9/11 20th anniversary

Igotadose

My dad had a shop on John Street and we kids would work there in the summer. In the 1960's, my brother and I would walk over to the WTC construction site. Being a wee lad, he'd have to lift me on his shoulders to look through the diamond-shaped holes in the wooden barricades to view the work, the enormous holes they dug, the workers looking like yellow-capped ants. Quite the site when it opened. I ran many errands over the years for Dad delivering packages to the Towers. Always an adventure, the stockbrokers did tip well though. I didn't like the fact that the complex took over the block between Warren and Murray street - there was an aquarium store there 1 block long called "Aquarium Stock Company" which I loved to visit as a kid. Now, long gone.

Whenever out of town friends visited, we'd go up to the top and take the tour, and maybe stop at Windows on the World for a drink. Frankly, the Empire State was a more popular visit, much more interesting building.

In 2001, my fiancee was flying out to move in with me, on September 12th. She'd been shipping things to my house in NJ and I would stop by the local post office to pick them up. I remember around 9:30 on the 11th, I went over for a delivery and the postmistress, who'd I known for a long time, was crying! Told me planes had flown into the WTC. I drove home and turned on the TV and watched it for awhile. I called my OH (now wife since 2002) and woke her up. We cried on the phone to each other.

A close friend worked for the Port Authority in the WTC. A mutual friend was in touch with his eventual wife, and couldn't raise him for the first few hours. Fortunately, he'd escaped and helped carry his overweight admin down. He'd been through the first bombing of the WTC (1973 I think?) and knew the drill. The admin apparently eventually lost all the weight. My friend walked uptown, found an open bar and spent the day there. Got a free night in a midtown hotel.

My brother's law office was on Vecsey street adjoining the towers. I called his wife, but again it took several hours to locate him. He, fortunately was in Court that morning in Queens - his wife knew his schedule was court and go to his office, but wasn't sure of the order. Court started early that day fortunately.

A former coworker was on flight 93. Another former coworker later told me he was due to fly that day on the same flight, but had overslept.

That afternoon, I took a walk. There was a small state park near where i lived in NJ that had a rock outcropping from which you could view the towers with the naked eye. With decent binoculars you could see the Statue of Liberty. The place was full of crying people, a big impromptu memorial was set up. You could see the pillars of smoke where the towers were. These lasted for days.

By the 13th, flights had resumed enough that I could meet my wife at Baltimore airport. We drove up to NJ. The next day or two, I forget, we went into NYC to look. You could get there by Ferry. What we both remember to this day, was the smell.

If you visit the memorial (I highly recommend it), in the basement is a truck from Ladder Company 3. My wife's cousin was the captain. He and his entire squad were lost as they ran back into the towers to rescue people prior to the collapse. They have his helmet on display. FWIW, his family traces itself back to Leitrim. He had Irish grandparents, not sure if he ever went through the trouble to become a citizen.

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117878557#Comment_117878557

Listening to the ATC recordings from the day show the same kind of confusion and lack of understanding of what was happening because the phrase “real world hijack” is repeated several times in the first few minutes because it was hard to comprehend it ever happening.

AudreyHepburn

It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years since that terrible day. The images never seem to lose their horror. It still seems completely surreal.

I was in Third Year maths class when the planes hit the WTC and I remember a commotion in the hall outside the classroom and a student from another class running in the door saying something about a plane crash in America. We didn’t really understand exactly what was happening at that point.

It was only when I got home and my mother had Sky News on showing thick black smoke billowing up from lower Manhattan that I realised something terrible had happened.

But even that it took me ages to get my head around the fact that this was a deliberate act.

Seeing the images of the two planes hitting the towers for the first time is something that will never leave me. I still get a chill up my spine thinking about it.

It’s beyond me why people insist on seeing conspiracy in everything that happened that day. What happened was horrendous enough without making things up.

Manach

My own personal recollection was one of initial disbelief and shock. On boards, those sentiments were widespread as people tried to process what was occurring in NYC.

mojesius

I was 18. Coming back from lunch with my dad in his car when we heard there was a fire at the WTC. He said he wanted to see what was happening so we drove to his house nearby and sat watching it all day, saw the second plane hit. We were both just in shock. My mam was working in an office and I kept calling her to give her updates, which she relayed to her colleagues (this was before you could watch TV from your office computer).

My dad was due to go to NYC with his friends the following week but that was cancelled, they had planned a trip up the WTC too.

I visited the site in 2008 when I lived in NYC for a time and went down there on the anniversary. It made it a lot more real seeing first responders in their dress uniforms and relatives with pictures and t-shirts of their loved ones. Just a very sad occasion.

That Jules and Gideon documentary really captured so much and it was all by accident, they were meant to be filming a documentary about rookie firefighters in NYC and ended up being in the centre of it all, including the collapse of the towers. I think they got the only footage of the first plane hitting the North tower.

completedit

I remember the next day the idea of people falling from the tower absolutely enthralling me. Am I right that one(all?) of the papers used the shot where you see the falling man? There was something about jumping that was so morbidly heart-breaking and morbidly fascinating about this aspect of the day. What happened to them when they hit the surface? Did any survive?(I was 10)

OU812

Found these a couple of months ago while clearing out the attic

Dr. Bre

I still have the papers from the next day sept 12. Knew it would be worth keeping.

yerwanthere123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117879687#Comment_117879687

😐️

Nobody survived jumping from the buildings. They hit the concrete at speeds of over 100 miles per hour. Their bodies were totally destroyed.

fun loving criminal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117880931#Comment_117880931

Ah, that is far too sad... How they thought jumping of such a high building was a better option. Heart breaking stuff.

fun loving criminal

Boards.ie 20 years ago, it was very quite back then

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/30985/omg-turn-on-the-news/p1

Motivator

I was trying to think back on the day of mourning in ireland, was it the Friday? Very weird week that week thinking of it. I remember being at a memorial in a church in town and some Americans came in and stood at the back. The priest called them up to the front and the whole church burst into applause.

completedit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117880931#Comment_117880931

I was ten! I clearly know now that nobody survived

ghoulfinger

I was at work when it happened, just entering the staff room to take a tea break and chattering as I was going in. A colleague, unusually, told me to shush a moment “ you’ll be interested… a plane crashed into the twin towers in NY!” I thought to myself, how could this possibly be an accident, then shortly after my immediate suspicions were confirmed by the second hit.

Say Your Number

I remember getting fed up of the wall to wall coverage after a few days and being relieved when RTE put on Married With Children.

This video is a bit eerie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMVTB2aVUg0&t=40s

Fandymo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117878495#Comment_117878495

Do you have a link to where you can buy this?

cena

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117882920#Comment_117882920

Message sent. It's not cheap

A-Train

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117881512#Comment_117881512

Yeah the national day of mourning in Ireland was the Friday 14th of September. Everything was shut that day. I had my school debs that day and it only went ahead when the hotel agreed to open and the bar shut at 11pm that night.

freshpopcorn

A relative of mine died on the Sunday after watching the All Ireland Hurling final which Tipperary won. I was 8 and in 3rd class at the time. I was in school for most of that week but knew I might get a day off.

My sister came home for the funeral and I remember it being on the news that afternoon and it being terrible. I mainly just wanted to watch videos and that's what we did in the end.

We just had RTE and had no news channels then.

When I was in school it wasn't really mentioned.

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117884696#Comment_117884696

Back in 2001 you only had RTE?

We had Sky News, CNN, BBC...

Ironically this event was the first and last truly live minute by minute disaster in the golden age of television news channels before the smartphone or broadband taking off.

Igotadose

MSNBC presents what my wife's cousin did on 9/11. The rest of the piece goes after Trump, which isn't appropriate for this thread. Just watch the 30 seconds or so to avoid the Trump commentary (or not, your choice.) Patrick Brown was a hero on 9/11. Herself said he'd have loved to see the old family site in Leitrim. My wife's named after his grandmother, but we never met him, to our loss.

https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/trump-lies-about-9-11-again-120894533992