My September 11, 2001 story is probably not unique. It started when I was walking to my home subway stop in Brooklyn after voting in the New York City Mayoral Primary.
I met an acquaintance from my synagogue who told me he had heard that an airplane struck the World Trade Center. I wasn’t sure that the event had occurred and thought, that if it had, the pilot of a small private aircraft had become confused and flew into the building in error. I entered the subway, thinking that if such an event had happened, a command center would have been set up as was done when the 1993 bombing occurred, and I would volunteer to participate. I also thought that it was likely that when I approached the security screening point for such a command center, the Port Authority Police Department officer staffing the checkpoint would tell me to go home when I said I was an attorney in the Law Department, and did not have an operational job.
As the subway I was on approached Lower Manhattan, the conductor announced that the subway stations adjacent to the World Trade Center were closed. Accordingly, I exited the subway at Bowling Green. Just as I reached the bull sculpture on the north end of Bowling Green Park, I saw a crowd of people filling Broadway from building line to building line rushing towards me. I was afraid of being trampled, and rushed into the then existing Bowling Green Post Office for safety. I rushed to a payphone to call my wife to tell her I was safe and asked her to call my other family members to report on my well being.
As I and the other people sheltered in the post office, the windows became totally black twice. I realized afterwards that the blackness was caused by the debris clouds produced when each of the Twin Towers collapsed.
When I decided it was safe to leave the post office and walk home to Brooklyn over the Brooklyn Bride, I left the building. When I did, it was eerily silent, as occurs in New York City after a snowstorm. On September 11, the quiet was caused by the carpet of pulverized debris on the ground from the Twin Towers collapse, which absorbed sound just as fallen snow does.
My walk home was uneventful, except for the gridlocked traffic I passed, and the view of the pillars of white smoke stark against the brilliant blue sky where the Twin Towers had stood.
I was the first person in my family to arrive home on that day, at 11:00 A.M. Of course, the shock and trauma of the day itself began shortly afterwards, and remained strong for days and weeks thereafter.
Arnold D. Kolikoff
