September 11, 2001 was to be the first day our design director Mark was to work in our office. We had hired him in late August, and he needed a few weeks to relocate, wrap up his honeymoon, and prepare himself for work. I never saw him that day due to the attack on the World Trade Center, but we had breakfast together the next morning at a restaurant on Houston Street, at a place where he could enter south of Houston and I could enter from the north. Military guards prevented anyone north of Houston from crossing it. It was a bruised, tender, shocking, sunny morning. We sat at a little cafe table mostly in silence. Mark was headed back to Philadelphia that night, where his wife was staying with her family.

Our office, at 11 Jay Street, is six blocks north of the World Trade Center site. The first plane, which struck the north tower, flew directly over our building. Here is the email I sent out to friends and family on September 13, 2001:

Hi everyone,

I thought you might be interested to get a more local perspective on what's
going on here.

--Office Closed: We are, of coursed, unable to go to our office as it is 6
blocks from the World Trade Center. That immediate area is completely
covered in ash, paper, and dust. Most of the neighborhood does not have
electricity either.
--In the War Zone: My apartment is in the East Village. All businesses south
of 14th Street are closed; all roads closed off. So we are receiving no
deliveries and almost all our stores and restaurants are closed. The ones
that are open have limited menus since they aren't able to restock. I went
north of 14th Street to buy a newspaper and again later to meet up with a
friend (yes, for a good stiff drink)--and now when I come back to 14th
Street I must show ID proving I live here to be let back in. This afternoon
the police even asked me where I was going, and they were searching the
large duffel bag the woman in front of me was carrying. This blocked off
downtown area should probably be moved down to Houston Street by tomorrow,
so I'll be north of it then and we will start getting mail and local
deliveries to stores and restaurants.
--Air Currents: Last night the wind changed direction and the ash and dust
and smoke are now in the air here. It is bad enough that many people are
wearing surgical masks when walking outside. We've heard nasty reports about
people closer to the WTC who are getting small scratches to their corneas from the dust and bits of glass that are in the air. On my next journey out
I am going to buy some masks myself.
--More Threats: A couple friends who work in Midtown were sent home early
today because there were bomb threats at the Met Life building, Grand
Central Terminal, the Empire State Building, and Penn Station. No one truly
believes bombs will go off here now, but then, no one believed the WTC would
fall either. So evacuations are necessary each time.
--Poem: I am attaching a PDF file of a poem I wrote in 1996; the poem is
part of my Goldberg Variations series which some of you have read. I had
spent the night at a friend's beach house and slept with the window open.
The sound of the ocean was in my head all night, and I had a terrifying
nightmare that terrorists had been able to harness nature and had whipped up
an enormous tidal wave that was looming over NYC. The central image of the
dream was of this huge wave rising behind the World Trade Center. In the
strange logic of dreams, the wave was standing there, taller than the twin
towers, but not moving....yet. The next morning I wrote this poem sitting in
the sun on the deck, overlooking the sea.
--Picture: I am attaching a JPG picture of an illustration of the WTC area.
I have inserted a small bright green rectangle to show you where my office
is in relation to the towers. It is scary to think we were that close when
it all started happening and when the first building fell down, and we were
standing on the street about 10 more blocks away when the second building
fell.

Everyone in the city is depressed and still in shock. I am really looking
forward to things moving back toward normalcy in the next few days. For now,
I am calling lots of people, commiserating with friends, and trying to
distract myself with reading. But like everyone in the country, I'm finding
it difficult to pull myself away from the news.

This has been a good way to vent some of my upset. Thanks for listening!

_________________________________________________________________________

About a year ago I first read about Storycorps in an article somewhere online. Storycorps is a project aimed to continue the great tradition of oral histories in America, modeled after the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the 1930s, through which oral-history interviews with everyday Americans across the country were recorded. They have this recording booth in Grand Central, and you can make an appointment and record an interview with someone in your life, telling your personal stories to history. I thought "Oh this is something Mom and Dad have to do when they come to New York next," since they were engaged and married in New York and left it behind to have a family. Besides, it fits perfectly with Dad's effort to build his own archive of personal stories.

Recently Storycorps opened another recording booth in the PATH station at the World Trade Center site, and I immediately thought that my colleague Doug and I should go and record our remembrances of September 11, 2001.

Doug and I at the Storycorps booth at the WTC (click images for larger)

And so we did. On August 18, 2005 Doug and I descended into the lower levels of the WTC site, entered the Storycorps booth, and recorded a forty minute interview telling our stories. When you go, a Storycorps worker sits in the booth with you to manage the recording. Then at the end they've got two identical audio CDs of the interview--one for them, and one for you. Here is ours (warning: 45MB mp3 file--may take a while to download). The interview will also be archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

I've tried to keep my public comments about 9/11 focused on the personal--my experience, my awe, my sense of being part of something historical. I've tried to keep my public comments away from my own political feelings. Later this week I hope to write about my political impressions of this event. But for today I simply hope to remember the details of this extraordinary day four years ago. If nothing else comes of my life on earth, I was a witness to a moment in history, and I have tried to make my story a permanent part of the historical record.