‘It was like home’: WTOP staffer on the day the Twin Towers fell – WTOP News

Watch a livestream of the ceremonies marking the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Friday.

If you were one of the estimated 50,000 people who worked at the World Trade Center on a typical weekday at its peak between 1996 and 2001, the place felt like a home away from home. For a brief but meaningful stretch of my life, I was one of them.

I spent 1995 to 1997 at Dean Witter Reynolds on the 60th floor of 2 World Trade Center (the “South Tower”), working as an institutional trading floor assistant. After a short stint at a couple of midtown firms, I returned to the complex, this time across the pedestrian bridge over the West Side Highway, working overnight in Lehman Brothers’ Word Processing and Presentations Center from 2000 to 2001.

At Dean Witter, most of my colleagues were at least 20 years older than me, a lively cast of characters who treated me like both a kid brother and a trusted teammate. Traders couldn’t take breaks during the day — they even still smoked in the offices then — and it was my job to get them everything they needed: supplies, administrative help, and, most critically, their lunch orders. I remember them fondly even now: Mike L., Geri B., Montie H., Sharon W., Jennifer B. They were elders, yet friends. I was sad to leave when Morgan Stanley acquired Dean Witter and made inevitable cuts. Most of the traders stayed, and they were inside 2 World Trade Center on 9/11.

At Lehman Brothers — that Lehman Brothers — I worked the overnight shift. In those late-night and early-morning hours, the complex felt almost entirely mine. At 4 a.m., I’d wander through the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden, cross the pedestrian bridge to the plaza, and head down into the concourse, taking in the quiet, the lights, and the seasonal decorations without the usual crowds. The only people I’d see were the Krispy Kreme workers in 5 World Trade Center, already making donuts from scratch before sunrise. It was indescribably beautiful at that hour.

Those years amounted to half of my 20s. I knew every corner of the complex and the surrounding blocks. It felt like home.

I left Lehman Brothers in spring 2001. That September, I was technically staying with a friend in Prince George’s County, Maryland, between theater gigs, but I was in New York that week for auditions and some bank business. The day before, my biggest worry was why the Tokyo Disney casting team wouldn’t take a chance on me — a dreadlocked, unconventional lyric baritone with a handful of regional credits. I thought my problems were enormous. But I told myself that the next morning I’d go to the WTC, cash the checks from my summer gig, and feel better.

So around 8 a.m., I boarded the A train in Far Rockaway with a simple plan: go to the WTC, cash the checks, maybe say hello to one or two people from the old Dean Witter crew, then head back to Far Rockaway and prepare for another day of audition agony. What could possibly go wrong?

As the A train crossed Jamaica Bay near JFK Airport, the conductor announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, we may experience some delays… if you look out the left-side windows, you can see that a plane seems to have hit one of the Twin Towers.” That was when I first saw it — smoke billowing from 1 World Trade Center. Thankfully, I thought, not the building where I used to work. 

The train kept moving, and while we were aboveground, none of us could stop staring at the smoke. Many assumed it was a freak accident — New Yorkers tend to take things in stride. Then I thought I saw more smoke. As I tried to make sense of it, the conductor spoke again: “Attention, ladies and gentlemen. Another plane has hit the other building.” I may be paraphrasing, but that was the gist.

The train went underground. We traveled through Brooklyn toward lower Manhattan with no updates, but we knew something was wrong. My stop was Fulton Street, two blocks from the WTC. Nothing made me hesitate. I had business to take care of, and I wanted to know what was happening.

The doors opened to an empty platform. Shortly after 9 a.m., at the height of rush hour, not a single person stood there except those of us getting off. That was the first ominous sign.

I came aboveground at Broadway and Dey Street into chaos. Storefront windows were shattered all along the street. Crowds lined the sidewalks in the shadow of the burning towers, stunned and trying to understand what had happened — or what might happen next. Having been underground, I had no radio or TV updates. Then I heard someone say, “another plane hit the Pentagon!” That’s when it became clear: these were attacks. But by whom?

When I saw flames coming from 2 World Trade, I felt an inexplicable pull toward the building. What floors were burning? Having worked there, I knew each one-acre floor was covered by sprinklers and that fire drills were a regular occurrence. Why weren’t the sprinklers putting this out? What about my friends? They weren’t youngsters — did they get out? I tried to get closer with several others, but cops yelled, “Get the f**k back!” I was offended in the moment, but in retrospect, of course they were right. I wasn’t getting anywhere near the building.

I figured it would take a while to put out the fires. I couldn’t get to the building, so I thought: just go cash the checks, then come back and watch them put out the flames. I never once believed the FDNY wouldn’t extinguish them. And I never, ever imagined that either of those massive buildings — fixtures of my entire life — would fall.

I turned away and walked east on John Street toward the bank. If it wasn’t closed, I’d be back in 10 minutes to watch everything get fixed. Maybe even see some former coworkers.

I got halfway down the block when I heard a loud rumbling — like thunder rolling across the ground. I turned to see everyone behind me running. I started running too. Then I glanced over my shoulder and saw a giant black cloud of dust and debris rushing toward us. I didn’t know it then, but I was running from the collapse of the building where I once worked, laughed and spent countless hours. 2 World Trade Center was falling.

The cloud moved fast, engulfing people behind me. I ducked into a subway stairwell with a handful of others. Within seconds, the air turned pitch black. I tucked my nose into my shirt, but it didn’t help. For a moment, I imagined this was what a war zone felt like. “Lord Jesus, help us!” cried a woman with a Caribbean accent. Hearing that snapped me into survival mode. She can call Jesus if she wants, I thought, but I’m was getting the hell out of here.

Then, as quickly as the sky had turned black, it turned white. It looked like snow, but it was ash. I suddenly understood the phrase “nuclear winter.” The rumbling had stopped. It was time to head for the Brooklyn Bridge.

Outside, the streets looked like a blizzard had hit. People coughed, covered their faces, and helped others who were struggling, urging each other: “Head for the bridge! Keep going!” There was confusion and fear, but little panic. Strangers paired up instinctively. I wanted someone to know who I was in case I didn’t make it back to Far Rockaway, so I found the fittest guy walking alone and said, “You’re headed to the bridge? Let’s go together. I’ll look out for you.” I wish I remembered his name.

Through the narrow downtown streets — the so-called Canyon of Heroes — my disaster buddy and I walked, two among the thousands covered in dust that the nation watched on video that day. I looked back to see a plume of smoke where 2 World Trade had stood, while 1 World Trade kept burning. No one knew what would happen next. Would someone attack the bridge? That shared vulnerability stripped away the usual New York snark. We were all in it together.

I was about three-quarters of the way across the bridge when the rumbling started again. I sprinted toward Brooklyn. Only when my buddy yelled for me to stop did I turn — and from the Brooklyn Bridge, I watched 1 World Trade Center fall. I had no words. Life, and New York, would never be the same.

Once in downtown Brooklyn, we kept walking inland. I reached the Atlantic Avenue Long Island Rail Road station, where rail employees stared at us — dusty and exhausted —  in shock. All fares were waived. “We’ll get you home. You made it. It’s okay,” they said. That almost broke me.

I said goodbye to my disaster buddy at Jamaica Station and continued to Far Rockaway. Dazed, I walked to my friend’s job at a hospital. The staff had been watching the news and were stunned to see me covered in dust. Only after I got back to my friend’s apartment did I understand the enormity of what we had survived.

It was then that I began to weep — from relief, from despair at how many people had been lost, from the news footage of people falling from the towers, from the missing posters that covered the city, and from the realization that a place I loved so much was now the site of unimaginable horror.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to weep for my former Dean Witter colleagues. I later learned that once the first plane hit 1 World Trade, the bombastic, hilarious, no-nonsense lead trader Mike Lyons —  a man I believe was in his 70s — told everyone not to listen to the PA announcements saying the incident was contained to the other building, that they were “safe.” He told them to leave immediately. They followed him, and all escaped safely. I’m told one of the security guards I knew was killed. I still can’t figure out which one.

I still think about the Twin Towers. I think about the 60th floor, the trading floor, the people I knew. I think about wandering through the World Financial Center at 4 a.m., when the whole complex seemed to belong to me. I think about the Krispy Kreme workers making donuts before sunrise. I think about the people I knew who were there that morning, and how lucky I was to learn they had listened to Mike and gotten out.

And I think about standing on the Brooklyn Bridge, covered in dust, watching the second tower disappear.

For so many people, Sept. 11 was the day they lost someone. For me, it was also the day I lost a place that had been part of me.

The Twin Towers had always meant home. They were the first thing I looked for when approaching New York by car — the familiar sight that said, You’re almost there.

But maybe I had it wrong.

The towers were never really home. The people were. The memories were. The years I spent there, the friendships I made, the countless ordinary moments that seemed unimportant at the time — those were the things that made that place home.

The buildings are gone. The skyline changed. The city changed. And, inevitably, so did I.

But a part of me is still there, walking through those towers at 4 a.m., when the lights were on, the streets were quiet, and New York still felt like it would always be there.

Maybe that’s what home really is: not a place that stays forever, but a place that stays with you.

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