Readers Write: 9/11 images still vivid 20 years later

The Island Now

I used to think it was different for me somehow, seeing the planes strike the Twin Towers from my office window, fleeing downtown in fear, finding the usual routes to home and safety unavailable or blocked. Subways were closed, even cell service was out. Then the bridge up ahead had closed, I barely made it over the next as it was closing.

On the Williamsburg side my colleague and I saw a commanding policewoman suddenly burst into tears in the middle of the street, saying over and over stunned: “They’re gone, all gone.” As chaos erupted from the police radio in her hand, she collapsed on the median.

Looking south, in disbelief we saw the rising ghostly pile of dust, then we both instinctively hugged her, saying, “You can do this, people are counting on you now. You have to be strong.” When our hands circled her waist, we realized they passed over the holstered sidearm—nothing was normal. All was fear and mayhem. The policewoman thanked us, then revitalized she rose to redirect the converging pedestrians and closed the bridge after we had passed.

I walked miles into Brooklyn, passing one packed bus stop after another where the over-filled buses did not stop, until finally a bus stopped when the group I was with succeeded in flagging it down; then I kept taking another bus, and another, that let me off close enough to Nassau County.

I felt like a vulnerable refugee in my own country. Air traffic was re-routed; Lower Manhattan was closed for weeks. Classic buildings turned to mountains of rubble. Life was obliterated, leaving gaping holes that no one could possibly want to believe in. So many innocent people were murdered on a beautiful clear day, their bodies incinerated, reduced to dust, left out in the open sun.

It strikes me this was how the Nazis treated Jews and destroyed countless communities. Now we are all Jews, you and I are no different. The timeless dark face of hate and evil is always the same, championing death and the habit of death as reason—a view having no room for humanity or mercy.

The courses of our lives have changed in different ways, but we all saw the planes hit the towers, we remember the plane that struck the Pentagon, and the one that crashed in the farmer’s field.

We cherish life for its lightness, for the promise of a benevolent future that includes everyone, the love of family and children, and the friends we follow like kites in the blue over great distances.

After all the years we remember the victims and keep them in our prayers. Their light continues to find us, passing though like starlight.

Stephen Cipot

Garden City Park

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