows), raced past me on their way downtown, and the sky started filling with police and news helicopters, the usual sign that something newsworthy was going on.

Looking down Second Avenue I could see a large plume of smoke starting to drift from West to East and assumed it was from a fire in a high-rise or office building somewhere in the 20’s or 30’s.

After getting to the office I turned on the TV to see if there was any coverage of the fire.

There was.

The "fire" was in the North tower of the World Trade Center. The networks were scrambling for details and mistakenly reported that a small, general aviation aircraft, (like those always flying up and down the Hudson), had accidentally struck the tower.

Then, the South Tower was hit by the second plane.

Things changed. Again.

I called my wife to see if she was aware of what was happening, and to make sure our kids were safe at school uptown. Then I went back to the TV and remained transfixed by what was taking place just a short distance away downtown.

The South tower fell.

It was horrifying and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It took a while, but I finally turned off the TV knowing I had to leave the office, take my kids home from school and be with the family.

On my way up Second Avenue, the streets were eerily free of traffic. A car was stopped at a strange angle to the curb with its doors wide open and a cluster of people standing around gravely listening to the car radio.

The first “ghosts” appeared. People covered in white dust from the collapse of the South tower walking zombie-like uptown.

Were they going home or just wondering aimlessly, “away”?

On the sidewalk outside a coffee shop a man with a cellphone to his ear was frozen in place. Then, without any expression, he turned to the people inside and held up two fingers. Then he rotated his hand and pointed down with one finger. That’s when I knew the North tower had just collapsed.

It still amazes me that an event of such scale could be so clearly communicated with just a quick little gesture of one hand.