Twenty Years Ago: The Remains of the Day
On 9/11, I was working at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. Every day I would take my three-year-old daughter to daycare at the Smithsonian’s American History Museum, about a twenty-minute walk from my office. I had been blogging since the beginning of 2001. And when we finally got home, this was my blog post that day.
What can I say?
9:30. I was at the Renwick Gallery, right across from the White House, for a press preview for a new exhibit our museum is opening this week (at least was scheduled to open). Someone mentioned the World Trade Center had been hit by two planes. I went downstairs to watch the news. Nothing much was happening, so I decided to take the subway back to my office. I walked about three blocks to the Metro station, past the Executive Office Building but didn’t notice anything odd. Typical crowds and traffic as I casually walked down Connecticut Avenue.
10:00. By the time I got back to the office, everyone was watching the TV. I called my daughter’s daycare at the Smithsonian to see if they were closing. They told me they weren’t planning on it at the moment but that many office buildings had. The school was in the American History Museum on the National Mall. I heard reports of fires on the Mall, not rumors — news reports. That was enough for me. By this time, the crash at the Pentagon was just starting to surface. It just kept getting worse, and visions of Oklahoma City became startlingly clear.
10:05. I called my wife, and we decided I should pick up my daughter. At that time, we weren’t sure of the situation. It was chaotic, but the magnitude of today’s events was still unfolding. While the details began rising to the surface, my realization of its extent took longer to process. I was reminded of another tragedy I witnessed decades ago.
While playing with my sister outside our house, I looked up and saw a small plane fall from the sky. My sister started to cry, and a neighbor ran out of her house, yelling at me for scaring her. The plane plunged into a backyard swimming pool, a few blocks away, while some children were having a birthday party. I ran there, still wearing the official-looking ribbon I had been given at cub scouts the weekend before. I pretended to be in charge. I thought, by staring at it, I had made the plane crash.
Despite the day’s events, I figured that work would continue in a usual fashion. I told my wife, “I can’t work if I have to watch Eve too. So my wife decided to take the Metro downtown, meet us at my office to take her home. I would, in the meantime, make the 20-minute walk to the school to retrieve her.
10:15. After a few blocks, it was clear the whole town was shutting down. There was gridlock in every direction, and people packed the streets as they walked away from the National Mall. I began to regret telling my wife to come downtown. I wasn’t even sure the Metro was working. I heard snippets of fellow pedestrians’ conversations as I passed them, expressing their fears of another attack in the subway below.
10:18. I wasn’t really afraid until I heard military jets directly overhead.
10:30. When I got to the school, it was shutting down. Parents were rushing in and out with their children. I was glad to see my daughter’s happy face. She was blissfully unaware of the tragedy.
10:50. It took another 20 minutes for us to get back to my office. My daughter kept asking why all the people were walking in the middle of the street. What do you say to a three-year-old? By the time I got back to our building, it was empty. I was lucky to get back into my office to get my backpack and other personal things. We waited outside for my wife.
As soon as she arrived, Secret Service agents asked us to move away from an abandoned truck. (their headquarters is right next to our offices). We quickly moved away. When we entered the Metro, surprisingly, it was empty. We’d missed the initial exodus. But on the way home, we could see the fires at the Pentagon.
11:30. When we got home, I had two frantic messages from my sister in California. I called her immediately. Just got a call from friends in San Francisco. Ellen started crying when we finally answered the phone. Both of us remembered when, just before 1989’s Game 3 of the World Series between the Giants and Oakland Athletics, I was the first to get through to them after the San Francisco earthquake and fill them in on what was happening there.
What can I say?