The weather in the northeast, to put it charitably, stinks. The summers are too hot, and the rest of the year is too cold. Even the spring and fall, which both have their fair share of lovely days, are too erratic to be trusted. The weather up here is the reason that even though I’ll always consider Boston home, I vote with my feet and choose to spend most of the year elsewhere.
Tuesday, September 11, 2001 stood out weather-wise. From its earliest morning hours, it was the kind of spectacular day that gives the northeast a better reputation in that regard than it truthfully deserves. The sky was a brilliant blue, the temperature in the 70's and the air bracingly refreshing.
At that time, my wife and I were living in Boston’s South End, approximately three blocks from the city’s signature high rise, the blue-glass John Hancock Tower. My morning of September 11, 2001 promised to be a busy one; I had an 8:00 a.m. meeting in Boston’s downtown which was about a twenty minute walk from our townhouse, and then a 10:30 a.m. meeting on the 43rd floor of the Hancock Tower.
When I arrived at the downtown building for my 8:00 a.m. meeting, I hung around for about a half hour before finding out the meeting wouldn’t take place. The guy I was supposed to meet with was ill. His secretary didn’t get word of his illness until I had been idling in the lobby for about a half hour.
It was no big deal. Such things happen all the time. I did have to make a decision, though – should I drive out to my suburban Boston office and then turn around shortly after I got there or just head back to my apartment and relax until the 10:30 meeting at the Hancock Tower?
Like I said, it was a beautiful day, not the kind of day that makes you want to hang out at an office. It was a no-brainer – I began to walk home.
AS I HEADED DOWN DARTMOUTH STREET and came within a couple hundred yards of our townhouse, I passed Cleary’s pub. Cleary’s had its front windows wide open, and, as was their custom, they were cleaning up after the previous evening’s festivities. With the students having just returned to town, even a Monday night at a Cleary’s was very active.
I looked into Cleary’s and saw their TV’s were on and that the World Trade Center was on fire. It was a huge fire. I asked one of the guys working there what happened. He said apparently a commuter plane had flown into the building. We muttered agreement on what an idiot the pilot obviously was, and wondered how many people would die in the disaster.
I stood in the street watching the fire on TV without hearing the narration. A few minutes later, a second plane slammed into the Trade Center’s other tower creating a massive fireball. I ran the couple of hundred yards to my house, and immediately put on the news.
The people on TV were debating what to most people had to be obvious - whether the carnage at the World Trade Center was the result of a terrorist attack. The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund called into one of the networks. Obviously and understandably emotional, he described seeing numerous individuals dive out of the buildings’ highest floors to escape the flames.
I called my wife. She worked at a law firm in a high rise in Boston’s downtown. I wanted her out of there. America was under attack, and God only knew what would happen next. I made sure she had her cell phone, and made arrangements where we would meet if anything happened in Boston and we couldn’t get together.
I then looked out my window at the John Hancock Tower, the site of my impending 10:30 a.m. meeting. Built in the early 1970’s, the I.M. Pei-designed Hancock had been a controversial structure throughout its thirty year existence. Some thought it was a bold and brilliant design; others considered it an example of post-modern high-rise design run amuck.
I had spent 8 years in the 1990’s working literally across the street from the Hancock. It was impossible not to notice it – unlike other every-day features of your life, it stubbornly refused to become wallpaper. Sometimes I hated it. On a cold winter day, it’s austere modernity made the neighborhood feel even harsher. But when the sunset reflected off it on a warm spring day, it could be glorious.
On September 11, 2001, as I looked out at the Hancock Tower, it looked to me as it never had before. It looked vulnerable. That's how it looks to me even today.
AROUND 9:45, MY COLLEAGUE who was scheduled to join me at the meeting at the Hancock called and chirped an upbeat sing-songy “Good morning!”
“Hi,” I responded.
Maintaining his annoying good cheer, he inquired, “How ya doin’!”
Slightly annoyed and a little emotional, I said, “You must not know what’s going on today.” He told me he did, but he said it was happening in New York and then immediately asked me where we should meet at the Hancock Tower.
Honestly, I couldn’t believe my ears. This was a highly intelligent man on the other end of the line. I told him, “Don’t you understand – America is under attack.” He responded by condescendingly telling me that two buildings were under attack. I told him I didn’t want to argue with him. Obviously it was an inopportune time to go to a top floor of a major city’s most prominent high rise, but whether or not we agreed wasn’t really material. Every high rise in America would be officially evacuating itself within the hour, I told him. Even if we wanted to attend the meeting, it wouldn’t be an option available to us.
It was the first time I dealt with someone who just didn’t get what 9/11 meant. It wouldn’t be the last.
THE DAY CONTINUED, and the full scale of the horror revealed itself. I saw the first of the World Trade Center towers collapse. Word soon followed that the Pentagon had been hit and that a fourth plane was streaking across the country with Washington as its target.
The only piece of good news came on a personal level – my wife made it home. But she brought bad news with her. One of her closest friends from her Manhattan days was a lawyer at Cantor Fitzgerald. Cantor Fitzgerald’s offices were in the upper floors of one of the Trade Center towers. Matt always got to work early – it was unlikely that he wasn’t at his desk when the murderers struck.
Soon, the lone standing tower, the first one hit, the one where Cantor Fitzgerald had its offices, collapsed. Aaron Brown on CNN said as the building pancaked, “There are no words.”
The irony hit me immediately. In truth, there would be millions upon millions of words to follow. Writers and analysts and politicians and propagandists would murder thousands of trees trying to find the right words to make sense of this day. But Brown was right – at that moment, even people who spoke for a living were without words.
But there were feelings – sadness and rage. Loads of both.
THE WEEK AFTER 9/11 was full of sad discoveries and heartbreaking moments. My wife’s friend in fact didn’t make it out of Cantor Fitzgerald. He likely died at the moment of impact.
I found out about a couple of other people I knew, or sort of knew, who died that day. A friend of my father’s, Richard Ross, was on Flight 11. I had met him several times, but I can’t remember his face. I don’t quite understand why, but I really wish I could.
Like me, Stuart Meltzer had grown up in Newton, Massachusetts and we had played Little League either with or against each other. He was a year or two younger than me, which is probably why I remember him as a small kid, even though he became a much better athlete than I ever was. Stuart worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and died on 9/11. His phone call to his wife was one of the first ones that made the papers. He said, “Honey, something terrible is happening. I don't think I am going to make it. I love you. Take care of the children.” Even though we were only barely acquainted as children, I wish I could remember Stuart’s face. But again, I can’t.
On September 18th, my wife and I took the train down to New York to attend her friend Matt’s funeral. Matt left behind a young wife, and a three month old baby.
At the church, a young priest who looked like he was in his late 20’s and who had recently come to New York from Ireland presided over the service. The priest had been with his Brooklyn congregation for only a few weeks before 9/11. His congregation had lost 30 people in the 9/11 attacks. Matt’s was his first 9/11 funeral.
The church was packed. I didn’t know Matt, so I didn’t feel the same loss that so many other people in the Church that day did. But it was still cathartic to be able to cry and pray with a thousand other people, as we tried to pick ourselves up after the saddest event to hit our community in our lifetimes. At one point during the homily, the priest held up Matt’s three month-old daughter and said that we had no choice – in spite of our pain and agony, we had to go on. Nobody thought he was wrong. No one thought it would be easy.
IT HAS BECOME A TRITE LAMENT that 9/11 brought us together, and it’s a shame that since then we’ve come apart. But 9/11 brought us together because of two transitory emotions – sadness and rage. Once those emotions calmed down, once our open wounds turned into scars, it was inevitable that our differences would resurface.
When the flags came out in the aftermath of 9/11, they didn’t signify a consensus on where we would go from there. They symbolized a consensus that we were all in pain, all anguished. When the time came to move on, disagreements inevitably (and not improperly) came regarding exactly how we should move on.
Even though a thorough review of 9/11, including both its lead-up and aftermath, won’t provide an obvious path forward that everyone will agree on, there are some valuable lessons we can draw from that awful day. Looking back, we can clearly see the remorseless murderers that our enemies are – that knowledge is instructive. And we can also see that they are numerous. That, too, is important to take into account.
But the most important lesson we can take from 9/11 is this: We must take every possible step to ensure never again. Never again will we allow ourselves to feel the way we did that day. Never again will we be so blind to storm clouds as they gather. Never again will we choose to believe comforting lies rather than disquieting truths.
The fifth anniversary of 9/11 is a good time to look back. But it’s an even better time to look forward and to figure out how we get from the horror of 9/11 to the reality of never again.
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