A Dispatch from a Suffering City
To Non-New York Family and Friends
September 13, 2001 (with updates)
By Rich Behar, Senior Writer, Fortune

"What is it like?" a city of eight million exhausted people are being asked. What is it like to be so near the scene of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history? "I've had better days," says the young waiter, his eyes welling up, as he brings the water to my table. "And you?"

It's 11:30 am on "the morning after." I'm on the Avenue of the Americas in Greenwich Village, seated at a sidewalk café, just 1.5 miles from "Ground Zero." The café is one of the few places in my neighborhood that are open for business today. As I write, my hand is shaking. What is happening here is, in a word, indescribable.

The city is so quiet right now that it feels almost rural. And then, like clockwork, every two or three minutes, the wail of a siren and a flashing red light reminds you of where you are. And then -- near-silence again. Nobody at the café even looks up; the sight and sound of police cars is now routine. Other than that, there are virtually no vehicles on the avenue. Humans are equally sparse. They creep along the sidewalks, staring downward, or staring into others' eyes, or -- pausing abruptly in the middle of avenues -- they stare at the inferno further downtown, that vast white bubbling cloud of death that seems permanently stamped over Wall Street. Tears fill their eyes, and they stand motionless, as if in tribute.

On my way here, I passed a few open delis, where people were waiting on long lines for coffee (a New York version of an energy crisis). And just coffee, mind you. Appetites were few and far. Finding a newspaper is impossible, as no deliveries are permitted below 14th Street, the official demarcation line for Downtown. Everyone looks like they're having a bad hair day, as if they were slapped silly in their sleep. But it's worse, far worse than that. I passed a few small groups of people locked in teary embraces. One man was so hysterical that I was certain he'd lost a family member. Unsmiling eyes would lock onto my eyes in a way that would have been unnerving and even hostile two days ago. But today it's a gesture of connection. Today there are no strangers in New York City. And the President hit it perfectly when he talked about a "quiet, unyielding anger." This is also a city in a collective walking coma.

As people stroll past my table, I can hear pieces of their conversations, which are really all the same. "Look, if people are willing to sacrifice…" "I can't fathom it…" "He was a fireman who…" "If there is anything I can do, please…" A military chopper hovers overhead for a minute. Nearby, a large group of male volunteers are assembling on a corner, each holding a yellow shovel. These are muscle flexing guys with deep borough dialects, the kind of men you wouldn't want to piss off in a bar. They are smoking and spitting, wearing jeans or green fatigues. One dons a NY Yankees cap. They're gripped by a sense of resolve. And they're a beautiful sight, frankly. As if on cue, a church bell chimes at the same time that the men climb into the back of a huge, empty, enclosed truck, for the short trip to Death Mountain.

As I write, there's an image that I can't get out of mind. Last night, at around midnight, after viewing a ghastly piece of new footage of the plane that ripped into Tower 2 like a meteor from hell, I suddenly needed air, so I threw on my clothes and hit the streets. Hudson, Bleecker, Seventh, Twelfth, Washington, and back to Hudson again. I walked entire blocks without seeing any people, or cars, or open stores and restaurants. It was as if a neutron bomb had been dropped in Greenwich Village, leaving at least these particular buildings intact, but not the humans. But the image I can't stop seeing is that of the young policeman. The one who startled me when I walked to the rear of an empty deli. He was seated on the floor near the place where, in better times, milk would be available for sale, his head buried in his hands. I clearly startled him, as well. We exchanged nods and then he fell back into his position. Who did he lose among the 80-some cops who are missing? Or the 300-or-so firefighters who are presumed dead? Maybe he's sitting here because he lost them all.

One can't plan tragedies for a convenient time. And the news of the attack reached me after having finished two continuous all-nighters -- the longest stretch in my life -- on a deadline. I was slumped in my chair on the 15th floor of the Time & Life Building in Rockefeller Center, preparing to sleep on a couch, when the "pinging" began. Three emails in the space of three minutes, asking whether I was okay, which left me confused. When one of those messages mentioned something about "raining bombs" and the World Trade Center, I ran into the hall and asked a colleague if something had happened there. "It no longer exists," he said. I waited for the joking smile, which never came. As I glared at him, he added that the Pentagon was also hit.

In Fortune Magazine's main conference room, a dozen journalists, some of them crying, were glued to CNN. Several non-smokers asked me for cigarettes. When, during an interview, Israel's Shimon Peres stated that the following day (Wednesday) had already been declared a national day of mourning for America, my tears began. My thoughts then raced to the friends and colleagues who I knew either lived or worked near the World Trade Center or were on assignments in Washington. Like millions of fellow New Yorkers, I did my part to tie up the phones so that none of us could get through to anyone. Somehow, a third-cousin of mine from Israel was able to call. He said that, when he heard the news, he rushed out to give blood, which would be airlifted along with other blood supplies from Tel Aviv to New York. Before long, and again like most New Yorkers, my answering machine was too full to receive new messages.

Within minutes of the first newscasts, the Time, Inc. public-address system was in overdrive in the 48-story Rockefeller Center skyscraper. We were told that security was being drastically beefed up, that no deliveries would be permitted (a policy that remains in place), and that nobody would be allowed access or movement through the building unless they had their company ID cards in hand. After all, Rock Center, a towering symbol of American wealth and success, had been targeted in the past. Eventually, all non-company people were ordered to leave, and non-essential employees were strongly encouraged to follow them. "This may not be the end of the attacks," pointed out Robert Friedman, our International Editor, echoing the worst fears of everyone.

At noon, a meeting was convened for the 30-odd Fortune staffers who had made it into the building that day, and who had decided to stay. As exceedingly difficult as it was for shell-shocked business journalists to focus on the economic repercussions of an event that itself was unclear, we nonetheless started the first of many talks about how to revamp the next issue of the magazine, due out Monday. One reporter had a list of every company that was located at the WTC. When I asked if I could take a look, he warned that it was as thick as a telephone book. Another reporter had a document that listed the top 10 tenants. Some quick math showed that nine of those ten companies, representing 41% of the total space of the WTC, were in the banking and insurance industries. And everyone in the room knew instantly what that meant: The odds were painfully high that many of these workers were at their desks by 8:48 a.m. and 9:04 a.m., when the two towers were hit. One editor noted that, in some cases, entire big-size corporations no longer exist. "Gone, finished, obliterated, history," he said. And nobody spoke for a moment.

At that instant, similar meetings were being held all over the Time & Life building, headquarters of the world's biggest magazine chain. People, Time, Money... all of their staffs were scrambling to figure out how to cover a tragedy that was unfolding by the hour, even as they personally coped with the catastrophe, trying to find out if family and friends were safe. Time, Inc.'s Editorial Director, John Huey, roaming from floor to floor to give advice, spoke at Fortune's meeting of a potential "global economic catastrophe," depending on how the world reacted to the news. (Having run Fortune for nearly six years until recently, his views carry particular weight around here - and today they stung). He also verbalized what the rest of us were feeling: That some people in the room would undoubtedly soon learn that they know people who had perished in the attacks, and that the "not knowing" was just unbearable.

Deputy Managing Editor Rick Tetzeli, seated nearby, could not have known that he'd receive the first blow. He later learned that a close friend was on the plane that ripped through Tower One. Just three days earlier, his pal had turned up at Rick's apartment for a surprise birthday party for our editor. Rick took a day off to help his friend's family to cope, and then he returned to help steer our coverage -- with a stoic, quiet dignity that inspired the staff. Similarly, you would never tell by watching them work that Reporter Grainger David had lost a Princeton frat buddy, while Reporter Alynda Wheat, assigned to write eulogies, suddenly found herself writing an obit for her junior high school librarian, who died along with her husband, the producer of TV's "Frasier."

Meanwhile, Fortune's M.E. Rik Kirkland doled out assignments with the efficiency of an army general, even as his mind drifted to his 13-year-old, who had been rescued along with other kids from a school four blocks away from the Trade Center. While greatly relieved that his son was safe, Rik was deeply distressed that the boy had watched people leap to their deaths from the WTC's windows.

The stories of deaths and near misses were, themselves, spreading like fire. The Fortune writer who decided at the last minute to skip the ill-fated Newark-S.F. flight in order to attend a baseball game. The TV network staffer, whose fiancé, trapped inside the trade center, used his cell phone to tell her goodbye. A high school friend who I spoke with just once in the last 20 years emailed me from Colorado, desperate for help in locating her brother-in-law, Christian, a Cantor Fitzgerald staffer and a father of three. "We haven't heard a word since he called early in the morning saying he couldn't get out," she wrote. "Do you have access to any info or databases or resources that we regular folks do not? We have gone to all the hospitals. Anything you can do..." When she mentioned that her brother-in-law worked on the 105th floor of Tower One, I grew silent. Nobody from above the 101st floor had yet been found alive. So how do I break the news to her? Journalism had never prepared me for such a moment.

One journalist friend, ABC News investigator Chris Vlasto, was actually on the phone with his wife, ABC producer Deirdre Michalopoulos, as the two watched Tower One blazing on their TV screens (9:00). He was at their home in Brooklyn; she on an assignment in Washington. After Tower Two was struck (9:04), Chris told her that he was on his way to the scene, while Deirdre, paged by ABC's news desk, was told to return to New York by any available means to help cover it, as well. But no sooner did she leap into a D.C. taxi (9:35) for the train station, than she heard on the taxi's radio that the Pentagon had been hit, that U.S.A Today's building was on fire (incorrect, it turned out) and that a bomb scare was unfolding at the train station itself (also incorrect). "Yes! Yes!," screamed her panic- stricken driver, when asked if a huge plume of smoke was coming from the Pentagon. "I thought it was Armageddon," says Deirdre, who briefly considered renting a car and fleeing Washington. Instead, she returned to the bureau, just in time (10:09) to watch Tower Two collapse on a TV screen. Fearing that Chris was dead, she spent the next two hours frantically trying to reach him by phone. Unfortunately, she could only get through to New York on a line that linked the two bureaus, and nobody in ABC's New York office had heard from him.

Chris, meanwhile, was trapped underground along with other passengers in a subway train, which had come to a grinding halt near the WTC just minutes before the tower collapsed, violently shaking the car. "It sounded like a bomb," he says. "But nobody said a word. No panic, no screaming." A half-hour later, the doors opened, and the passengers ran for the exits. Chris paid an off-duty taxi driver $100 to take him to ABC. Eventually reunited with Deirdre by phone, they've been covering the tragedy ever since. Theirs is one of the lucky stories.

Such accounts, multiplied hundreds, if not thousands of times, were playing out through, beneath and above the streets of the city -- many with good endings, many not.

Back at Fortune, journalists talked about how powerless and useless they were feeling (a sentiment that was widespread, actually.) Asked if I could reach any FBI terrorism investigators, I cringed. With five days to go before publication, I knew we had to take a backseat and stay out of the way of network or newspaper reporters, who could air or publish their accounts quickly. Besides, I couldn't imagine FBI or CIA staffers, embarking on the most important case of their lives, fielding a call from any reporter on Day One. Not now. No way.

I joined one of the assignments available here, but, unable to reach anyone by phone, soon drifted up to Time Magazine's offices on the 23rd and 24th floors to visit old colleagues and engage in media rubber-necking. In fact, all over New York, people were reaching out to people they hadn't seen or spoken to in years. Time's offices were eerily vacant, but I found a handful of editors. "How many people do you have on the story?" I asked M.E. Jim Kelly. "You name them, they're out there," he responded. "You're welcome to go as well, if you want."

By day's end, company-wide announcements had been numerous, with executives offering assistance programs, counseling, transportation updates (they ranged from "nearly impossible" to "impossible"), and requests for beds for downtown or out-of-town employees. By 3 p.m., the normally bustling lobby of the skyscraper was a ghost town -- as were the streets and sidewalks in and around Rockefeller Center. When I finally left the building, I stopped to ask a smoker for a light. While assisting me, we nodded like comrades who would do anything for each other.

The rumor was that the lettered subway lines (A, B, C, etc.) were working every now and then. I was relieved when one appeared, but everyone was soon hustled out at Penn Station. Walking through Penn's quiet lobby, it dawned on me that we'd been inadvertently delivered into another potential target for terrorism. (In fact, when I first transcribed this memo into text, the station was being evacuated in a bomb scare, one of 90 on that day alone -- including Grand Central Station, the Condé Nast building, and a Hyatt hotel).

The 40-block stroll home went quickly, as very few people and cars were visible in what is normally one of the busiest areas of Manhattan. Again, every few minutes the sirens blared, but there was something almost comforting in the presence and regularity of a sound that would normally make one cower. Many streets and avenues were blocked off entirely, for reasons unclear. Even pharmacies were shuttered, which made me wonder whether they should be required to somehow remain open during emergencies. (Guess I'll take that up with the proper authorities in time for future extravaganzas, I cynically thought.) The few shops that were active had their TVs tuned to the news.

I had been told early in the day that the entire area south of Canal Street (the lower half of the city's downtown) was sealed off. But the latest word was that Manhattan's "green line" had been extended to Houston Street [pronounced "Howston"], which meant that two-thirds of downtown was restricted. Fortunately, my apartment was eight blocks north of Houston. Crossing into the downtown zone at 14th Street, I could smell the acrid smoke. With the sun starting to set, I saw something I won't ever forget. Despite a still-blue sky over most of Manhattan, the Wall Street area was darkened by what looked way too much like a nuclear-mushroom cloud. At the horizon, all one could see was a montage of red blinking lights.

Having finished my coffee, I'm leaving the café, notebook in hand, and heading for any subway that is working (I'm not so particular lately). The trip to Rockefeller Center is bleak. There's only a handful of people in my train car, and many of them are staring at their feet. The mayor had asked everyone to stay home today, which is exactly what most residents are doing. Indeed, the streets around Rock Center are even quieter today than they were after yesterday's attacks. Two security guards are stationed outside the Time & Life Building, checking IDs, when normally one guard located deep inside the lobby at the elevator banks would suffice. Today, there's also a second team of guards, just inside the lobby, who are carefully eyeballing everyone.

It is true, as the saying goes, that a tough crisis gives birth to an almost magical camaraderie. Cash-less, I was able to slip out of that Greenwich Village café on little more than an I.O.U. -- even though I'd never eaten there before. In the office, we quickly learned that the rival Wall Street Journal had scrapped its fee for its website, while LEXIS-NEXIS, the #1 tool for the media, created a special free site on the unfolding disaster available only to journalists to help them get their work done more easily. Meanwhile, the stories of how people all over the city are pulling together are flowing in at a breakneck speed -- from an over-supply of donated items causing a mini-disaster of sorts, to the bravery of rescuers, to the massive financial contributions pouring in. AOL Time Warner, whose CEO, Jerry Levin, lost a son in a violent crime in 1997, earmarked $5 million for firefighters and other victims, plus established a matching-funds program for employees who give. "New Yorkers are the best people in the world to deal with this kind of tragedy and emergency," writes a supportive L.A. friend. "You live in a great city."

And, yet, people in the city are talking today about feeling mugged and raped. One of the world's biggest business centers -- the very symbolic center of world trade -- was snatched away from us as if vaporized by space aliens. And the flood of troubled messages from local friends is like an electronic river of anguish. One high school friend in Long Island (who hosted a reunion just days before the catastrophe) writes that her husband was scheduled to be in Tower One yesterday, "but changed it after I insisted on Friday that he help his mother move...I am worried that our lives will never be the same." Their lives won't be the same: Her husband's childhood friend, Kevin, a father of three, called his wife from the WTC yesterday to say goodbye. Similarly, after I asked a Manhattan friend if she knows any people who perished, she wrote, "I do know people... and their families cannot get to NY...what is this world coming to?"

The messages stream in too quickly to absorb and respond to. And yet I still haven't heard -- 24 hours after leaving messages -- from two of my friends (a couple, with two kids) in Washington, one of whom works at the Pentagon. So...I'm really starting to worry about them. And, confusingly enough, I'm starting to worry about the people I know who I don't yet know I should be worrying about. As a journalist-cousin in Miami writes: "Given the magnitude of the casualties, I know there aren't going to be many degrees of separation." [Postscript: My D.C. friends are fine. But, 24 hours earlier, he had been right at the spot that was hit at the Pentagon.]

Not surprisingly, tempers are slowly beginning to flare. I'm noticing (Wednesday) people snapping at others, sometimes for the stupidest things. Myself included. A few hours ago, I received four calls in a row from an area code (on my phone's screen) that I didn't recognize. When I finally had a chance to grab the phone, I was greeted by a businessman pitching me an obscure story about a conflict between insurance agents and executives at their company. "Do you have any idea what's happening in New York???!!!" I barked into the mouthpiece. When he said he did, and that he didn't think it appropriate to call "yesterday," I completely exploded at him again, before eventually apologizing. The frustration and anger will boil in this city in the days ahead.

It's nearly midnight and I'm eager to head back downtown to sleep. But I just received my latest email, from an investigative reporter at Business Week, Gary Weiss, who also lives downtown. The message, posted at 9:50 p.m., reads as follows: "People tell me that stench (in the Village) is burnt plastic. I don't think so. It's in my apartment. Can't stand it. Thousands of dead; confined space. Can you get an opinion from somebody who knows the smell of decomposition?... Amazing -- first really cool crisp day since the spring. Not a cloud in the sky, except for the cloud from burning building and people. You could see so clearly from the Village the two towers burning." When I eventually do make it to 14th Street, the scene is even more foreboding than it was two days earlier. Tonight, security checkpoints are stationed at every corner, preventing cars from moving south, and requiring that pedestrians flash ID and answer questions. After passing through the checkpoint, my mind turns to all the possible angles and stories that will need to pursued in the days ahead by journalists as a matter of journalism and of national security. Some of those assignments may be dangerous, but, given how reporters everywhere rose to the call this week, it should hardly matter.

On Sunday, Weiss and I made a sunrise pilgrimage to Chambers Street, the furthest point that media were allowed to go. We spoke about how easily we are now startled when we hear loud, sudden noises, and wondered how much worse it must be for those who were closer (or inside) the scene on that hellish morning. We made a feeble, respectful attempt to slip through to Ground Zero, but security was air-tight with police, military, and one chain-linked fence after another, as if some sort of nuclear Chernobyl was brewing in the distance. In fact, you could still see the smoke billowing around buildings, as well as a jagged remnant of the outer wall of one of the towers, rising several stories high like a modern Roman ruin. Weiss was choked up by the sight. I was numb. As Gary put it: "We are witnessing history -- and it hurts."

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