September 9, 2011
Remembering Sept. 11, 2001
It was a working day like any other, a Tuesday now 10 years ago — Sept. 11, 2001 — when one plane, and then a second, struck and destroyed the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan, changing history forever.
Some UW people were in New York at the time, but you didnt have to be in the city to feel the impact of that day. We thought wed simply open the floor to any comments or memories the UW community might have.
Clark Lombardi, associate professor at the UW School of Law:
On 9/11, I was practicing law in New York at a firm based in 1 Liberty Plaza right across the street from the World Trade Center. On 9/12 our building lay temporarily abandoned, except for a small part that was used as a temporary morgue. Within a few years, I had left practice and gone back into the academy which suddenly was calling all its Islamicists back in.
###
Lower Manhattan in August of 2001.Library of Congress
Bethany Staelens, administrative assistant, Educational Outreach:
I worked about 20 blocks north of the Twin Towers. I was on my way to work when the subways stopped running and everyone was told to exit the train. Knowing that my boss, a particularly bad-tempered woman, would be furious if I was late, I exited and started walking south toward work, aware that there had been an attack on the Towers, but not really grasping the magnitude of the events.
A few blocks into my trip, the first tower collapsed. The most unforgettable thing at that moment was the collective gasp from everyone on the streets, followed by all kinds of different reactions. I remember a woman becoming completely hysterical, though more people, I think, were stunned and just stood there staring.
I made it to my office building but, naturally, no one was there. As I started the seven-mile-plus mile walk home I saw people who had been in the immediate vicinity of the towers, covered in ash, with what looked like masks from where they had wiped the ash from their eyes. I remember thinking they looked like zombies: expressionless, eyes looking straight ahead — clearly in shock.
That day the extremes of New York were very much on display. A few restaurants opened their doors to everyone walking home, offering free water, bathrooms and a place to sit and rest. Every now and then there would be someone on the street handing out water to people walking — usually in front of a church. But, of course, there were those people who would make a buck without a second thought, selling $1 bottles of water for $5.
Strange pieces of the day stick in my mind: the horrible smell of the smoke drifting east toward Queens & Brooklyn, the sight of hundreds of thousands of pedestrians walking across the 59th Street Bridge toward Queens and Long Island, the huge lines at pay phones, as people waited to call and reassure their families that they were safe, since the cell phone towers on the World Trade Center were gone.”
###
Mary K. Guiden, media relations manager, UW Medicine/Health Sciences:
I was working as a reporter at Stateline.org in Washington, D.C., in September 2001. We had a small newsroom in an office building in Georgetown, and we watched what was happening in New York City unfold on television. Typically, the TV just served as background noise, but that day (of course) was different. It seemed surreal and unreal to see one tower, then two, fall and we could see the smoke from the Pentagon off the balcony in our offices.
My boss, who had been at CBS News for 25 years and who had covered multiple wars, was really affected by what happened that day. A few days after 9/11, he handed out copies of the iconic photo showing NYC firefighters raising the American flag for all of us to post in our cubicles. He also encouraged all of us to share our feelings in a staff meeting. I felt more removed, though not unmoved by what had taken place. I did not hang the patriotic photo in my cube.
We all left work early on 9/11, and I walked home to my apartment near the Cathedral due to all the traffic jams, back-ups and delays.
By the next day, armed national guardsmen were on every corner in Georgetown, which felt even more unreal than what I’d seen happening on TV. It also seemed a bit unnecessary, especially as time passed and the men seemed to be more interested in checking out the pretty women who walked by then serving any real purpose.”
###
Dr. Wesley Van Voorhis, UW professor of medicine, and his wife, Debra Jarvis, a minister, writer and chaplain at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, were in Manhattan on that day. Jarvis wrote of their experiences in an extraordinary sermon titled “Id Rather Be Here Now” that she delivered to the University Congregational Church United Church of Christ on Sept. 8, 2002.
We reprint the following paragraphs from that sermon with permission:
Wes and I arrived in New York on the evening of September 10th, planning to leave on September 12th. On the morning of September 11th we were on our way to an art museum when we received a phone call from our host telling us that the World Trade Center had been attacked.
I ran to the television and while waiting for it to warm up, looked out the window where I could see billowing clouds of smoke. I turned to the TV and saw the image on the screen and I simply could not put them together.
Wes and I left the apartment after about an hour and ended up as volunteer phlebotomists, drawing blood from donors, in the New York City Blood Bank. It may sound as if we waltzed in and starting drawing blood, but the truth is, we had to take a crash course in NYC Blood Bank procedure, we were both rusty in our phlebotomy skills — I hadn’t drawn blood in 20 years and Wes doesn’t do it on a regular basis.
One word comes to mind when I think about that first day: sweat. Not only was it hot and humid, but we were nervous and scared and there were people lined up for blocks wanting to give blood …
So for three or fours hours we were just madly drawing blood and sweating and then suddenly there was a break in the activity — no patients for a few moments. We sat on the edge of the chaise lounges, silently resting. Then the door frame was filled with a big, tall red-headed man. He had a smile on his face. Most important, he had visible, bulging arm veins.
Simultaneously Wes and I said, “Come right over here.”
“He’s mine!” I whispered fiercely. Then sweetly, “You need a break, honey.”
“No, I don’t, sweetheart. I think he’s mine.”
“The red-headed man gave a laugh and handed me his paperwork. “Sorry, mate, I’m going with the lady.” He turned out to be Australian and worked at the U.N. in security.
I really wish that I could have had a long conversation with him, but he filled his blood bag so quickly that all I got to know about him was that he was married to an American woman. I walked him to the canteen for his juice and cookies. (Part of our job was walking donors to the canteen, so we would be there to catch them in case they passed out.)
As I turned to leave I grabbed a bottle of water for myself and thanked him again for donating blood. He looked at my bottle of water. “So you’re going to be the Golden Roo.” I looked at him quizzically. “Do you know about the Golden Roo?”
And I thought, the Golden Rule? Of course I know about the Golden Rule, I’m ordained for God’s sake.
“C’mere,” he said. “I want to give you somethi
ng.” He unpinned from his shirt a golden kangaroo tie tack. “Here, for you, ’cause you’re the Golden Roo.”
He then explained (and I don’t know to this day if the story is true) that when there is a drought and a pod of kangaroos are dying of thirst, they send out one kangaroo to find water.
“It’s always the mile,” he said. “Always the mile.”
I didn’t understand how a kangaroo knows it has gone a mile, and then I couldn’t remember if Australia used miles or kilometers, but I didn’t want to interrupt.
So he went on and told me that if the kangaroo finds water, he returns and then the rest of the pod smells the water on his muzzle and then follows him to the source. If he doesn’t return—well, he’s dead, but at least they didn’t sacrifice the whole pod.
“It’s always the mile,” he said again. “Because the femile is too valuable to the pod.” And with that, the light broke forth for me and he handed me the pin.
“So there you go, Golden Roo.”
I thanked him and quickly walked away because I didn’t want him to see me cry. I was so moved by that image: The Golden Roo bringing back water — nourishing, refreshing, life-giving water to the pod …”
