Whenever I meet someone who was also in Manhattan on 9/11 (I was a sophomore in high school) we always feel a unique bond….everyone who was downtown or in midtown remembers dust….tons of dust….on people, buses, cars all heading away from downtown. It’s a surreal feeling to see people and cars covered in dust while the rest of the surroundings (buildings, phone booths, streets, etc) looked completely normal. And it’s completely true…the only vehicles heading the other direction were fire trucks and police vehicles.

On my long walk uptown I walked past tons of people crowded around cars with all 4 doors open, blasting the news so people could know what was going on (this was pre-smartphone). Many people just standing around on street corners, because they had no way to leave the city and nowhere to go. My father left me a message on my voicemail…”Do not walk through Times Square or Lincoln Center…get home as quickly as you can”. So many memories and stories from that day.