As we reflect on the 9/11 terrorist attacks that happened 25 years ago, I recall the day of sightseeing and shopping my wife, Kathy, and I spent in New York City on Sept. 10, 2001. We were celebrating our wedding anniversary. We arrived at the World Trade Center to buy tickets for the Top of the World observation deck, but a downpour soon changed our plan. The guard said our tickets were good for the next day and suggested we come early to enjoy the views without the rain and crowds.
The next morning, on 9/11, we decided to delay our plans by 30 minutes so I could take an early morning walk through Greenwich Village. As I was walking on 10th Street, an American Airlines Boeing 757 flew low over my head. When I reached Sixth Avenue, I could see the plane had hit the North Tower. I ran back to our son’s 14th Street apartment where we were staying and saw the TV report of the second plane crashing into the South Tower.
If we had followed our original plan, we would have been exiting the subway underneath the World Trade Center on our way up to the observation deck about the same time the planes hit those towers. The decision to delay our trip by minutes may be one of the most fortuitous decisions we have ever made.
Once we understood it was a terrorist attack, we headed to the streets to get food and water at a local grocer in case the city shut down. By then, hordes of evacuees from the North Tower were walking north on Sixth Avenue to escape the terror. Women were in their bare feet carrying their high heels amid an obvious state of panic. By then, the stench of fire was thick across the area.
Rumors flew about what might come next. One rumor had terrorists flooding the island of Manhattan, leaving no exit. Then we heard fighter jets screaming overhead. At that point, we had no idea they were American fighter jets called into action. That was the scariest moment, not really knowing what was coming next and unable to do anything about it but wait and listen to the news.
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Our first stop that night was St. Vincent’s hospital in Greenwich Village, where we hoped to donate blood. The streets around the hospital were so brightly lit it looked like high noon. There was only one thing missing from the eerie scene — survivors. There were few for the hospital to treat. A man finally emerged with a handmade sign that read, “No donations needed tonight,” confirming what we all had feared.
By the next day, the city had cordoned off 14th Street, preventing any traffic from driving south of the barriers. As we left our building, firefighters returning from the towers in shifts were resting in sleeping bags on the sidewalk, taking a breather from the devastation.
We visited Penn Station to see if we could catch an Amtrak out of the city. It was a hopeless case of too many travelers trying to escape New York City. We were all in the same boat, even including the late CBS reporter Mike Wallace and the late author John Updike, whom we spotted at the station. At that point, we resolved to return to the apartment and spend the next two days in the city.
In our walks along the streets of New York, we experienced a ghost of the iconic Big Apple, with its streets deserted and only buses and some subway trains running. On every street corner were heartbreaking handmade flyers on poles asking if anyone had seen a member of someone’s family who had failed to respond to calls and never came home from work. Shock and desperation abounded.
We passed firehouses piled high with wreaths and flowers memorializing fallen firefighters who lost their lives at the towers. We sat on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, one of many churches on Fifth Avenue open to people seeking solace. One of the busiest streets of New York was devoid of traffic except for an occasional bus.
After three long days, we made our way out of the city on Amtrak. We still have the two unused tickets to the observation deck, surely among the last issued. Some day, they might find their way to a museum. But for now, they are grim reminders of the innocents killed on that fateful day the world stopped turning and how our lives rested on changing a plan by minutes.
Bob Kustra served as Illinois lieutenant governor and 10 years as a state legislator. He also was president of Boise State University for 15 years and now hosts the “Reader’s Corner,” an author interview podcast and a Boise State Public Radio program.
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