09/11/2026
It’s the 25th anniversary of 9/11. I was in NYC and heard the boom when the first plane hit. I was under the towers in the subway for the second. My children were in school buses on their way to school. By the time I got to work, everyone had gathered in the outer vestibule to watch on the big screen tv as the towers fell. Few had heard the name Osama Bin Laden before then. I ran downstairs from my 34th Street office to go get my daughter from school at 84th. My son’s teacher took him home with her. We were terrified to cross bridges. (He stayed with her for 3 days till that bridge opened up again.) People covered in ash were on the street, many openly praying in clusters. It was apocalyptic. By the time we could get back home to Brooklyn (subways and bridges were closed), churches were open, prayer services being held. Where I was in Brooklyn Heights, one subway stop from Wall Street, papers floated through the air like oversized snow flakes. The toxic smell of burnt plastic encompassed the neighborhood haze. Phones were down for days. I couldn’t reach my parents to tell them we were ok. Many many were gone. Many many first responders ran toward the towers to give aid. The world changed overnight. There are many stories of sacrifice, generosity, compassion, and resilience as neighborhoods came together on stoops and in the streets to comfort one another as we began to learn more. Marchers congregated up Atlantic Avenue to protect shops and shopkeepers along Brooklyn’s major lane of Middle Eastern shops. We came together—not universally, not everywhere—but we came together. It is a heartbreaking memory and the sorrow led to the weeping well to commemorate the loss. The freedom tower rises above as a symbol of strength. Today, we remember.
