Day: September 12, 2001

Views from Brooklyn Heights

I had to get out of the house today, get away from the TV and see something with my own eyes again. I took my bike down to Brooklyn Heights so I could see the view from the Promenade that faces lower Manhattan, just south of the Brooklyn Bridge. I also wanted to stop in on my friends Jason and Holly, since Holly, a teacher at a high school right by the World Trade Center, was settling down from an all-day ordeal of getting 20 students and herself home from ground zero.

All the views from across the East River were odd, but not horrific, since all the damage was west, along the Hudson River. You could see smoke but no wreckage. And the skyline was wrong. The dominant feature that was always taken for granted, sometimes appreciated, was just plain gone. People were out checking the scene, and it was odd mix: some people were enjoying a sunny day, some were taking tourist photos just as if the buildings were still there, and here and there people just sat crying or sitting silently.

The view from the water by the landing of the Brooklyn Bridge

Jason, Holly, and I watched the news for a while, but we had to get away for a while. We immersed ourselves at the movies for a spell, then returned to the Promenade for sunset.

It’s CRAZY to see those large black spots in the skyline view. Everything ought to be lit up like Christmas, with the Towers topping it all off. The darkness is VERY eerie.

Life is returning to normal in some ways. I go back to work tomorrow, and the restaurants and streets of Brooklyn were full of people, even if they were a little subdued. I’m very curious to see how the next few days go. People here have an incredible ability to adapt and reassert their daily lives. I wonder how long it will take for daily life to conform to this new set of circumstances.

News from Abroad

It’s fascinating to get first-hand accounts of how people abroad are reacting. Mark has been either shellshocked or weepy over in Italy, and people there have been coming up and just giving him hugs when they realize he’s American. They don’t get the full sense on the shock this has to a New Yorker, especially one who used to work in the WTC, but they really get the sense of gravity about the whole thing.

My friend Terry called from London, all full of flashbacks of growing up in Belfast and and seeing outburst of terrorism periodically. There, the IRA managed to get the attention of the government, but the scale was so completely different. I could never really appreciate living through the kind of ongoing apprehension thay have, but I wonder if they can appreciate the newness of all of this to us.

People from all over have been adding comments to my entries here, reminding me that this is as big a shock to everyone else, not just those of us staring at the big clouds where the shape of the skyline has totally changed.