The day started like many others. It was Tuesday, and my teaching team was meeting first thing that morning. It was my third year as a Humanities teacher at the International High School at Laguardia Community College in Queens.
Beautiful Spring day, and I have to go down into the subway to find the back of the A Train.
As usual, I switched for the E Train to Queens. At first everything seemed normal, then after a long wait:
"Due to an earlier incident, the next train has been delayed."
"A police action at an earlier stop has caused delays."
Then, oddly, a train came quickly, but it was filled. I waited another fifteen minutes on a platform that was filling up, and finally another train whizzed by. I was able to push myself onto the third train, and I was off to Queens.
When I came up from the subway, I looked up at the Citibank Building as usual. By now I was going to be late for my meeting with colleagues, so I started walking quickly.
I did notice that there were a lot of people on the street with me. Many were on cell phones, and most were looking up into the sky. But I didn't think much of it.
On Thomson Avenue, on the way to school, I had to walk over a train yard that must have been a dozen tracks wide. The bridge that took pedestrians and cars over the tracks had window-like frames, though which Lower Manhattan could be viewed in the distance.
On this day, September 11, 2001, people were straining to look through each window. Straining to see the smoke billowing out of one of the World Trade Center buildings.
"What happened?" I asked.
"A plane hit the Trade Center."
"Was it an accident?"
"Don't know."
"Wow, that looks serious. How big was the plane?" I asked, assuming that only a small plane could be flying that low.
"Don't know."
Everyone was stunned, quiet. Already.
By the time I arrived in B29 (B for basement) for our weekly meeting, I was almost 30 minutes late. I figured others had been delayed as well, however the science teacheer who lived on Eastside of Manhattan had come to school early.
When, Persheen, the math teacher finally arrived, 45 minutes late for the meeting, the science teacher, who had been working in B29 when the first plane hit the Trade Center, started with:
"Late again? I think we need to start this meeting by talking about basic respect for our meeting time...."
We tried to stop her, tried to say, "But something is going on today."
Soon the principal came by to say to the six teachers in B29: "I don't know how much you know, but it has been confirmed that the United States is under attack. There has been an explosion at the Pentagon, and a plane hit the World Trade Center. Nobody knows how many more planes have been hijacked or what else might happen.
He went on: "We've been asked to tell our students what we know, to answer their questions as well as we can. Staying is school is considered the safest thing to do right now, so we are going to have students meet in their regular classes."
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September 11 Attacks: 09/11/2001
The 9/11 attacks were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States. On that morning, 19 Islamist terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying at least two nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C. There are no survivors from any of the flights.
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