The Victors

Just some random rambling…

I was at the tail end of my career as a scientist at a big pharma in NJ. Living in Harrison and going to NYU for my MBA at night, I would take the PATH to WTC and then change to a subway to Washington Square 4 times a week. I was supposed to go to school that evening.

Everyday when I drove home from work I would drive on 280, directly facing the twin towers. That afternoon I was driving home on 280 and seeing those two behemoth twin columns were simply GONE, replaced by a giant black smoke cloud. That sense of loss and emptiness was indescribable.

My town was full of burning smell. After I got home, my landlord Connie called and asked me if I had seen my across-the-hall neighbor Kathy. Some how she remembered Kathy was working in WTC. Then Connie started to cry hysterically. She said when she tried to call Kathy, no one answered the phone and her voice machine was full.

NYU (or maybe just Stern?) set up a website and asked all the students to post a note saying they were still alive. Most people did. Many of them asked if folks had heard from so and so. After a few days, school resumed. When I first went into the City, missing person posters were all over the place. The first class was corporate finance. Per school instruction, the professor first counted all the names. It was a small class of about 20 students. Two names didn’t answer. No one said anything, but there was certainly a sense of dread. Later we found out that one of the names, Beth Quigley, was in the towers. She worked for Cantor, and she might never have had a chance after the plane hit.

Later, my neighbor Kathy came home, and we asked her to call Connie immediately as a survivor of a war.

To this day, I have not visited the two ponds, let alone the Memorial museum. I might go see the ponds, but I don’t think I will ever visit the Memorial. Just too raw.