Six years after Sept. 11

Every year on the anniversary, I think about my experiences on Sept 11 and Sept 12, 2001. I was standing on the corner of Chambers and Church Streets with hundreds of other people when we heard a confusing, roaring sound as the South Tower fell. People were shouting "Run!", and I nearly vomited in fear as I sprinted up Broadway with smoke and debris billowing up behind me. I was far enough away - 5 blocks - to be totally safe.

Here's a photograph taken by my Columbia journalism school friend, Ting-li Wang, who was shooting that day for The New York Times. I am with Jeremiah Johnson, a public radio reporter, on a 28th floor balcony overlooking the Trade Center. This picture was taken shortly after the collapse of WTC Building #7.



We went to the top floor of this apartment building and knocked on doors of apartments facing south. A frightened couple let us in. They listened to our radio, used our cell phones and fed us a dinner of canned mushrooms, beans and beer. The electricity went out and we had nowhere else to go. Ting-li took her images back to the NYT. Jeremiah slept on the floor and gave me the couch.

At 6 a.m. the next morning, Jeremiah and I held hands and counted out loud as we walked down 28 flights in pitch-black darkness. I snuck closer to Ground Zero in a trash truck and joined a group of reporters to see the North Tower. I spent the rest of the day arguing with police officers to try to get back to Ground Zero, but I finally gave up and interviewed firefighters about what they'd seen.

Here is the top of that grim story, from my old life:

Newsday (New York, NY)
September 13, 2001 Thursday ALL EDITIONS
HEADLINE: TERRORIST ATTACKS; 'The Pile' Holds Out Little Hope; Rescuers frustrated in search for survivors among the ruins
BYLINE: By Jessica Kowal; STAFF WRITER

Ground zero at the World Trade Center is a nightmarish jumble of steel and pulverized concrete and human remains.

The skeletons of buildings are laid out over several blocks, thousands of tons of steel compressed into what rescuers have begun calling "The Pile." Those who saw the wreckage were unanimous in the view that, despite a few rescues, the Twin Towers have become a horrific cemetery.

It seemed impossible that victims survived monster blasts and tumbling steel and concrete, firefighters, doctors and volunteers said yesterday. Jennifer Svahn, an attending vascular surgeon at Beth Israel Hospital, walked through the core of fallen buildings ready to help victims. Amid the gloomy, sooty, ashy heap, there were none.

"There's a morgue down there, and body parts," Svahn said. "It's a crematorium."

Early in the day, reporters were brought to the corner of West Street and Vesey Street, directly across from the charred stub that is One World Trade Center.

Six floors remained of the 110-story tower, with girders sticking up like forks and white window shades fluttering out of broken panes. From high up a half-mile away, both towers resembled scorched souffles, a grim blackness caving in on itself.

Office documents had flown out of file cabinets and off desktops and littered the ground, their edges burnt. Handwritten memos, lunch and limo expenses and paper covered with Chinese characters were found...

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I also think about journalist friends who were much closer and could have been seriously hurt, like Willie Rashbaum of the NYT, who was with Mayor Giuliani, and Greg Smith of the NY Daily News, who dove down subway steps when the first tower fell. I'm glad they weren't hurt.