My story begins not on 9/11 but on 6/11. On June 11, 2001, I started as a newly minted analyst at Lehman Brothers. My desk was on the 38th FL of the North Tower in the World Trade Center. I had moved to the New York area that previous weekend and I spent my first evening walking the Hudson River waterfront. The most stirring memory of that evening was watching a giant yellow moon rising between the Twin Towers. It was spectacular! Given that we were still in the flip phone era, I did not have a camera handy to capture this balloon-like full moon slowly floating between the towers. I figured I would have plenty of opportunities to capture a picture of the moon rising between the two towers. After all, the moon and the towers would be here forever…
On 9/11, along with 15 other new joiners, I showed up at 101 Hudson Street, across the Hudson River from the World Trade Center (WTC), at 8:55am for the start of our training program. I was carrying my access card for the WTC since I was supposed to meet my HR team to sign my H1B visa papers on the 40th FL of the North Tower at noon.
The North Tower was billowing thick plumes of smoke into a cloudless blue sky against a picture perfect postcard background. A crowd began to gather at the Exchange Place waterfront as everyone gazed up with a mix of bewilderment, confusion and curiosity. Almost no one knew what was happening. I asked a person next to me who said a plane had gone into the tower. Naturally, my immediate reaction was that it must have been a Cessna that must have drifted into the tower. There was a woman next to me who started crying and desperately tried to reach her husband who was in the North Tower.
As I returned my gaze back to the towers, I saw a passenger airliner approaching the South Tower. The plane then went into the tower in a ball of fire and debris started falling down. It happened so quickly that I could not believe if it was real or if I was hallucinating in broad daylight. Even after 25 years, neither can I forget that moment nor can I believe that it actually happened.
At that moment, everyone there knew they were witnessing something that was extraordinary.
By then, a large crowd had gathered and someone had switched on a radio and there were reports of planes falling from the skies and the country felt like it was under a siege.
All the high rise buildings started being evacuated around us and the waterfront was beginning to be barricaded when the first tower collapsed. Watching the lone Twin Tower standing is one of the most surreal sights of my life. A few minutes later, the other tower collapsed and what remained was a smoky haze, the blaze of sirens, and a giant void filled with shock.
There would be no picture of a beautiful Full Moon rise between the two towers.
15 of my colleagues stayed at my house that day since all the bridges and tunnels shut down. They represented different religions and nationalities working across global offices for Lehman. All of us were processing the shock in different ways. There was a Jewish girl reading the Torah, there were Europeans gathered around the TV in my living room and everyone was trying to reach their families through a cellular network whose towers had come crashing down with the towers. As I emerged from the daze, I was able to focus on urgently rushing to the grocery store before it might shutdown to buy enough food for 15 people at my place. Over the next 24 hours, the tunnels and bridges gradually opened and they all left one by one.
Everybody at Lehman was able to evacuate safely except one person who decided to go back to the building to get his bag when the tower came down. Lehman itself rebounded astoundingly quickly after losing its entire infrastructure to become the leading investment bank before collapsing almost to the day in 2008.
I have seen downtown Manhattan rebuild from the rubble and emerge again to be vibrant and thriving. When you walk the Occulus or visit the 9/11 Memorial, it is hard to imagine that this was the scene of chaos, mangled debris and heartrending scenes of bodies falling from the skies.
Yet when the Full Moon rises today behind the lone Freedom Tower, you realize that something changed irreversibly that day 25 years ago.
vivek pai
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