11/09/2025
24 years ago, the sky looked just like this. It felt like summer. It was Tuesday morning of and I had been up most of the night at afterparty on the Hudson River, dancing, sipping champagne, celebrating.
I overslept. Our weekly GQ meeting was at 9:30am sharp, and editor Art Cooper didn’t tolerate tardiness. Had I not been rushing, I would have looked out my bedroom window upon waking, as I did every morning, and smiled at my view of the Twin Towers.
I was in the shower when the first plane hit. Oblivious, I rushed to the subway from my Clinton Street apartment on the Lower East Side. I hustled down Houston Street and called my assistant to let him know I was on my way. It was during that call — at 9:03am — that I heard a thunderous bang. The day was too perfect for thunder.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, before looking up at the gorgeous blue sky, searching for what had caused that now-unforgettable boom. I ended the call and ran down the subway stairs.
It wasn’t until I surfaced in Times Square and made my way to the office around 9:25 that I learned what I had heard definitely wasn’t thunder.
“This can’t be an accident,” was the prevailing chatter, as details began to unfold. When the third plane hit the Pentagon at 9:37am, we evacuated the office, aware that Times Square could be a target.
Most of us walked home, fearing the subway as another target. We walked south on Broadway, the smoldering Twin Towers directly in front of us. People began screaming as we watched the first tower crumble. Continuing south, the smoke became thicker, the air harder to breathe. A parade of men and women in suits, briefcases in-hand, walked north. They walked slowly, expressionless, covered in fine, white dust. They looked like ghosts.
I made it home and went to my rooftop; I had an unobstructed view of what looked like a scene from an apocalyptic film. A group of us had gathered, silent, and watched the second tower fall. I have real-time photographs, somewhere, that I still can’t look at. The sights, the sounds, the stench are still too vivid. The attack, the loss, the evil — impossible to accept. Even after 24 years.