Knowing September 11 Firsthand and Not

I think there are tiers of experience - from being there on the ground, to watching the skyline crumble in the outer-boroughs and New Jersey, etc.

This seems like one of the more pointless things to argue about.

Sometimes I think it's the smell of that day that sets people 'apart,' if you will. That smell is unforgettable and for those who smelled the combination of burning building and bodies and lived under the tower of soot that rained down for almost three days, it brings the whole sequence of events down to the cellular and molecular level. It's an added dimension that people from far away are unable to connect with, and personally, I wouldn't want anyone to have to smell that smell again. Ever.

On the whole though, it was an event that affected people worldwide, there's no doubt about that one bit.

i still get anxious when i hear a firetruck with its horns blaring down the block. For whatever reason, i always feel compelled to check the news to see if we're under attack everytime i hear a firetruck. one of my most vivid memories of that day was hearing the constant drone of firetrucks screaming down the block from every direction. still gives me the shivers....

It's definately a different experience being in lower Manhattan that day and the days following, but to wear that as a badge of honor is kind of sick.

martyr:

A-h** who by force and murder takes over ,and then fly’s airliner full of innocent people in to an office building full of innocent people..

Are New Yorkers basically a bunch of wimps?

How could they cope if they were in Ramadi--suicide car bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, automatic weapons.... And we're talking about attacks that are 24/7 here.

I agree with the post above of how some are using the fact that they live NEAR GZ that it's a red badge of courage of some type.
I don't need to tell people I lived through it. And, why should I?

Could Gothamist please not post images of the towers burning or collasping where they're easy to stumble upon. They freak me out too much and caused me to avoid TV for a long time. And am having to do that again now.

Are Earthlings basically a bunch of wimps?

How could they cope if they were on Pluto--photon bombs, warpdrive-propelled grenades, weapons set to kill (not stun).... And we're talking about attacks that are 153.12/7 here.

That smell.

Just because it's worse somewhere else doesn't mean New Yorkers don't have a right to feel traumatized by 9/11.

For example, if your mother died, I could say "Oh yeah, well you are a wimp for feeling that. I have a friend whose mother AND father died in a fire, and days later got diagnosed with cancer and he has three months to live."

Then another could chime in: "My whole village downed, and I got my legs cut off by a falling tree, and I have only ONE month left to live."

You could keep going and going. Someone is always suffering more. But it doesn't mean we haven't suffered.

There are so many things that we all opine on that we haven't experienced first-hand. So many liberal New Yorkers blast the President about the war and its attendant destruction of Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops (as they should), yet very few of them have somebody close to them in the armed services. We all felt horrible about the Oklahoma bombing, but very few of us is actually from there. Compassion shouldn't be geographically restricted.

Some people upstate asked me after 911, "how are you all doing down there...it is too bad that it happened to you all..."

...as if it did not include them and the rest of the country.

There are many people who do see what happened more as an isolated event. Just another entry in the news or a "Hollywood movie action scene."
And believe me they are glad because analytically speaking, it was tramatic.

People that weren't here at the time seem to have a more melodramatic reaction than people that were. Maybe the creepy overwraught way that cable TV news channels interpret events molds peoples interpretations and emotive reflexes.

It's not so much about having been here when the actual attack took place that morning, I think it's more of a matter of who was here in the days that followed. That is not a auperficial pride. The feeling in the city then was beyond belief, and you had to be here to know it.

I lived through it, never saw video images of it. I can't entirely explain why but I never wanted to see the video. I couldn't avoid seeing still photos, but I did avoid seeing video. Then one night, I saw the movie "The Barbarian Invasions," about a man who is on his deathbed in Canada, and it randomly included footage of the towers burning and collapsing. I felt like I had been punched in the gut and I immediately flashed back to the solid blank air, not being able to see anything outside the window, having my lungs filled & coughing & coughing & coughing. But that experience with that random movie helped me accept that I'm going to see the images everywhere in the media. Seemingly forever. I think the difference is that anyone could feel fear when they see those images, but only some will instantly feel like they are smelling that smell or coughing that hopeless wheezing cough (or wonder whether they will die earlier than they would have naturally from the poisons they breathed in).

What is Tar Heel Honey? Are you from Mayberry, NC? You sound like a hick. Sorry North Carolinians, didn't mean to insult you with the second question. I should have asked the blogger where they purchased their small town lingo and mentality. No need to answer in regards to "Tar Heel Honey." I'll go to the wikipedia.

I wasn't in the city that day, and I didn't live in the city then, but I still feel like I felt it more than the average American, even having only seen it on tv.

Those of us in the suburbs of NYC still had the panic of not knowing where our loved ones were, we still heard the fire trucks leaving to go help, we heard the fighter jets. We still felt that we very well could have been there, and that it was an attack on us as well. In the days and weeks following there were still the cars in our train station parking lots that no one was coming back to.

Absolutely not the same as having been there, but closer than most seem to realize. When people from out of town ask if I was there that day, and I answer that I wasn't, they act as if I was completely disconnected.

Really it's ridiculous to try and quantify grief. Every single experience was different and it's pointless and rude to tell people they don't have a right to feel something.

I'd like to say this is a stupid debate, but it reminds me of the episode of "Rescue Me" in which a NYFD firefighter in a grief counseling group berated its other members when he found out that they were nowhere near the WTC on 9/11. He had a legit point. There are differing levels of trauma associated with horrific events. Nonetheless, on a trip to Hawaii I was extremely moved visiting the USS Arizona and get very upset visiting the Vietnam Memorial Wall in DC. My connection to both of them is nothing other than being an American and a human being. I like the fact that visitors come to see the hole at Ground Zero. Given the city's incompetence at building a true memorial, it is the only avenue for paying tribute to the thousands who died there.

And that smell will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I agree that it's pointless to take a superior stance based on one's level of experience. And of course we can feel compassion for anyone, anywhere - in fact, compassion is often best felt from a distance, but that's another discussion.

What irked me in the year or so afterwards was the way the event was picked up and fetishized by people nowhere near New York or Washington DC. My husband and I drove through the Olympic Peninsula in the Pacific Northwest, and more than once, in towns that barely had half a stoplight to their names, I saw huge signs outside of businesses proclaiming things like "9/11 - Kill Em All - Let God Sort Em Out - Never Forget That Day". The people who exhibit these sentiments weren't here, and many of them actively profess to hate New York City, so they'd never come here. They had no right to claim this event as their latest excuse for racism and idiotic signage.

And now, five years later, I am tired of the ongoing fetishization of 9/11. It was a horrible day and a world-changing event. It was a blow, but it was a blow to a rich country that continues to be rich, materially and in other ways. We were very fortunate in that we were able to spring into action and care for one another, on a citywide level, and personally. We have mostly bounced back. It wasn't the end of the world. I don't fault those who directly experienced it (through loss or proximity) for still being traumatized, but as for the rest of us, I don't think that's a state we can claim. It's time for those of us who merely had to walk home and feel horrible to move on. It was a terrible event, and since then, many more terrible events have occurred, from genocides to invasions to the near-loss of America's other great city.

The thing I will take away from the event, however, is that now I truly love New Yorkers. I grew up here, but I never really had occasion to think about just how great the citizens of this place are. You just can't knock 'em down.

To show how far this provincialist instinct can go, let me share this. When it happened, I rushed downtown on foot to check on a friend who worked near the WTC. After hours of terrifying uncertainty, I found her with her dust-encrusted clothes in a heap and we watched the fires from her roof on Orchard St. Without an ounce of adrenaline in my body later that night, I trudged back up to Yorkville on the UES. I walked up 2nd Ave and kept passing restaurants packed full of people eating dinner on the sidewalk. Everything seemed completely normal. I wanted to scream at them "What are you doing? Don't you know what's happening down there? There's army humvees parked on Houston St.! The Twin Towers are GONE!" If you want to incrementalize grief and rememberance by geographical distance, you may as well do it by miles, feet, and inches. I don't see the point though.

The next weekend I drove about 100 miles up to Hudson, NY and listening to a local radio station I heard a constant stream of solicitations for boots, clothing, water, and other supplies for rescue workers. We were all in it together, no matter how far I drove.

I was in Queens at work when 911 happened. I remember we did not know what was going on. We all thought that a "small" plane had hit something. The smoke was so small in volume looking in from Astoria Queens. We thought it was a minor event.

My point is this; most people that were not in the immediate area had to get all information from the news stations.

So in essence, everyone, including New York City people of ever burough and New Jersey people, that were not in the immediate area are no different then anyone else experiencing it from the television or another state. The only way New Yorkers knew the details was from TV. The major difference was that, New Yorkers, knew someone who had a relative or friend that worked there or in the area. Or most New Yorkers had just been in that same building last year or on the that block the day before. I think many New Yorkers felt lucky that it was not them because it was so close to home.

Most people who were "not there" (at the scene) IMAGINED how bad it was in the first moments; It wasn't until the first tower fell that people were visibly upset. Because it was only logical that it was rush hour and firemen would have been in the buildings, we knew something was terribly wrong. Someone had died. No person understood it to be terroism. It was all speculation. However, when the NEWs kept showing a second plane hit, it became increased speculation and sadness to think that it might be intentional. People (females)in my office cried spontaneously, not knowing who had died. We just knew that it was a bad moment in New York. Then later, to see hundreds of people walking because all train service was shut down was also sad. The entire day people walked from Manhattan; or into upper Manhattan; or the Bronx; and Brooklyn; and Staten Island. The New Jersey people had a very bad day for traveling.

And now, five years later, I am tired of the ongoing fetishization of 9/11.

Leela, right on.

I also think it's pointless to argue superiority. Some were here, some weren't. No point in holding it against someone of they weren't (though people here did have to deal with a different types of physical and emotional stress). That said, I learned how humans have to adjust in the face of such a disaster. You can call me a pussy for not living in Bagdad, for instance, but we all adjust our survival instincts as needed (and you'd be amazed at the skills you may not know are inside you). I wasn't here for the blackout, but the transit strike was somewhat similar...everyone from vastly different backgrounds banding together.

I was in New York when 911 took place. I was not afraid for my life. Maybe it is my military training. I know the difference between the front line and being out of weapons range. I remember the former terroist attack (90's) in the same location. All I could think of was, how could the leaders of the state allow this to happen on their watch. They were not organized at all. I was mad and angry. I felt that day that they could have had more anticipation. I knew that it was something very terrible and bigger then what New York was used to. Meaning it was far bigger then the daily crime issues. Since it had happened before, I thought, oh no here we go again.

Scenario: When a person makes a threat, follows thru on it, and half way succeeds on it, they will try until they get it right. (Look at how a bully in school operates) Especially, if their motivation is hate. The 911 attack was an attempt to get right what terrorist have been trying to do for a long time. 911 could not have been an isolated event of this type in the USA. I was mad then and I am mad now that it was allowed to happen and the city is allowing it again. It is only a matter of time because homeland security funding has been spent on everything except security.

I don't recall having much faith in the local governments ability to deal with it. They did not seem very organized. They behaved like they were in the dark about why they would have been a target. They behaved like a football team that had no quarterback or halfback. There was no "game planning." They were "sacked." It was like a permenant tackle.

The city is still not ready.

I am very scared when i hear an airplane go by my house. I a newer to sure how to react.
I am not sure if it is some on who will do some thing bad again or if it is some one who is just comming home from their vacation.