The End of Innocence: September 11, 2001

At about 8:50 a.m., I got into a taxi on the corner of St. Mark’s Place and Third Ave. in the East Village. The taxi headed east on St. Mark’s and turned south onto Second Ave. toward Houston Street and lower Manhattan.

On Second Ave., I saw many people staring up and finally I noticed a large plume of gray smoke against a cloudless, blue sky. My first thought was that there was a huge fire somewhere downtown.

And then I saw it.

The towers of the World Trade Center were burning. I wondered how it was possible that both buildings could be burning at about the same height, at the same time. My mind was struggling to understand the sight.

The taxi driver turned on the radio. The reporter on 1010 WINS-AM radio said she saw a jet airliner flying low over Manhattan and crash into the World Trade Center. So I, like everyone else, thought a horrible accident had occurred.

While the reporter was talking, we made our way down Allen St. There, I saw a huge gray cloud rise from the far side of one of the towers. At first, I thought it was an explosion from within the building. I could not really see the second airliner hit the second tower, even though I did see the airplane for a brief second before the collision. I screamed. The taxi driver began yelling at the top of his lungs, “What is that? What was that!?” The driver took me to the southern end of Allen St., near FDR Drive. I got out and started walking toward my Pine Street office.

On my way to Pine Street, I passed countless people standing on the sidewalks with their disbelieving eyes turned upward toward the Twin Towers. I proceeded down Water Street to Pearl Street, which borders my building on the northern side—the side closest to the World Trade Center.

During the walk I looked up whenever I had a view of the towers, my mind struggling to comprehend what I was seeing. I saw pieces of paper floating from the holes in the towers. They looked like confetti emerging from a giant, flaming black hole.

I am a risk analyst at American International Group, a Fortune 20 insurance company. Three of my primary clients had offices in the World Trade Center: AON Risk Services, Marsh and McClennan and Frenkel & Co. These are people I have worked with daily for the last 15 months. I regularly attended meetings at the World Trade Center.

Upon arrival in my office, I saw three AON employees who had fled from the 98th floor of their tower immediately after the first collision.

As I put my arms around one of them, she said to me, “I guess you know our meeting tomorrow morning is cancelled.”

It then hit me. About two weeks ago, she had called and asked me to consider the week of Sept. 10 for meeting to discuss an account. I remember telling her that my calendar was clear, to pick any of the days. She chose Wednesday morning, Sept. 12, at 9:15 a.m. on the 105th floor. Just 24 hours after the attack.

I asked her if she knew the status of her co-workers on the 98th floor. “I saw Dave this morning but I don’t know what happened to him,” she said through sobs, her voice becoming increasingly unsteady.

Instantly, my mind raced to all the others I know who work at AON: Rich, Brian, Chris, Carol.

I finally had the presence of mind to call my mom and a friend to tell them I was okay. Each was barely able to speak.

After the calls, I talked to co-workers and occasionally listened to the radio, our only source of information. It was then that it registered that two planes had struck the towers.

We then heard that the Pentagon had been hit. Instantly, I thought of a friend’s husband who had been assigned to the Pentagon. I forgot that he had been transferred to a site in Virginia just last month.

Then I thought of another friend who works in the Capitol; for certainly if the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were targets, the Capitol would be a target. I quickly dialed his office number but only got his voicemail.

I then joined my manager and a few co-workers in his office. “Do you think they can fall?” Tom asked no one in particular.

“Nah. Those buildings were designed to withstand an impact from a plane,” one of us said. “They would have to directly hit the support columns for that to happen.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I said. “It seems to me that the intense heat from the fires could weaken the entire structure.” A short time later, I was sadly proven correct.

Just then, a piece of floating paper pressed flatly against our office window. The edges were charred dark brown. It was a piece of company letterhead that said “Marsh USA.” Everyone let out a gasp at the sight of it; Marsh was on the 95th floor of the north tower.

I called my mom again. “I just wanted to hear your voice,” I said. Nothing comforts me like my mom’s voice. She has always been my rock. While talking to her, a friend called on my second line. He was audibly shaken.

And then one of the geologists in my office yelled, “The south tower is falling!” With a rush of panic and adrenaline, I yelled to my friend on the phone, “I gotta go! The building’s falling!” and again to my mom, “I gotta go! The building’s falling!”

I started running toward the exit when I passed another analyst in my office who, with tears in her eyes, asked, “What’s going on around here?”

I told her that one of the towers was falling and that she should follow me out. We ran to the lobby where people were waiting for the elevators. A co-worker grabbed me. “Let’s take the stairs.”

We raced down a flight of stairs, merging into people coming down from higher floors. We emerged into the building lobby. Just as I turned to face the glass doors and windows facing Maiden Lane, I saw the sky change from beautiful, bright daylight to complete darkness. It was as if someone had taken a giant, charcoal-gray blanket and draped it over the entire building, pressing it tightly against the glass.

I stood there completely stunned. After a few seconds, the revolving door began to turn and a single man entered, covered from head to foot with concrete dust. For a second, it seemed he had just walked in from a blizzard—only this blizzard was comprised entirely of dust.

A few minutes later, the door began to revolve again. In came an older black woman, who like the man before her, was completely covered in dust. I took a bottle of water from the store in the lobby and gave it to her.

The building guards began directing us toward the parking garage. More than one hundred of us had entered the garage when the dust became too thick to breathe. Somehow my co-worker and I became separated. People in the garage began to yell to those trying to exit the lobby and, slowly, we all re-entered the lobby. I found her again and it’s safe to say we were relieved to find each other. We were directed toward the back of the building, the side that faces away from the direction from which the dust was coming.

Imagine the densest, thickest nighttime fog possible. Replace the water droplets with extremely fine dust particles. You can only see about 20 feet in any direction. You cannot see the sun you could just ten minutes earlier. The dust is so fine that even with a shirt pulled over your mouth, you can still taste it. The air smells acrid and charred. Your eyes instantly begin to sting and burn but there is no way to keep the dust out of them.

This was the surreal reality in which I and thousands of others found ourselves. My co-worker held my hand tightly and we helped each other across Water Street in the direction of South Street Seaport. We had our bearings enough to know that if we could get to the Seaport, turn left and walk north under FDR Drive, we would hopefully, eventually, meet daylight.

At the seaport, a stunned woman approached us and said she had no idea where she was. I invited her to join us.

She had a slight Jamaican accent and stood very tall. She had just begun her first day as a temporary employee in my building and said she knew only two or three people downtown. I remember my first weeks downtown. Because it is the oldest part of the city, the roads intersect at irregular and often unexpected angles. It took me weeks to find my bearings and, even now, I have to imagine a grid in my head to find my way. I cannot imagine how disoriented she must have felt.

The three of us made our way to the Seaport, and then north along the East River under the FDR. After about 25 minutes of fast-paced walking (running was impossible because of the number of people around us), we finally reached the Brooklyn Bridge—and blessed daylight. By the time we reached the Bridge, we had heard so many rumors from others walking, that I genuinely believed the entire East Coast of the United States had been attacked. According to those around me (and the occasional snippet from the radio), not only had the World Trade Center and the Pentagon been attacked, so had Camp David in Maryland, Pittsburgh and somewhere in Florida. Additionally, we heard that a car bomb had exploded outside the State Department in Washington. Obviously, we had no access to real-time information and the entire area was filled with a sense of panic and hysteria.

We saw a handful of people standing and looking in the direction of the one remaining tower. We briefly paused and stared with them but then decided to keep walking. Only seconds after we resumed our march of terror, we heard a loud “Boom! Boom! Boom!” Our first thought was that a large truck was passing overhead on the FDR. Only seconds later, though, we turned around to find only dark gray smoke where the north tower had once stood.

My co-worker cried a little and shook her head in stunned disbelief. I lowered my head, turned north and continued walking. I cannot remember ever feeling so small.

We walked for over an hour to reach my apartment in the East Village. We were covered in cement dust. I remember commenting to her that we may have been exposed to large amounts of asbestos. Her response captured the moment perfectly:

“That’s the least of our problems right now.”

It was hell on earth.

Gregory J. Davis ’94-’96 lives in New York.