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.@JeffJarvis' Extraordinary Tale from #911 Add to Favorites Free Edit
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In the deluge of 9/11 memories emerging today, this one warrants special attention. Journalist Jeff Jarvis shares his experiences in and around the WTC during the fateful moment when the planes hit. Raw, sobering, thoughtful, and reflective. To be read and shared.0 33111/Sep/2011 10:10:08 PM PDT
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This is my memory from 9/11 that I cannot talk about: http://t.co/BuCfQ79
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I was on my way into work now, driving to Jersey City and the (last) PATH train to the World Trade Center. #911
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I stood on the last PATH train. Crowded, as usual. #911
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I didn't want to go to New York that day. My 10 am meeting was to plan layoffs at CondéNet. #911
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I didn't notice what a beautiful morning it was until I looked up at the North Tower and the sky. #911
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At this moment at Journal Square, I got on that last PATH train to the WTC. #911
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It was just another commute to New York. Not sure why I took the World Trade Center PATH instead of the train to midtown. #911
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My PATH train was probably going under the river about now. #911
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At this moment, my PATH train entered the World Trade Center. #911
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The first jet hit the first tower now. #911
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I got off my PATH train, noticing nothing different at first. #911
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I came up the long, broad escalator to the Trade Center's concourse. Something was different, quite odd: Silence. It was never quiet. #911
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At the top of the escalator, I saw virtually no one. It was never not crowded. #911
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I wondered what had happened. Behind me, I saw a small bit of smoke. I thought it was a minor track fire. I didn't rush. #911
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I saw the concourse of the World Trade Center dotted everywhere with empty women's shoes. I could not imagine why. #911
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I turned to a stranger; said, "What's up with the shoes." He gave me a dirty look for talking to him. That was the last old-NY moment. #911
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I just walked through the concourse, seeing no cause for concern yet. #911
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I wanted to buy a newspaper but was peeved that the newsstand was in the process of closing. #911
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I came up under WTC 5 and the bookstore there. Still quiet. Still not concerned, just puzzled at what was happening. #911
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I came out of the Trade Center and a woman cop there screamed at us: "RUN! RUN!" I will always remember her face, with gratitude. #911
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I ran across the street amid debris. I did not keep running. I stopped between the hotel and Century 21 and turned around. #911
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Now I saw black smoke and orange flames from the top of the North Tower with debris still raining. #911
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No one knew what had happened. The news was speculation,. Some thought a plane had hit. It sounded impossibly absurd. #911
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We hardly spoke, the strangers there. We just stared up. #911
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Now I noticed what a beautiful sky we had that morning. #911
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The sky was utterly clear blue--the greater the contrast with the silver-white of the tower and the black and orange streaming from it. #911
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Paper was already floating down. #911
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I called my wife. She was mad I hadn't called during an earlier WTC bombing, to say I was safe. #911
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My wife wasn't home. I left a message. "Something happened at the World Trade Center," I said. "I'm going to stay to report." #911
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I did not have the courage to listen to my voicemail until the first anniversary. My adrenalin scared even me. #911
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I told my wife I was OK, just so she'd know. She did not hear from me again until late that afternoon. #911
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I feel guilty that I took a cell line that day. #911
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I didn't intend to do this, my friends.
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I was standing even with the front of Century 21, next to the hotel at this moment. #911
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We all just looked up. #911
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Oh, my God, what the hell is that? A huge ball of flame came out of the second tower. #911
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I ran away from the towers. I ran into the building right there (now Reuters) but realized I could be trapped. I ran back out. #911
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It occurred to me that people could be trampled. I could be. I stayed closed to the building and crossed Broadway. #911
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I don't know how long I stayed away but then I went back to that spot across from the towers, by the hotel. #911
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Believe it or not, we still did not know what happened. I did not see the plane; it came from the other side of the tower. #911
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I did not see the plane but only felt the impact and the heat. #911
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I still was not sure it was a plane. I stupidly wondered whether one explosion could have caused the other. But it soon became clear. #911
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We stood there again, looking up. #911
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Black smoke and orange flames came now from both towers. I recall the gashes in each. #911
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Soon we saw the thing that still terrifies me most, the thing I cannot talk about, will not talk about out of respect for them. #911
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We saw and heard. Again and again. I did not count. I looked away. #911
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I remember the horrified face of the black woman next to me, reflecting the pain and terror. #911
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I left my position across from the towers and walked back toward Nassau Street. #911
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I called CondéNet and told the assistant there I would be late for my meeting tha tmorning; something happened at the Trade Center. #911
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That was the last call I could make from my cell phone. The lines were all used. I shudder to think what was said on them. #911
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I walked the streets of the financial district. I told myself I was reporting, gathering color, as we call it. I made spare notes. #911
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I looked down at the paper now covering the streets and sidewalks. #911
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I saw memos and pages of calendars and bits of company manuals. Random life. #911
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Because I couldn't use my phone, I went into a pizza joint and offered them $10 to use their phone. #911
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I called my office at Advance Internet and gave color to a colleague. #911
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I told my colleague about the papers, about people standing and looking up, about the scene in Manhattan. #911
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My colleague on the phone was the first person I spoke with that morning. We didn't talk, the witnesses, not hardly. #911
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My colleague was--I can't think of the word--shocked in a way that told me how shocking this was from a distance. #911
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I spent a long time walking back and forth, not sure what I was looking for, not able to leave. #911
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To this day, my wife is angry with me for not leaving. #911
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If we had Twitter and phones with cameras that day, the world's view would not have been from a rooftop miles away. #911
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If we'd had Twitter and cameras and been connected that day, the world's view of 9/11 would have been at eye-level. #911
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I was standing with others around an open manhole cover because the worker there had a portable radio. #911
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Hard to imagine today, but we were disconnected from the world. The world was watching us but we couldn't talk. #911
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Around that manhole cover on Nassau St., we heard the report of a jet hitting the Pentagon. #911
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Now we knew. Exactly what had happened only now became clear. We knew now it was terrorism. We knew little more. #911
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I spoke with a young woman whose blouse was dotted with water from the WTC fire sprinklers. She made it out. Go home, I advised. #911
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The rain of paper never ended. #911
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I remember so distinctly the faces of the first responders-fire, health, police-rushing *into* the buildings. Jaws set, eyes afraid. #911
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My Twitter then would have sounded nothing like this. It would have been filled with questions. #911
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I made my way over to Liberty Street near the South Tower. There, a crowd was watching. #911
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I remember wondering how the fire would ever die. It couldn't burn itself out. Fire crews could not get up there, I thought. #911
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By the South Tower, a tourist asked me to take his picture with the flaming building as the backdrop. I was appalled. #911
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I told the tourist people were dying there. He said, yes, he wanted to remember that he lived. I shook my head and looked away--up. #911
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I looked up and saw the top of the South Tower tilt so slightly to the left. #911
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Oh, my God. #911
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I wasn't the first to turn away. One by one the realization struck us. We ran. #911
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We could not outrun the destruction. #911
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So soon, i was overcome by the cloud. #911
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I felt it hitting my back. It was warm. It was soft as well. #911
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I heard large and heavy things falling around me. I heard people screaming. I heard car alarms set off. #911
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The sound of the tower falling was like that of a jet. #911.
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The cloud overcame me completely. #911
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I could see nothing. #911
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I tried to keep running, blindly. I ran into a large concrete planter. I veered left. #911
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My mouth filled with the debris. Only then did I think of taking out my handkerchief to cover it as I tried to run. #911
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I remember dropping my briefcase. I stupidly stooped to pick it up. I scolded myself: just a thing. #911
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I did fear being found there, buried. #911
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I kept moving forward. I slammed into glass, round glass. It was a revolving door. #911
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I heard people inside that revolving door and asked where we were. They did not answer. The woman sounded too frightened to speak. #911
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I pulled out of the glass around the revolving door and veered right. I could see absolutely nothing. #911
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I stumbled into stairs. For the first time, I saw a tiny bit of light. #911
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I thought I'd come to a building whose front had been blown away by the debris. I went up the stairs, to the light. #911.
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I saw a man standing on a windowsill banging on the glass begging to be let in. #911
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So we were outside still. The light came from a bulb in a scaffold. #911
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A guard let us into a Chase building. I think I felt safe. #911
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I was caked in the dust. #911
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People crowded around a janitor's sink trying to wash the dust off them. #911
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I saw people using anything, even Snapple Iced Tea, to wash the dust off themselves. #911
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I brushed the dust off as best I could. You could tell had been inside and who had been outside. #911
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I just wanted to get the taste of the destruction out of my mouth. #911
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We made a mess of the lobby, getting the debris off ourselves. #911
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The group headed downstairs. I don't know whose idea this was. We sought a bomb shelter. #911
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We walked down the stairs, a few levels down. Now what? #911
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I remember wondering how smart this was, being below grade with rivers around us. Some of us left to come back upstairs. #911
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Upstairs, it was still dark outside but light was starting to come in. Another man stood on a sill to look out. He said it was clearing #911
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A building guard told us to stay inside. But what did he know? I wanted to get away. A few of us left. #911
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Continuing my chronicle since this morning on Google+: http://t.co/iEiU4r2
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In my CondéNet office, I wanted to change out of my filthy clothes. I found on a Vogue.com T-shirt 10 sizes too small.
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I left a pile of debris on the carpet. The shirt did not fit. I wore my caked white work shirt. #911
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My briefcase was infused with the dust. My copy of The Corrections was covered and filled with the dust. #911
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Miraculously, my laptop worked. I sat down to write my story after calling my wife and work, but the phones still did not work. #911
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So I wrote. Here is what I wrote: http://t.co/mY4R6y9 #911
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About this time, I finally got through on the phone to my colleague in NJ, who called his wife, who got to my wife for the first word. #911
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A year later, my wife told me she'd told others until afternoon that I was missing. #911
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My boss, Steven Newhouse, offered to have me to his house w/other staffers that night. I wanted to get home. #911
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After I finished my story at Times Square, I watched TV, unsure what to do. Finally, I left. #911
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I decided to go to the West Side and try to take the boat to NJ. When I finally walked there, the line was unbelievable. I gave up. #911
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At Times Square, still covered in debris, many people looked at me oddly, steered clear. #911
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About this time, I walked by the Lincoln Tunne; ran into 3 long-long-ago colleagues from Time Inc, the familiar people I'd seen all day #911
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We stood by the Tunnel, which had been shut at 9a, hoping it would reopen sometime. My colleagues had secured rides. I hadn't. #911
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At this point, I didn't think I would make it home that night and I planned to walk to my boss' house in the Village. But I stayed. #911
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Shortly, as I remember, the Lincoln Tunnel reopened, with cops-thank goodness-checking the trucks. #911
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I very nice man from Staten Island offered to take me to my car in Jersey City. He owned a sporting good store. #911
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I was worried about messing up his car with the dust of destruction. He told me to nevermind. #911
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Don't know whether I called home with his cell phone. I'd lost mine running from the ruin. #911
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We got through the tunnel and he dropped me at my car, at my office in Jersey City. #911
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I wondered whether he'd get home that night and felt bad I hadn't invited him to mine. But he had his children to get to. #911
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I got in my car and drove home, finally, for the first time, hearing media's treatment of the day. #911
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Driving home, I was so very mindful of being so very lucky. #911
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My 9/11 saga ends about now. I'm not sure of the exact time, but I drove home before 8p. I remember opening the door with joy, relief. #911
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I was a mess, so I took off most of my clothes in the garage, so as not to contaminate my home and family. I showered before I hugged. #911
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I threw out everything except my briefcase, filled and infused with the dust of destruction, now encased in Rubbermaid in the basement. #911
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I hugged my son, kissed my wife, and looked in on our sleeping daughter. #911
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I think I went to bed early. I don't remember what I thought or dreamed. The next day, I went to work. #911
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For weeks afterward, when running, I jumped whenever I heard a plane. #911
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Here, I examined the changes in my life brought by that day 10 years ago: http://t.co/Bp9dHwS #911
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I was so very lucky. Blessed to be home. 9/11 was over, at least the day was. So much sadness and adjustment followed. #911
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Thank you for listening. #911
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I've been thinking today about what I would have left the world if I had left it a decade ago. #911
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This was my briefcase from that day, cleaned off as best I could. It is all I kept. #911 http://t.co/WTQgpyq
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