Remember the Fallen -- The Day After 9-11, World Trade Center, NYC
"Skeleton 1"
Remember the Fallen @ WTC
Sept 12, 2001 --- It was the day after the attack on the US by Al Qaeda, a day after two hijacked jets slammed into the World Trade Center, and the subsequent and tragic collapse of these iconic and symbolic buildings. It was the day after a gorgeous morning on September 11, 2001 that turned into a hellish nightmare for the USA and for the free world. It was the day after this attack by radical Islamic terrorists, who wish to control the lives of all people in the world and bring civilization back to the dark ages -- and who desire to destroy the ideals of human rights and freedom of choice in this world. And it was one week after my identical twin daughters’ second birthday celebration.
My neighbor, Skip, who had just recently retired from the New York Fire Department a few months before 9-11, came to pick me up at my Rockland County, NY home on September 12, 2001. He asked me if I would help with the work on the pile at Ground Zero. As we approached the military blockade on the FDR somewhere on the Upper East Side, Skip flashed his Fire Department badge. We were told to proceed; and the FDR drive, usually bumper to bumper with cacophonous traffic on a weekday afternoon, was eerily empty. We were the only vehicle on the road.
"Clearing Debris"
We parked near the South Street Fire House, visited with the company for a while and then walked toward The Pile, which is what the wreckage from the collapse of the WTC at Ground Zero, was called. Here we visited another Fire Department company that was badly damaged during the attack. The firefighters at both fire houses were not only saddened and mourning for the loss of their colleagues, they were still hoping to find someone alive in the wreckage. Unfortunately, this was not to be the case.
"Bucket Brigade"
Skip and I began to work on The Pile, a mountain of twisted steel, bright flames still erupting in places from beneath the debris, and a foul malodorous smoke coming from everywhere. The putrid smell of death and destruction from the smoke hung in the air. We worked on the bucket brigade for a while, a job that not only was tedious, but was dangerous, given that we were standing on a mountain of unstable, debris, with an underground fire still ablaze.
"Overwhelmed"
The task at hand seemed hopeless – putting debris in buckets and passing these buckets back and forth in a human chain made up of hundreds of volunteers. Empty buckets go up the pile hand to hand and buckets full of the destructive remains of the WTC were passed, hand to hand, back down the pile. We were all balancing on the deformed skeletal remains of the WTC, breathing in smoke and wearing these flimsy paper masks that did little to stop the noxious fumes from entering our lungs. At some point Skip and I both became exhausted, and we made our way to an area in a damaged building where water and food were provided. Everywhere, Ground Zero was a maze of confusing rubble and it took awhile to familiarize our whereabouts in this stark and altered surreal geography that was once familiar and recognizable streets and avenues.
"Outside 'The Pile'"
Skip and I eventually became separated. I walked around for a bit, helping when I could. I found myself resting near a lone uniformed firefighter in a seemingly deserted area of the destruction. He was breathing hard and I gave him some water from my bags. At that point a two police officers came by and asked for help. They had spotted some bodies in the ruins and needed help retrieving them. The four of us reached the bodies, a moment of silence and then we carried them out, one at a time, to an area where the debris had been cleared and an ambulance could come and pick them up.
"At the Pile"
At one point Skip and I found each other and around 1 am we walked back to the South Street fire house, where the firefighters were sitting around talking about the events. They were discussing all their fellow workers who had perished that day before while attempting to rescue people from the burning buildings before they crumpled.
"Remember the Fallen @ WTC"
When Skip had picked me up earlier at my house in Palisades, I grabbed a few rolls of film, an old Nikon F3 and a digital video camera. I only took a few shots of the scene and about an hour of raw video footage, as I was either busy working on The Pile, or just too stunned to press the shutter. I hadn’t wanted to look at theses since the tragedy until more than ten years later. I scanned a few of the negatives just before leaving for Kenya and will scan more when I return to the States.
(All photos and text are © 2001, 2021 David Gottlieb.)
