Five Years Later: Media Recollections Of 9/11

We asked some friends in the media to give us recollections of September 11, 2001. Some declined, saying they felt uncomfortable or that it was too self-indulgent. Others gave personal accounts � from Brooklyn to Bombay � of the day no one will ever forget.

Bucky Turco
Publisher
Animal
New York

I turned on NY1 news that morning and saw a plane had hit one of the WTC towers. I immediately grabbed my cameras, jumped on the mountain bike, and blazed downtown (I was living on east 25th St. and 3rd Ave. at the time). Upon reaching Broadway, I noticed that now both Towers were burning (evidently, on my ride down the 2nd plane had hit). With papers raining down, police were frantically moving people away from the buildings, and I kept weaving in an out of streets trying to get closer, making it all the way to Carlisle and Washington St. I was only on that corner for a few minutes when the building swayed a hair to the West, and the South Tower just started crumbling. I shot the last picture I could and then had to turn and run for my life, dragging my mountain bike behind me. I headed into, of all places, a very porous parking garage where the debris rained in to a point of total darkness.

At around 3:30PM EST I bought the cheapest camcorder I could find on West 14th St. and rollerbladed downtown with a camcorder dangling from my neck. After dipping and dodging police barricades, I wound up in front of Pace University right in front of City Hall. A pretty older blonde woman tapped me on the shoulder, and asked me if I wanted to join her news crew. It was Diane Sawyer. She explained there was a media blackout and since I was the only one with a camcorder, they'd pay me to video Ground Zero. They gave me a paper towel to hide the camera under. I'll never forget how her news team was dressed in medical scrubs and Fire Dept. shirts. That, in part, is how we got closer to the still burning buildings than anyone else besides firemen. Diane was handing out water and face shields to emergency personnel. At one point she turned to me and said she would "distract them" and to "just shoot everything." Later, while Diane was getting mic'd up outside, a producer in the news truck blurted out, "You mean she's been walking around Ground Zero for over an hour and that's all the soot she has on her?!?!"

After her report, Diane and I were whisked away in a black Suburban to ABC HQ. They put me in a room with all these beta recorders while a technician was busy grabbing all the feeds from around the world � and ABC was busy drawing up an agreement. European and Mexican TV showed way more jumpers then their American counterparts and it was almost too overwhelming to watch. Once I reached home that night I really began to digest all the day's drama � and how Diane Sawyer basically taught me how to get in and out of a disaster zone by playing the part of a first responder. Additional note: For more then 6 months ABC refused to pay me or give me a copy of my tape. Not knowing where to turn, I called Rush & Molloy. They ran an item the next day, and within hours, ABC messengered me the video and the check.

Dorian Benkoil
Editorial Director
mediabistro.com
New York

I was one of two managing producers at ABCNEWS.com, leading a team that managed the science, technology, health and business sections of the site. I remember a crisp, clear wonderful morning, getting in about 8:30 a.m., then less than an hour later getting the first reports � perhaps by the newswires, or CNN � of a plane hitting a World Trade Center tower. I thought, at first, someone had made a stupid error flying an airplane and made a remark I still regret. It became clear when the second plane hit that this was no accident. Our editors were gaping at the screens, standing, and I gently reminded them to get to work. In incredibly difficult circumstances, they produced stories within hours about the science of a building collapsing, the (less than adequate) technology of communications in such a situation, what we could surmise of the health effects, the danger to financial markets, and more.

Mike McAuliffe, a senior editor for national news on the site, bicycled down to the area and was almost hit by falling debris, when he ducked under an overhang. A friend who worked at the World Financial Center called to describe for our reports how he had looked out his window at a huge hole in the side of the building, with papers flying out, then walking uptown with a sea of people heading away from the area any way they could. My wife � whom I first met when I was a foreign correspondent in Japan for the Associated Press � called, shaken, begging me not to go down to there. She had dropped our older daughter off at school on West 21st Street and was pushing our younger daughter back home in a stroller when she saw a crowd gather. Looking down Sixth Avenue, my wife saw the tower with a gaping hole pouring smoke. My sister, in southern California, asked on the phone about the "East Coast terror attacks" -- a common phrase for the first couple days -- with curiosity and concern more than fear in her voice.

I remember the incredible poise and performance of Peter Jennings, who, on air, expressed his disbelief when he saw a tower coming down, calling out to the control room to explain what he could not believe his eyes were telling him. Throughout the ABC News buildings on West 66th Street there was a strong sense of purpose, that all had assigned tasks to do, to go wherever was needed, and continually report. There was not a lot of display of emotion, but rather of concentrated effort, just as one would expect from consummate news professionals.

Betsy Aldredge
Public Relations Coordinator
Museum of Jewish Heritage
New York

On the morning of September 11th, I remember being in a positive mood because it was such a beautiful sunny day and I woke up early to vote, something I truly enjoy doing. I went to my office at Lincoln Center, where I was the assistant editor of Opera News magazine. I got a phone call from my father who was on his way to the airport for a business trip. He let me know he was safe and not getting on the plane. It was the first I had heard about the first tower being hit. We turned on the television at work, but the only channel we could get was in Spanish. Our circulation manager had to translate. We saw the second plane go into the towers. I will never forget watching her try to find the words for "They are jumping out of the windows. They are holding hands and jumping."

Tony Silber
Publisher
Folio:
South Norwalk

I was at an American Business Media event at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown. Mark Rothman, the ABM marketing consultant, came up to me and said, 'Did you hear a plane crashed into the World Trade Center?" Like everyone else, he and I thought it was a small plane.

I remember spending the next few hours watching things unfold on television and going out to the street to see what I could see downtown. I saw thick brown-gray smoke.

The conference was cancelled.

One surreal vignette: While watching the fireballs and the people jumping and the buildings collapse, one of the salespeople from a vendor company at the conference � they sold some e-gadget or other � was extremely persistent, and cornered me for a sitdown. He wanted my magazine to partner with his company. I was numb � absorbed by what was happening downtown � but this sales guy was oblivious. He was focused on his sale.

I remember walking back to my office at Brill Media in Rockefeller Center, and trying to get some work done. They shut the building around 10:30, but I stayed for a while responding to e-mail. I remember thinking that Rockefeller Center was a plausible target and that I should get out. I remember thinking that I might have been one of those who stayed at their desks to work after the South Tower was officially vacated, dismissing the possibility that a second plane would come.

After that, I, and thousands of others, wandered around Midtown with nowhere to go. The buildings were all closed, and the railroads were not working. Occasionally, an ambulance or fire truck would come screaming past, covered in gray dust.

Cell phones did not work, so there were long lines at the pay phones. Finally, I was on Third Avenue in the Fifties around 1 p.m. When a couple of guys in suits came tearing past, saying that Metro North was working again. I followed them at a run to Grand Central, and hopped a jam-packed train for New Haven.

I got off in Fairfield, walked to my car on what seemed like the quietest summer day I've ever seen. The sky was a rich blue and the trees were still brilliantly green, and some guy dove past me in a utility truck, and asked me if I had come from Manhattan. I said I had, and he said, "God bless you."

Claire Zulkey
Editor
MBToolbox.com
Chicago

At the time I was working for a really really crappy ad firm in downtown Chicago, right near the Sears Tower. I was living at home at the time in Evanston, and that day my father was out of town, specifically, flying to a meeting in Washington DC and then later that day to New York City where he would catch the Chicago White Sox play the Yankees. Since he was out of town I got to drive his car to work instead of taking the El as usual. I was running late and as I was eating my cereal heard on the radio, WXRT, that a plane had hit the WTC � I thought it was a freak accident and the plane was something like a 6-seater.

As I drove to work, though, updates kept coming on the radio, and I remember nearly losing control of the car at this curve on Sheridan road near Loyola University. "It's getting worse..." I heard on the radio as I took my Dad's car to his underground parking lot at Lower Wacker Drive.

Since I was running so late, I took a cab to the office from my Dad's building (he works at the Prudential Building, which several blocks northeast of the Sears Tower.) As I rode in the cab and the Tower loomed into view and the news was on, I thought, "This is probably the worst place in the city of Chicago to be heading to."

I got to the office and everybody was having a hard time sitting down � we were walking around to each others' cubicles, reading the Tribune online, seeing what was up.

The company was pretty much run by two guys at the time, one who was a real douchebag and the other who was a nicer guy. The nice guy came down to the creative side of the office and said "If you guys want to go home � if you don't feel safe � go ahead." And for a moment I thought, "It's not that big a deal. I can handle it."

Then I think I heard that the Sears Tower was evacuated. "Fuck this," I thought. I was going to have to walk back to the Prudential Building in order to go home and I offered to give a ride to a co-worker who lived in Lincoln Park, mostly because I wanted company.

The Loop looked like it was lunchtime, practically, with the streets oddly crowded for the morning. Everybody seemed well-behaved, though, no panicking. A lot of people were on their cell phones. I don't remember at which point I started making calls but I wanted to make sure that, of course, my Dad was OK (he was in the air en route to DC when the WTC was hit and had just gotten off the Metro when he got a voicemail from me. He ended up driving home from DC the next day.) Molly, my co-worker and I passed a Sears and I remember commenting on a pair of black boots that were on a mannequin in the window, because talking about a cute pair of shoes felt better than trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

We got to the car. I felt a moment of panic getting out of the garage because I really didn't like the feeling of being underground and not being able to see the sky. I dropped Molly off at her apartment and went home to call everyone in my cell phone who lived in DC or NY and waited for my mom to get home from golfing. I basically sat on the couch for the rest of the day, at one point going to the gym just to get out of the house. Right before I went to bed that night I called my boyfriend at the time, who was living in Moscow, to tell him about what happened when I knew I'd reach him at a decent hour.

Reed Phillips
Managing Partner
desilva + phillips
New York

I was in my office at 32nd and Park that morning and heard from my wife that a "small plane" had crashed into the World Trade Center. Later, a colleague who had walked over from Penn Station said the first tower had collapsed and the second one was ablaze. I walked to Sixth and 28th to see for myself and was standing in the middle of Sixth Avenue looking downtown with a perfect view of the second tower when it collapsed. The crowd gasped in disbelief.

Kerry Smith
President & CEO
Red 7 Media
South Norwalk, CT

I was working at Primedia Business in Stamford, Connecticut and had a 10:00 a.m. meeting on Park Ave South in the 20s. I had heard that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center when I got into Grand Central, but like many, I had assumed it was a small, private plane and didn't think too much of it. While on the subway heading downtown, it became clear that whatever happened was really bad. The second plane hit while I was on the subway. I remember getting off at 14th Street and coming up to street level, I had a clear view all the way down Broadway to the two burning towers. People were standing in the street, all of us looking up at the burning towers. It was such a clear day � no clouds, blue sky. Then, a siren chirped behind us � a fire truck was heading down Broadway. I turned toward the noise and as I did a woman nearby started screaming. I looked back just as the first tower began to fall. I'll never forget that sight. It happened in slow motion.

Then all hell broke loose. People running, screaming, crying, hugging. My first instinct was to call my wife, but my cell phone didn't work, so I headed over to the Primedia office on 17th Street. I told my people there to go home. While I was on the phone with my wife, the second tower came down. I decided it was time to get out of the city. I walked the 40 blocks back to Grand Central � as National Guard troops headed south and fighter jets began circling Manhattan. Grand Central had been evacuated and they were just letting people back in. I hopped a train back to Connecticut. I remember looking out window as we headed north and thinking how strange it was that there were no cars heading south. Only fire trucks from all the suburban towns � truck after truck, all heading into the city to help. One sad part of that trip was seeing the ambulances standing by at each stop that had a hospital, waiting � expecting � to tend to injured people being evacuated from New York, which never really happened. Sadder than that, however, was a few days after 9/11, seeing the cars that were still parked at our town's train station. Those belonged to the guys who never made it home.

David Hirschman
Online Editor
Editor & Publisher
New York

I was in Paris on 9/11, finishing up a play and working at a floundering investment company. When I heard that something was happening, I ran over to an Australian bar nearby so that I could watch the coverage in English. I was the only American at the bar � and the only New Yorker � so I quickly became a sort of grief mascot, and I spent most of the afternoon and evening talking to strangers.

I don't know that 9/11 "changed" my career in journalism, but it did delay it. When I got back to New York that fall, jobs in media were seemingly scarce and I ended up getting a job at a medical research lab for the next year. I knew I still wanted to write, but I couldn't find a venue. I shelved the play I'd written, thinking it wasn't "important" anymore, and I never picked it up again.

Dan Hanover
Editor
Event Marketer Magazine
South Norwalk, CT

I was on a plane over Saudi Arabia on my way to give a speech at a marketing conference in Bombay. True story.

Melissa Walker
Prom Editor
Seventeen
Brooklyn

I remember walking to work at 42nd and Lex � I was an editorial assistant at Rosie magazine. They had been filming Men in Black II in that neighborhood, and at first when I got upstairs and saw all our TVs on (we had TVs all over the office to watch Rosie's show), I thought the flames were a stunt.

My second thought, once I realized a plane had really hit the WTC, was that Laguardia was really fucked up. I had just read a New York magazine article about how busy LGA was and how an accident could happen. Even after the second plane hit, nothing really registered with me. It wasn't until the first tower fell that I thought, "Maybe I should call my parents in North Carolina and tell them that I'm OK. Am I OK?"

A friend also worked at Rosie with me. When everyone decided to leave work, I went to her house nearby in Tudor City. Her father came home, we made lunch, and we looked at a book that he had about the construction of the World Trade Center.

I remember that she and I wondered why the Emergency Broadcasting System wasn't going on the TV. It seemed like the only time "This is not a test" was fairly necessary.

In the early afternoon, the trains were running and I took the F home to Brooklyn. My third-floor windows were open, and there was ash on the surfaces in my bedroom. I scrubbed them numbly, then ordered a pizza, wondering if it would come. It did. My roommate and I pulled a mattress into the living room and stayed there, watching TV, for about 3 days. I didn't go back to work until the following Monday.

Our editors asked me and the other assistants to contact victims' families to start putting together a story. I didn't want to do it. I knew then that I wasn't into the hard news stuff. I started crying when I interviewed a widow. I couldn't take it.

A few months later, my college friend got laid off at Rosie � definitely a result of 9/11. It was another year until Rosie folded.

Kyle du Ford
Denver, CO

I was earning a crappy wage managing a health club in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities on that particular Tuesday. It was during my 21-mile bike ride to work that the attacks happened. My wife and I had a friend at the Pentagon, my mom was thinking about going to NYC that day and my sister was en route to Pittsburgh. When I arrived at the club my phones were ringing off the hook with people asking if I knew about my family and friends. Within minutes of arriving I watched in horror as the towers fell.

As reports that the IDS Tower or Mall of America were next to "get hit" prompted tramplings and mass panic in the city, my wife, then a medical student, was asked with her other colleagues to help man the university hospital, leaving my 3-month-old daughter at daycare that was closing early � someone needed to get home and get her. I informed the general manager I was closing my department and leaving, to which I was told "If you leave, don't come back." With that I left, biked the hour back home, picked up my daughter and waited for my wife to come home late that night.

That bike ride home proved to be a linchpin in my life. I decided at that moment that going forward I would do what I loved with abandon. I quit my job (they didn't end up firing me) and launched my first sports magazine within six months. That magazine, then purchased by a competitor, propelled my journalism career.

Patrick Gavin
Editor
FishbowlDC
Washington, D.C.

I was teaching 7th grade history in Princeton, NJ. At the end of the period, when class let out, we heard in the hallway that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. The reaction among many � looking back � was almost embarassingly blas�, save for those who had parents working in and around that area. Indeed, I don't think it was until after the buildings collapse that the severity of it all really hit home. As a teacher, your priority is to take care of your students' emotions first, so I had to hold my own reactions in until I got home later that afternoon.

Kate Coe
Editor
FishbowlLA
Los Angeles

My family and I had returned from a trip to Italy shortly before September 11. That morning, we were all jet-lagged and stumbling around the kitchen, when my son shouted that the radio said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I thought it was a shock-jock joke. And then we turned on the TV.

As I watched the second plane move towards the second tower, my husband started dialing. His younger sister and both his brothers live in Brooklyn, and work in Manhattan. One call finally went through and everyone was safe. Horrified, shaky, and afraid--but safe.

My father-in-law was on a fishing trip to the Kamchatka peninsula � one of the most remote places on earth. But, determined to fight down my own fears and feelings of helplessness, I started calling and emailing every contact, every resource I had. After many years as a television producer, I prided myself on being able to get a hold of anyone, any time, any place. I might not have been working a story, but I acted like I was. Fours hours later, my kids spoke to their grandfather on the cell phone belonging to the pilot of the chartered float plane. The San Francisco-based tour company had dispatched him to the Siberian lake, after listening to my frantic appeals.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner
director of education, west coast
mediabistro.com
Los Angeles

I was on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway at 8 a.m. on my way to meet with Laurel for my job interview. I was staring at the Twin Towers, always my favorite buildings to look at, when the plane flew into one of them. Traffic ground to a halt. Eventually, there was paper confetti everywhere. I remained stuck on the BQE, calling my mother, then left a message for Laurel to tell her that I probably wouldn't be on time. I remember worrying that she would think I was a flake.

No one knew that this had happened yet. Then the second plane flew in. We all got out of our cars and stood on the BQE watching. It was the most quiet I'd ever experienced in New York City. The radio started talking about other attacks, and I had the instinct to put my hands over my head, as if the world was over and my demise was imminent, and that something would soon fall from the sky and crush my head. On the other side of the highway, emergency vehicles started passing by in droves. Traffic started moving, and I got off the BQE at my father's office, which was at a place called Acme Steel Door. This was the company that had installed all the cubicles and doors in the Twin Towers. We stood outside and watched as the buildings fell. I went home, took a Xanax, and fell asleep.

I remember in the next days how solemn everyone was. I remember coming up next to a car with its radio playing music and thinking how disrespectful it was. I remember flags on everyone's cars. I remember the smell, and everyone saying that it was from the dust, when we all really knew it was from death. I remember the dust clouds that hung like haloes over where the Towers had been. I remember thinking that if only those dust clouds would go away, we could start the healing.

[Dylan Stableford is mediabistro.com's managing editor of media news. He can be reached at dylan AT mediabistro.com]