09/11/2026
9/11/2001 - I was living on W. 13th bet. 7th & Greenwich in an apartment the size of a walk-in closet. I had wrapped my time as a ballet dancer, was attending college at in lower Manhattan & working part-time at on 5th Ave. & 16th St. I was wearing a baby blue scoop neck cap sleeve top, a short red denim skirt that had a belt with silver hardware & sandals. It was Election Day in New York & the weather was perfect.
Doors were about to open at Anthropologie when the stock room guys who always listened to came to the sales floor & said a plane hit the One of the guys walked outside to 5th Ave., looked downtown & saw the second plane hit the South Tower. Everyone went outside to find smoke pouring out of both towers. Traffic was at a standstill on 5th Ave. People on the top of a red sightseeing bus taking photos. Sidewalk packed with people locked into the horror scene. We went back inside & came back out multiple times during what felt like an eternity. I remember seeing the towers start to have a subtle lean & said it looked like they might fall over. Within moments of that thought, the North Tower fell.
The image from that moment that is forever ingrained in my mind is the short stout middle aged man with glasses, a button down & slacks standing next to me screaming at the top of his lungs, “Oh my god! Oh my god!” & pulling his hair. To see a reaction like that from a grown man was terrifying.
Once the wind cleared the smoke & dust from the North Tower fall, there stood the South Tower, no longer a twin.
Everyone back inside. The South Tower falls. After an hour, I opt to walk home. There are no longer cars in the streets, but people walking. I get back to my apartment & a line of people is backed up all the way from St. Vincent’s Hospital on the corner at 13th & 7th to my doorstep. I go inside, grab my 35mm & started snapping photos.
I see a woman walking around with a Donate Blood sign & realize that’s what the line is for. Within 24 hours the wall outside of St. Vincent’s became a shrine of missing persons signs. I would have to show a I.D. to get below 14th to go home.
The days, weeks, months to follow were surreal. The constant scent of what I can only describe as a burning Sharpie would fill my no-AC apartment. Often waking me at night. It got worse when it rained. My college was used for triage. A brand new renovated building I had a class in a few months prior was destroyed when World Trade 7 fell. School was closed for a while. Family & friends tried talking me into leaving the city & returning to Mississippi. New York was my home & I wasn’t going anywhere.
In 25 years, I’ve never been able to get the words (or photos) together to share what I experienced on this day. As I sit on a flight from LAX to JFK on 9/11/26, felt appropriate.
#911
