On the morning of 9/11, I was working as an office temp near the Twin Towers. When I got out of the dust cloud, I headed to an ex-roommate’s office to email friends and family. As an aspiring young writer, I was furious and embarrassed when my dad sent my hastily written email to his local paper. But now, it’s a gut-punch to read — twenty-five years later.
‘I want my New York back,’ daughter writes to dad living in Appleton
Jessamyn Hope, 27, is the daughter of Farrell Hope of Appleton. A college student, she lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan’s financial district, near the World Trade Center. In this e-mail, sent before she reached home Tuesday, she describes what happened moments after the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers.
I feel like I will never be happy again.
I was coming over the bridge and I saw that one of the Twin Towers was on fire.
I was looking at it in disbelief when I saw the second one suddenly explode into flames. Having lived in Israel, my nerves are on edge for terrorism, and I immediately burst into tears.
I stopped to stare in disbelief. A Hasid Jew who was also looking on turned to me and said, “Bomb!”
I biked, crying, to the office. It was so crowded on Broadway I had to dismount. The street was strewn with contracts, papers, glass, shoes and eyeglasses.
People were pointing, incredulous, like spectators at a circus. Glass was flying and, carried by the wind, glinted prettily.
I went up to my office and called my dad to say I was OK. I was alone in the building. I was on the phone with my dad when suddenly there was a horrible rumbling. I understood one of the Twin Towers was coming down.
I thought the top was toppling over. I looked out the window. I am on the seventh floor. I saw the people — thousands of people — in the street below, obviously running for their lives.
I cried to my dad, “The tower is coming down!”
Then the electricity went out. I told my dad I have to run for my life. He screamed, “Go!”
I slammed down the phone and tried to get out of the building as fast as I could. By the time I got into the foyer, you could not see or breathe.
There was hysteria. Go outside? Stay in? Run for the basement? But desperate for air, I started to go wherever I thought there might be air. We all thought we were going to choke to death.
I ran outside. But you couldn’t see 3 inches. You could hardly keep your eyes open, and I didn’t know where I was going. For all I knew, I was running toward the towers.
I started running for the water, thinking if I couldn’t get out of downtown, I’d jump into the river.
I was running through abandoned streets, thick with dust and debris. It looked like a desert. Suddenly, there was a second rumbling. I understood that the second building was coming down.
I didn’t know where I was, if I was standing right underneath it, but I knew I was at most a matter of meters away.
With the rumbling, everyone started screaming and running like hell. You could hardly see them, but I could hear the screaming. It was like out of the silliest B-movie, where New York City is taken down.
And then there was the soot from the second building, I could not keep my eyes open, and so I just huddled, hoping it would not come down on me. It took me two hours to find my way out of the Financial District.
I almost walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, but then I thought it would be a prime target, so I just kept walking uptown. I can’t remember when I could start to see again, but I think it was near the Manhattan Bridge. Somebody gave me some water.
I am going to try to walk home now. I am having a little trouble breathing. My lungs are filled with debris and my throat is cut by breathing in fine ash of glass. But my nerves are shot and I cannot sit here.
I feel like my heart will explode in my chest.
I go over the bridge every day, at least twice. And anyone who has ever walked over the bridge with me (or has ever spoken to me) knows how much I love New York City. I always say, “Look at that,” as I look back on Manhattan.
I will always stop mid-bridge and admire the skyline. It is the world’s most magnificent skyline, a testament to humankind’s ambition and creativity and drive and decadence, with the Empire State Building in Midtown and all those high buildings.
How it lowers into the Village and the Lower East End, and rises again to the Financial District and the Twin Towers.
I can’t believe when I walk home tonight, the Twin Towers will be gone. It breaks the heart, honestly.
Sirens, sirens, sirens. It’s deafening. And fighter planes overhead.
I want my New York back. How long until New York gets back to being playful New York, with its parades and discos and shopping and plays and carousels and sweet smelling peanut stalls?
I feel like it will never again be quite the way it once was and I am very depressed — those people jumping out of the windows.
Heartbreaking. Well i remember the day. Forever.