Thanks for the encouragement after this morning’s post that pushed me to finally write down my rambling September 11th story. It’s difficult to put into words, but I want this recorded—especially for Clara someday, when I need to explain the enormity of that day. It was a terrible day, but one that changed the course of my life and shaped who I am. As much as I love our many DIY posts, sometimes the personal pieces (like the birth story or other posts I’ve written) are the ones I’m most grateful to have captured when I finally emptied the jumble of memories from my head onto the keyboard.
I’ve debated writing this for six years each time the anniversary came around. I was a college sophomore living in New York City on September 11th. Being there and watching events unfold right in front of me is still something I haven’t fully made sense of, so I stayed quiet in the years we were blogging. I don’t really know what made this year different, but I felt ready. It’s strange how something that happened so long ago can feel distant until I start to talk or type about it—then every sound, smell, and sight rushes back like it was yesterday. That morning I had been in Grand Central working on a show house for Country Home magazine. My best friend and I interned there on mornings without classes, helping unwrap accessories so rooms could be styled.
I remember hearing from our boss right when we arrived that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. At first it sounded like a smaller accident—maybe a small plane off course—so people called relatives who worked in the towers just to check on them. It seemed like only a few floors were affected, and while we were worried, most of us weren’t panicking. Then we heard a second tower had been hit. Panic hit instantly. Grand Central was evacuated within minutes.
Armed guards and staff hurried us out, explaining that landmarks were potential targets and it wasn’t safe to remain. I’m so grateful my best friend was with me. I was in total panic and had no idea where to go. The entire subway system was shut down, so crowds poured out into the street in front of Grand Central. My friend and I walked toward Penn Station, hoping the trains to Bayside, Queens—where we lived—might still be running.
When we learned the trains weren’t running, we wandered aimlessly and ended up on the steps of the New York Public Library. We were terrified it could be a target too—should we sit here or keep moving? We were frozen with shock and exhaustion, so we sat. People rushed by and strange things lay abandoned on the sidewalks: a lone shoe, an open briefcase with papers scattered around. Cell phones weren’t working, which made it even scarier for parents and loved ones trying to reach their people. I remember saying we should conserve our batteries and energy and just sit. Then people began pointing toward the smoking towers. From the library steps we could clearly see them as part of the skyline. A large cloud of dust erupted from the first tower and someone shouted that it had been hit again, another person yelled “They’re bombing it!” and then the tower collapsed. It imploded in front of us with a massive cloud of dust.
At the time we didn’t know the collapse resulted from heat and structural damage from the plane impact, so the idea that the tower had been hit again felt very real. Someone screamed “we’re at war!” while another person closed their eyes and repeated the Lord’s Prayer quietly. Then people scattered like frightened animals. Streets filled with dust even though the collapse had happened miles away. Police officers and firefighters were coated in ash—faces, hair, clothing turned gray. People limped through the streets with cuts and bruises from debris, many escaping downtown on foot since public transit was out.
We ended up sheltering in a hotel foyer in midtown, gathered around a television where we saw the second tower fall. The room fell into an eerie silence; shock and fear hung thick. The hotel offered vacant rooms upstairs, but none of us wanted to climb up even a floor. We had seen skyscrapers collapse and wanted to stay on the ground so we could run if needed.
Late that night we somehow made it back to our apartment in Bayside. A few trains had resumed and we managed to get spotty cell service to tell family we were okay. We kept finding ourselves drawn to the altered skyline outside and went out on our tiny balcony. Then a smell hit us—burning, acrid, something rotten. At first I wondered if it was just burned building materials, but then we realized it was more than that. We stood on the balcony and cried.
What haunts me most now are the thousands of missing person posters plastered everywhere in the weeks after: fences, scaffolding, subway walls covered with faces of people who were gone—dads smiling with kids, women hugging dogs, Christmas card photos with the missing person circled. It was gut-wrenching. I remember telling my friend Lindsay about a dream I’d had about a man in a suit, wondering how I knew him, and then realizing the next morning that he was one of the faces on a fence near my apartment.
A friend’s father managed to get out of the first tower and was safe on the ground, but went back inside when his boss said it was okay to retrieve belongings—and the tower collapsed, killing him. I remember crying with my friend over how cruel and unfair that felt. Stories like that—people who narrowly escaped only to be pulled back in—were heartbreaking and all too common. We were half devastated and half numb; it was too much to process all at once.
But something remarkable came from being in New York then: an overwhelming sense of community. In that moment of grief the city felt like family. People wanted to help, to rebuild, to be strong together. For weeks we thanked dusty firefighters with tears in our eyes and bought drinks for the crews digging through rubble. It felt like surviving a shared war—we were all on the same side, determined not to let terror win. Many people left the city afterward; about 30% of my friends moved away. I understood why some couldn’t remain, but I never once considered leaving. New York was my home and I stayed. Those who stayed seemed to grow closer; strangers gave each other quiet looks of encouragement on the subway and on the street. We would never forget that day, but we weren’t going anywhere.
I lived in New York for four more years, finished school, and started working at an advertising agency in midtown, less than a block from Grand Central—the same place where my world had once been upended. It was at that agency that I met John and we began dating. He even took a picture of my best friend and me about a month before we moved to Virginia to start our life together.
Though I’m a Richmond gal now, I will always be a New Yorker at heart. NYC forever.