by Laurel A Rockefeller

Created on: September 13, 2008

Like most New Yorkers, I have a 9/11 story to tell. On September 11th, 2001 I was living just outside of Newark, New Jersey. It was the morning of the New York City primary election and about a week before the second most important Chinese holiday, Mid-Autumn Festival. As I dressed around 800am, I prepared to leave my apartment to head for the PATH train to the World Trade Center to head to Chinatown, just east of there, to purchase the fresh baked goods I needed for the festival. Then I remembered something: I had forgotten to phone my boss to tell him I would be a little late. I decided that it would be rude to come in late without telling him first and decided to run the errand "tomorrow". So instead at 830am I took my normal bus to work in Livingston, New Jersey. Wholly unaware of what was about to happen.

That decision to abort the plan to take the PATH train saved my life. For had I done so, I would have arrived in the station between 850 and 900am-right about the time the first tower was hit. Instead, I arrived at my office to hear my boss tell me both of the towers had been hit and showing news coverage on TV when I said I didn't believe it.

There was not a single person, living directly in New York City, or close to it, who was not directly affected. Transit, mail, phone service-everything was disrupted. For three days my mother wondered if I were alive or dead-she knew damn well of my intent to go into New York City between the tenth and the twelfth and fears for my safety. The fact that most of the phone lines were dead for days only spread the panic in our area. Even television service was limited-the World Trade Center towers served as broadcasting stations and it took time for the networks to work around the sudden loss of them to restore this essential service to our area.

For so long, even in New Jersey, we could see the smoke from Ground Zero, and the lack of the Towers in our skyline was startling. It took YEARS to get used to it. Before I moved to Brooklyn in December, 2005, I could see the towers before they went down. They were like an every steady beacon for life, much as the Empire State Building is looking down the subway tracks is from my Brooklyn neighborhood.

I remember clearly the first anniversary of 9/11 and living on the top, tenth floor of my building with the Newark airport flight path so close to my apartment. Watching the anniversary programs panicked me. I was afraid of every airplane I heard approach. I didn't feel safe anymore.

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