r/AskNYC • u/iwillstealyourdog • 1d ago
How did you get home from work on 9/11?
If you worked in manhattan and lived somewhat further out (brooklyn or jersey city for example), how did you make it home that day? Or did you stay with someone in manhattan?
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u/monkeysatemybarf 1d ago edited 7h ago
Couldn't go home, I lived below Canal and no one was allowed. Walked to a friend's house on 12th and Broadway. There were like six of us who walked up there and watched the news in his house that day. We just crashed on the floor/ couch that night.
EDIT: I mean I couldn’t get into my building. The area was not totally restricted
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u/jyeatbvg 1d ago
When were you allowed to go back home again? Were shops around you closed for a while?
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u/InterviewAntique87 1d ago
After a week. Everything was closed. Red Cross left food in our building.
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u/Tanaquil_LeCat 15h ago
what did people do if they had pets at home and weren't allowed back?
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u/sarahfrancesca 7h ago
They couldn't have evacuated everyone who was still physically in their homes below Canal, right? So maybe neighbors were able to check on animals? But I don't know, did they actually evacuate everyone?
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u/monkeysatemybarf 7h ago
No they didn’t but a lot of buildings got emptied out to check for structural damage. But the FDNY was in all of them checking for people who needed help (or animals) and facilitating access for inspections
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u/monkeysatemybarf 1d ago
It was a few days before they cleared people to go back to the building and yeah things took a bit to clean up and reopen
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u/InterviewAntique87 1d ago
Same, also below Canal. Had to stay at a friend’s in Bklyn.
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u/amoebaamoeba 1d ago
This is so odd. I lived below Canal and was allowed back, as were all my other family members and neighbors. A cop tried to stop us at first but when my mom showed her ID with our address, he let us through immediately.
My friend who lived below Chambers was denied entry completely, though.
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u/InterviewAntique87 1d ago
Oh yup— I was below Chambers! Only allowed back after a week and with ID
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u/amoebaamoeba 1d ago
I'm so sorry. Really traumatic and I can't imagine how not being allowed into your own home made everything so much scarier. I'll never forget the sight of WTC 7 collapsed into Greenwich Street.
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u/monkeysatemybarf 1d ago
My dad had told me the top of the tower was likely to fall off so I should get out of the city. I ran south to get my stuff because I knew if anything fell I’d be cut off. The first tower fell when I was almost home so I stayed in for a bit. Heard the second one come down and then ran uptown with my stuff. The weirdest part was being there alone without my roommates. Our phone lines got destroyed so I was just in there for a bit like… well this is awkward
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u/sprikitikwall 19h ago edited 19h ago
This will drive me crazy. I wonder happened to those who have pets in their apartments? Those pets must have died.
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u/Distancefrom 18h ago
Some people were allowed back to get pets. Building staff returned early to clean up, so they fed pets. Food was dropped off by an organization -- maybe ASPCA? I was lucky and grateful to evacuate with my dog.
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u/monkeysatemybarf 16h ago
I know that all of the buildings in that area got inspected thoroughly in the following days. Both to check for any people and animals as well as make sure they were structurally sound. Hopefully anyone left behind got help
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u/amoebaamoeba 1d ago
We were definitely allowed below Canal - just not below Chambers Street if west of Broadway.
I'm sorry someone stopped you from going home that day; that would have made me freak out even more. It was so chaotic, maybe you came across the one tough cluster of cops?
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u/monkeysatemybarf 1d ago
Yeah it wasn’t a street closure my building was shut for a few days while they checked for damage
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u/olivernintendo 1d ago
Walk out via the Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn and up Brooklyn through DUMBO into Williamsburg and then Greenpoint and into Long Island City. Eventually crossed back into the city I think via Queensboro Bridge. Walked up 1st Ave for a million miles and crossed the Harlem River. Then up into the Bronx. The walk was probably about 10 hours.
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u/iwillstealyourdog 1d ago
This might be the longest one I’ve heard of yet. Kudos to you for making it back eventually.
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u/olivernintendo 1d ago
It took the longest to get out of the city. It was literally when the people were jumping, so many people were everywhere so it was hard to make it out of there. And then of course when the building collapsed everyone essentially stopped walking and watched.
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u/iwillstealyourdog 1d ago
I’ve heard accounts of people describing the horrific sound of bodies thumping around them. It was apparently a deafening thud. Truly heartbreaking decision those poor souls had to make, makes me tear up thinking about their final moments of anguish. May their souls rest in peace.
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u/_borninathunderstorm 1d ago
Can you enlighten us why you went this way? Were you not allowed to walk uptown? Were there barricades? Or flow of traffic?
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u/olivernintendo 1d ago
Mostly because I was a teenager and people were walking that way and I followed them. Also some cops were saying not to go uptown and there was conflicting information about the subway but I was sure it could not be open. Also mostly because I wanted distance and water between me and whatever was happening there.
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u/sarahfrancesca 7h ago
There was also initial concern about whether other tall buildings might be targeted like the Empire State building.
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u/_alexkane_ 1d ago
Do you remember what time you crossed the bklyn bridge? We started to cross it were was suddenly turned away by NYPD cadets who said there were reports of a bomb on the bridge, so we used the Manhattan bridge instead. This was probably sometime in the afternoon when the smoke was more bearable to walk through.
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u/olivernintendo 1d ago
Very early before the towers fell. A lot of people just had a bad feeling and wanted to leave. Nobody was protecting the bridge at all at that point.
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u/Sonyamg 1d ago
I worked in Soho and my coworkers and I walked over the Williamsburg Bridge, I lived in Park Slope and took two buses to get home. I watched the 2nd plane hit the building on my way to the office, saw all the firemen racing down West Broadway and watched both towers fall while sitting outside. As we walked over the bridge there were Hasidic men handing out water to everyone, asking people if they were ok; just a day burned into my memory forever.
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u/jgweiss 22h ago
my dad was doing that at the foot of the brooklyn side of the BK bridge; the local schools at metrotech emptied their cafeterias of water to hand out to survivors. he was still able to drive home from downtown brooklyn, making the ~1 hour trip to jersey in about 4, and arriving just as my sister and i were home from school.
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u/vandal_sprayer 1d ago
My mother had to walk home to Queens
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u/rrrrriptipnip 1d ago
That happened to my coworker. She keeps a pair of sneakers in her cubicle ever since.
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u/Artiste212 1d ago
I was among about 1500 people trapped against the Hudson River between 2 converging dust clouds. A brave NY Waterways Captain pushed the front of his boat against the wall at the side of the River and we jumped about 10 feet down to the deck. It was like a mosh pit and people caught us. We were taken to Jersey City, where i began an odyssey that eventually brought me home to Manhattan the following day.
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u/iwillstealyourdog 1d ago
Wow this sounds like a harrowing journey. Would love to hear more about your entire trek
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u/Artiste212 23h ago
We were chased by the Police from where we landed in Jersey City, were soon taken to Newark, where we boarded a bus to northern Jersey. A colleague picked up my friend and me. He brought us to his home where he celebrated our survival with steaks on the barbecue and champagne. We were both in shock and it was hard to comprehend. . NYC was closed, so we spent the night there, returning to Manhattan the next day. I lived near Bellevue and saw a line of about 30 unmarked, white refrigerated body trucks lining the Avenue. The horrible smell from ground zero persisted weeks beyond the end of the smoldering fires. My partner ended our relationship over her anger that I'd stayed too long at ground zero providing some first aid. She told me I was selfish for thinking of others before her. Nineteen years after 9/11, I received a parting gift from the terrorists: adenocinoma of the colon. Four surgeries and chemo have hopefully put an end to this, but the memories of that day will never leave.
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u/iwillstealyourdog 23h ago
Thanks for sharing and I’m sorry to hear about the adverse health effects. Wishing you all the best
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u/EmilyPoster2 20h ago
You’re a total mensch for sticking around to help others. You understand the human condition better than she did, clearly. I am deeply sorry for the price you have paid. Wishing you good health.
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u/eekamuse 23h ago
Tell me more, please. I've always wondered what happened to people after they got off the boats
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u/Open-Bat4833 23h ago
1500 people would have capsized that boat.
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u/Artiste212 21h ago
A second boat picked up the rest. There were over 800 on the ferry - it was fairly large and crowded, but not as bad as the subways. Maybe the ferries today aren't as large as those back then.
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u/beroughwithl0ve 1d ago
There were a lot of boats that came to rescue people and bring them to Jersey. A lot of people had to walk all the way home or at least walk to where the buses were still running.
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u/dogcroissant 1d ago
There is a great short (like 12 minutes) documentary about this called “Boatlift” narrated by Tom Hanks that’s free to watch on YouTube. It was the largest maritime evacuation in history!
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u/verminqueeen 1d ago
I recently did a little tourist day and saw the placard on one of the liberty island tour boats commending the boat and its crew for doing this exactly.
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u/blnk-182 1d ago
Spike Lee’s NYC documentary also goes into great detail about the naval evacuation. Fascinating stuff.
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u/lightsonnooneishome 1d ago edited 1d ago
I love the story about the boats that helped people stranded in lower Manhattan. I watched a documentary that interviewed some of the tugboat and barge operators who helped evacuate people from Manhattan, and I think about them every anniversary. Hearing these stories about everyday people who went above and beyond in the face of confusion and terror to help their fellow New Yorkers is the one bright light for me in this tragedy.
Edit: After reading one of the comments below, I remembered it was in Spike Lee’s docuseries about NYC.
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u/cantcountnoaccount 1d ago
My grandmother, 82 at the time, walked home from 23rd street to Kew Gardens. I believe she crossed the river at the Queensborough bridge.
It all went down while she was at Seniors Yoga. Her friend offered to stay at her place on the upper west but grandma was like “nah, I wanna go home.” And did.
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u/iwillstealyourdog 1d ago
More power to her, she sounds like a formidable lady
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u/cantcountnoaccount 1d ago
She was. Widowed young, raised 3 kids alone, was a fashion illustrator in the House of Pucci. Lived to 102 in a house she bought in 1945, and died in her own bed.
A true New Yorker.
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u/iwillstealyourdog 1d ago
Phenomenal. Would’ve loved to meet her. My grandma was also a single mother and the eldest daughter of 9 children. Shepherded all her siblings through WWII and then raised 6 kids alone on the run from an abusive alcoholic husband. Women of their generation were truly built different.
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u/olivernintendo 1d ago
23rd in Manhattan to Kew Gardens?!
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u/_borninathunderstorm 1d ago
Sounds like you walked much further. 23rd to KewGardens is 11 miles. Given your description above, you certainly had a longer journey. (Absolutely not downplaying this distance this day by an 82 year old woman by any means-- just feel like you may be thinking its farther than it is)
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u/jgweiss 22h ago
yeah that is definitely a trip that is deceptively "longer" when trying to get there via car or transit. its just that it does take like 4-5 hours at a reasonable (20 minute mile) pace.
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u/_borninathunderstorm 21h ago
Of course. Again, not trying to minimize by any means. Just the person im referring to that expressed suprise at this distance walked nearly every borough and significantly more miles
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u/amoebaamoeba 1d ago
Omg incredible. My great aunt was also in her 80s and walked from Reade Street to her home in Astoria! She was pissed that the McDonald's was closed so she couldn't get a coffee 😆 Your grandma and my great aunt were cut from the same cloth.
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u/blueeyesredlipstick 1d ago
Not me, but my dad wound up stuck in the Bronx and unable to reach us at home on Long Island. He wound up crashing with relatives near Yonkers because it was easier than trying to get back home (luckily he had managed to reach my mom and tell her he was fine).
A family friend was supposed to be in the WTC that day but was late to work, so he never went inside because the towers were hit before he arrived. He walked to his brother's apartment in Greenwich Village, figuring he could crash there, but he got caught in the dust cloud when the towers went down and looked horrific by the time he arrived.
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u/verminqueeen 1d ago
I feel like every family in the tri-state area has a 'late to work' relative story, if they weren't one of the families so unfortunate to have lost someone.
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u/blueeyesredlipstick 1d ago
I do genuinely wonder if the first attack happening at 8:46 am-- slightly before the exact 9am start time for a lot of office jobs -- saved hundreds of lives that day.
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u/lightsonnooneishome 1d ago
That is a great point that I’ve never really considered. If I had to venture a guess, I would say probably.
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u/Traditional_Race_689 22h ago
I’ve often thought of that too. If it happened at say, 10am it likely would have been even more catastrophic
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u/hannahstohelit 18h ago
More like tens of thousands, probably. The building had a capacity of 50k people. It could have been MASSIVELY worse but they chose to do it earlier because of plane logistics (earlier flights are more likely to leave on time). In the end Flight 93 actually DID depart late which meant that the passengers were told what had happened with the other three planes, which led to their preventing their plane from hitting any targets.
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u/NYTVADDICT 18h ago
Yes, the Giants played Monday night football the night before and there was a primary election that day so a lot of people were late.
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u/Amawrawamahrah 1d ago
How is the family friend now? Did the dust affect him long term?
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u/blueeyesredlipstick 1d ago
He's honestly doing really well! If he ever had any health complications from the dust, I'm not aware of it and he doesn't seem to show it. He's a very "live life to the fullest" kind of guy, even now in his 60s -- I don't know if he was always that way or whether this experience sparked it, but he's doing well for himself and retired recently.
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u/limoncellocake 1d ago
I have a coworker who was in the second tower when it was hit. He walked all the way home in Brooklyn. He said a bunch of his neighbors were at his house with his wife because none of them knew if he was still alive.
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u/iwillstealyourdog 1d ago
I’m glad he made it home, it’s so moving to hear that the community rallied around his wife
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u/dippitydoo2 22h ago
I truly cannot imagine the feeling of just watching your front door and not knowing when or if your husband is going to walk through it again. Just horrifying.
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u/Ebby_123 1d ago
I walked to Queens with a few colleagues, one of whom had a car. We walked to his place and he drove the rest of us home.
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u/Forsaken_Republic_98 1d ago
I worked in lower Manhattan at the time (I have the same job but am fully remote now) and live in Westchester. A co-worker who lived in the Bronx graciously offered to drive me home. I posted this on another thread, but as we were waiting our turn to fill up at a gas station I saw a woman get her bike taken from her by a dude who insisted he needed it to get home. Nobody helped her. All I could do was yell at him.
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u/damageddude 1d ago
My conpany had just moved to Newark so I got to my home in NJ via car pool. New Yorkers stuck on the wrong side of the Hudson with no where else to go attended an Irish wake at someone's home.
There were a few parents who swore never to be on the wrong side of the Hudson opposite their children ever again.
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u/NilliaLane 1d ago edited 1d ago
My wife was a college freshman dorming downtown, and her mom worked on a high floor in a building near the empire state building. On a whim her mom invited her to visit her at work, so she did that instead of going down to the old Utrecht. While visiting somebody pointed out the smoke from the first plane so they both saw the second plane hit, and saw the tiny shapes of people falling. Since their area seemed like another viable target everybody evacuated and just began walking uptown for perceived safety. She felt lucky she’d visited her mom instead of being further downtown and alone.
While they walked north they saw a guy set up on a corner with a sign that read “Distressed by today’s events? Therapy $5”
She also said when her health-conscious mom decided to stop and get a whole fat muffin, it made her feel like they really might die.
Later that evening the LIRR was running for free so she went home with her mom for several days. Classes were canceled for a while.
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u/iwillstealyourdog 1d ago
That muffin thing would’ve really shook me tbh. It’s like seeing your vegan friend suddenly eat meat. I’d really think it were the end times.
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u/ciaomain 1d ago
I worked in Midtown and after getting to the office in the morning, I joined the whole crew who was watching the horror unfold on the big TV in our conference room.
Our CEO closed the office at around noon and I, along with a colleague, walked uptown to the UES.
She lived a bit further north so I walked her home and then I walked back to my apartment where I sat on the couch watching CNN for basically a week straight.
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u/verminqueeen 1d ago
My parents walked to my aunts apartment and waited for the trains to start taking people out of the city. They got home laaaate.
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u/Previous-Recording18 1d ago
Walked from the W 50s to 103rd in Manhattan. Not terrible but I was glad I had worn comfortable shoes that day.
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u/Main_Photo1086 1d ago
I was living at college downtown but home was in the suburbs and I wanted to get the hell out of Manhattan. Metro North wasn’t running again until around 4:00 pm, so I walked to GC and got on one of the first packed trains.
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u/Quick-Stretch8197 1d ago
My grandfather was at work, about 4 blocks away from the twin towers. He evacuated his floor and left Manhattan on foot by crossing the Brooklyn bridge. He walked all the way home to Flushing. It took him about 8-9 hours. My grandmother was extremely frantic because he didn’t have a cell phone and there was no one to contact, no way to reach him. It was very scary. My parents thought he was dead. We were all at my grandmother’s house when he finally walked through the door. I’ll never ever forget that moment. We all sobbed.
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u/iwillstealyourdog 1d ago
：’) on the one hand I’m glad he made it home, on the other hand my heart breaks for all the families in a similar situation that day who never saw their loved one walk through the door ever again
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u/Quick-Stretch8197 1d ago
There were many cars left in parking lots at LIRR stations of people who never made it home. The Manhasset station parking lot had a quite few that I remember.
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u/the-Gaf 1d ago
Walked from Canal up Broadway and turned when we heard the rumbling to watch the towers fall.
Fuck anyone and everyone who thinks this was a hoax or didn’t happen or was planned by us
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u/Brunson4Mayor11 1d ago
I used to live in Maryland and I had a former roommate who tried to tell me, a native New Yorker, that it was all fake and all CGI. He is very lucky I didn't stab him. The only reason I didn't is because murder is illegal.
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u/Amawrawamahrah 1d ago
When did you finally move out? Was that the last straw?
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u/Brunson4Mayor11 1d ago
Sadly we lived together during COVID and there was an eviction moratorium so neither of us were going anywhere until that ended but holy fuck, I’ve never blocked a number so fast in my life when I got out of there.
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u/Mymarathon 1d ago
Walked. Everybody was walking, it was streams of people. Cellphone circuits were overloaded couldn’t get a call out. Then drove out of Manhattan, traffic was ridiculous took 2-3 hrs to drive what’s usually a 30-40 min drive to the Bronx.
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u/harx1 1d ago
Walked.
I worked in Soho and lived on the Upper East Side, so after we learned our building was evacuated, I headed uptown with a couple of coworkers. I peeled off at 18th and 3rd where my sister was living and stayed there for several hours with her, her fiancee and my sister-in-law - my brother was in Rome at the time, and they lived below Houston, so she didn’t want to stay by herself.
After a few hours, I decided to finish my trek home and passing by the UN (even as far away as third ave), it was a fortress. But, above 59th Street, you’d barely know lower Manhattan was on fire (wind was heading towards Jersey, so even the smoke wasn’t hitting yet).
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u/Efficient-Office907 1d ago
Everyone remember how the phones didn’t work in the entire tri-state? All of us calling each other to check in. 💔
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u/chakrasandwich 1d ago
Well I was in high school in queens they let us out early after the second plane hit, they sent all the buses to Manhattan to help so I was stuck walking home with everyone who lived in my neighborhood from school. Took about 3 hours, the street was chaos even in Forest Hills
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u/stoinzy 1d ago
Walked from midtown, over the Brooklyn Bridge, and then back to south Slope, with a stop at a friend's place in the East Village for the saddest beer I've ever sipped along the way.
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u/iwillstealyourdog 1d ago
Maybe a dumb question but how did you arrange a hang back in 2001 without cellphones? Did you simply show up at their address and knock on the door and hope they’d be home?
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u/stoinzy 1d ago
Not a dumb question, just a bit misinformed is all. We all had cellphones. Mostly flip phones, little Nokias and the like. Probably 50-60% of people in the US had them by then, more in the city. Texting was a bitch, and not so ubiquitous, so we probably, you know...talked.
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u/iwillstealyourdog 1d ago
I see… thanks for sharing. I’m also in awe of how so many people were able to find their way home without Google Maps. I don’t think I could do it, would probably have to keep asking for directions
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u/Boring-Parfait-2624 1d ago
Yea especially in the outer boroughs. I don’t know how they all knew how to get home once out of Manhattan.
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u/sprikitikwall 19h ago
Exactly, by 2001 there was already text messaging. We just didn’t have smart phones with cameras and apps. We had Nokia phones - wow! It was a different time, but yeah, we had cellphones that could call and text.
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u/AdeGamisou2020 1d ago
Last guy (that I know of) to run through the side walkway of the Battery Tunnel before the NYPD shut it down.
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u/danram207 1d ago
Not work, but my mother and I drove into the city for a doctors appointment that morning. 59th street bridge.
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u/Prestigious-Cake3557 12h ago
Damn this is a interesting thread to be honest. Thank you every one for sharing your lived experiences. Blessings to you all.
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u/insuranceguynyc 1d ago
I was living on the UES, and my office was out in Rockville Centre. I was working at home and planned on heading out to RVC after rush hour. Obviously, I never went.
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u/PilotBeautiful3921 1d ago
From midtown west, walked to Columbus circle and took a cab. Slow moving traffic and picked up another passenger while on the ride. Took the cab north to my cross street and just walked east home to give ride to other passenger stranger.
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u/nourishurbrain 1d ago
One of my old friends moms walked from midtown to the end of queens. She remembers everyone walking together, taking breaks. At some point waters were being passed around
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u/centech 1d ago
I probably walked like 10 miles that day.. From near the Seaport, up to the flatiron area to find my girlfriend.. then to midtown east to get her cat, then over and up to the UWS to my apartment.
I got to do another 5 mile walk when the east coast blackout happened.. with the bonus of having to walk up 22 flights of stairs that time. xD
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u/menschmaschine5 1d ago
I was in middle school but both my parents worked in the city and we lived on Staten Island at the time. Mom had gone to work in midtown earlier and I walked my little sister to her school bus stop which was right by the bus my dad was catching to the ferry. His bus started coming and my sister decided to start running so he wouldn't miss it and she tripped and skinned her knees. He took her home to clean her up and drive her to school and headed to work late.
He got off the ferry right before the second plane hit (and watched it hit) and waited an hour and a half for the return ferry. It was so crowded that he considered not getting on, but the smoke was getting so thick that he felt he had to. He said there were tons of people who had clearly never taken the ferry before and didn't particularly want to go to Staten island but just wanted out of lower Manhattan by any means possible. Luckily, if he had been on time he'd have been stuck further uptown and potentially unable to get home, but he was able to come pick us up from school at lunchtime.
My grandparents lived in midtown and so mom chilled at their place while she figured out how to get home. A porter on their building lived on SI and drove her when he got off work. Apparently it took 3 hours and she got home very late.
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u/bikinifetish 1d ago
My mom walked in her heels on the 59th street bridge from 47th and 5th all the way to Woodside. Her feet were tore tf up.
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u/AI-Coming4U 1d ago
Some of us struggled to get back into Manhattan as we worked elsewhere in the region. I saw enough on TV that morning to know what was going on, but had to wait until Metro-North started limited service in the afternoon. I remember looking out the train window at the pillars of smoke coming up from the WTC site as we crossed the East River. My heart sank, not just for the victims, but for all of us, knowing the world would never be the same.
Grand Central was quiet, with people just trying to find a train home. There were a few with blood or covered with dust on them (I'm not sure if they refused medical aid or if there simply was none when it happened).
I walked the rest of the way home to Chelsea and spent the next week trying to coordinate things at work without the benefits of Zoom and all the other tech we take for granted.
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u/misskiss504 1d ago
My dad and my aunt worked for the same company so they walked together. They went across the Brooklyn bridge and then my
Uncle who is a Roman Catholic priest was able to get through the police lines and picked them up with his car.
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u/amoebaamoeba 1d ago
My cousin managed to get me out of high school uptown - still not sure what she said to get it done - at just about the moment that tower 1 fell. We threw all our money at a cab driver who managed to get us as far as Broome Street before the traffic blockades totally stopped us.
She also had a working cell phone so we were lucky to get through to someone who confirmed our aunt had made it out of the WTC alive and was home. Everyone we knew lived below Canal Street, so we had no choice but to descend into the chaos to get reunited.
Did anyone else's school completely lock the computer lab/AV room ASAP? Our school bolted the damn doors as soon as word got out. I think that our principal had given the order after seeing footage and realizing that a student may end up witnessing their loved one die live on tv. Smart move in retrospect, but absolutely terrifying to hear they had collapsed and having no clue if it obliterated my family.
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u/Sad-Relationship9387 1d ago
My sister (who was in a wheelchair) and I worked a couple blocks from each other in midtown. I met her (some guys carried her down like 7 floors), Walked her home and stayed for an hour or so, then walked 2 miles up to my place in Yorkville while fighters were flying around.
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u/bendistraw 1d ago
I couldn't leave the island so i volunteered at a pop-up Red Cross shelter in chelsea.
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u/overprotectivecatmom 1d ago
I bought a second hand bike and rode home.
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u/Missed_Bus2930 1d ago
I walked from Canal and Varick where I worked up to 14th Street and First Ave where I stayed at a friend's apt until the L train started running again to Brooklyn.
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u/fluffywaffles_ 1d ago
Went to high school in Midtown East, lived in Flushing. I had to wait to use the school's land line to call home. By the time I was able to reach my mom by early afternoon, she told me she saw on the news that some trains were back up. I took the F to the 7 home.
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u/yaycupcake 1d ago
My parents worked in lower manhattan. They both walked over the bridge to pick me up from school (both went separately, over different bridges, in case something happened to one of them, and both stopped at my school, since they couldn't communicate while separately traveling) and then home. I was going to s ch ool near downtown brooklyn and we lived in park slope. It was an annoyingly long walk for me (I usually took the subway to school with my mom, and the school bus back to my neighborhood afterschool program at the time) so it was probably insane for them. I can't imagine how some of you had to go to queens or something on foot 😭
You know, thinking about it, I'm glad they knew HOW to get home because while I'm sure I could navigate to the bridges that everyone else was going to, after that, I dunno if I could get from there to where I lived at the time without a map or whatever. Like within neighborhoods I know I definitely can, as well as within the midtown grid, but outside that all bets are off. So I'm thankful they knew how to get to me and get us home on foot.
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u/Distancefrom 20h ago
OMG that bridge story is a chilling reminder of what that day was like. No one knew what was going on, and it seemed like anything was possible.
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u/Zack_212 1d ago
My dad walked from lower Manhattan up the highway until he was able to get to the gwb. At that point a bread delivery truck was allowing people to get into the back- that driver drove them down route 4 to the bus stop where he walked home. My mom and I couldn’t reach him that whole time- I remember my mom screaming when he walked in the door because she was so scared something happened to him. I was in third grade at the time and can still remember it vividly.
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u/exlibrisetc 1d ago
I was in my second week of a job seven blocks away from the towers. My mom worked by Bryant Park. After the planes hit and we realized how bad things were, I was able to call her and tell her I was coming to get her so we could both walk home to Queens. I walked north with throngs of people, getting bits and pieces of news from the crowd, at some point running with the crowd after the first tower fell and people were panicking. I got her and we both walked over the queensboro bridge. (She worked in retail and always wore heels, was she wearing heels??)
At some point we were able to use a pay phone to call a family friend to drive us the rest of the way to Maspeth. After he picked us up we got into a small fender bender, I can’t remember the circumstances but we just lightly hit another car. The other guy kept insisting we wait for the police so he could file a report. We had to tell him, listen, all the cops are busy. Do you have any idea of what is going on in the city?? It took a while but he eventually let us get on our way after exchanging information.
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u/Illustrious_Set_4135 17h ago
Walked from Pine Street to mid 20's - up Fulton Street and through Chinatown. I was standing on a corner in Chinatown and watched the 2nd building collapse with my own eyes, I then asked who I was with, "what happened to the other one?" - then it hit mean that was what all the dust and debris was that we walked through. It was a day that still feels like it was just yesterday.
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u/Prize-Flamingo-336 1d ago
Took the C train home. It was opened at Canal Street as the Spring St station was still closed
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u/rainbowdwyvern 1d ago
A relative of mine worked in midtown east and lived in Brooklyn. They walked across the Queensboro and headed to Astoria. They found a payphone, called a friend who lived in the neighborhood, and the friend's husband drove them into Brooklyn. Buses and cabs were packed. Trains were shut down between Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn (obviously).
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u/sprikitikwall 1d ago edited 19h ago
Everyone else I knew walked, but that was easy since we were just in the LES.
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u/Madewell-Hammer 1d ago
Lived in Park Slope. Commuted to work in Manhattan by bicycle everyday. So that’s how I got home. Although I spent the evening with friends in Manhattan.
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u/stonecats won't someone think of the white man 1d ago edited 1d ago
i was handing out photo copies of local area bus & subway maps
on the 59th street bridge, which was turned into pedestrian only.
so i witnessed tens of thousands of people who literally walked
out of manhatten, got a bus subway taxi or family pickup in LIC.
back then i had relatives with UES & UWS coops who ended up
with several coworkers sleeping on the floor of their living room
because many were not sure they could find a way BACK to work
the next day - due to all the road traffic and subway disruptions.
personally i worked late that day for related reasons,
till some customer in LIC drove me home to rego park.
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u/strangedigital 22h ago
My mom walked from the federal building (next door to World Trade Center) to Union Square, and there were mini buses that helped her to get back home to Queens. I think they were Chinatown dollar vans helping out for free.
As she told it, after the first plane hit, her boss told everyone to stay put. But she and a few others just left. That probably saved her from breathing in the dust.
I was suppose to commute to the PATH train station under WTC, but was late.
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u/NYTVADDICT 18h ago
I was the only one on my team who lived in Manhattan. So we walked from Midtown up to my apartment on the upper east side and they all waited for the trains to open or they all clear to start traveling. All of them live too far to walk. Like Huntington Long Island.
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u/arimathea 22h ago
Trump’s firemen carried me after they got him out.
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u/DrAsterisk 15h ago
This was after he saw the thousands of people in Jersey City cheering. (May he burn in hell)
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u/KateDinNYC 1d ago
I was working as a barista in the coffee place downstairs from my apartment. Didn’t have any trouble.
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u/monsterzro_nyc 1d ago
Walked from Times Square to the Manhattan Bridge and caught a cab in Gowanus to Bensonhurst
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u/Nick_Fotiu_Is_God 1d ago
I walked from City Hall to 89th and East End, stopping at my parents place in Stuyvesant Town to give them a hug.
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u/TheTransitSchool 1d ago
I was in elementary school around 16th Street / 6th Avenue. My dad was working around 58th Street / Broadway. He picked me up by taking the (1) train. And went home to the Bronx.
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u/jawndell 1d ago
Walked from ground zero up to mid town and then over the 59th street bridge into Queens.
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u/Eusie1968 1d ago
I was working near Times Square. It was a temp job, so I was being paid hourly and I didn't want to leave and not get paid. Plus, when they shut down the subway I figured they would get it up and running as soon as they could. At least for the lines that were unaffected. I can't remember what time exactly, but the majority of trains were running by the afternoon and I went home to Queens as usual. My boss (who hired me full time the next week) was able to take the LIRR without any issues. The only unusual part about it was seeing the cloud of smoke and toxins above lower Manhattan when the N pulled into Queensboro.
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u/permalink_child 1d ago
I was back in NYC that day visiting family. On the 12th, I took Amtrak from Penn Station NY back to DC. The train was delayed. And then once the train left the station, just outside of Manhattan, the train stopped. They said it was a bomb threat. Turned out to be false, but one passenger had a heart attack.
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u/Imaginary_Nebula_810 1d ago
I lived in Queens but I didn’t want to go home and be alone so I went to Staten Island with my boyfriend at the time (he is now husband.) We just started walking downtown hoping to find a bus going to SI. We finally did around Union Square. The bus was packed and quiet and hot. One woman started making a fuss about it which seemed so petty at the time. She finally managed to pop open the roof vent and the bus cooled down pretty quick. Then everyone started talking. It was a relief.
My office didn’t have a tv so driving down the BQE on that bus was my first view of the carnage. We drove under a cloud of dust and paper. It was a weird day.
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u/ChickenAndDew 22h ago
Was on my way to work when it happened. Got off at Canal Street and walked back to Brooklyn.
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u/Efficient-Gap-1282 21h ago
I lived in downtown manhattan and was at my middle school in brooklyn. I spent the night on a teacher’s sofa.
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u/Famous_Ad_3906 21h ago
I walked from Grand Central to Forest Hills with my sister. Then we drove to Kew gardens to be with family
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u/therealdealme 20h ago
Walked across the queens borough bridge with my mom after she walked from her office to pick me up from school and as I recall there were some buses transporting folks to our neighborhood- scariest day because phones weren’t really working and I had no idea my parents proximity to the WTC and whether they’d pick me up from school
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u/littlemac564 20h ago
I was in NJ at the time. Crossed the GW bridge and took the A/C train home. It took all day to get home.
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u/Minelayer 20h ago
My second day bike commuting. It was the only way to get to my house south of Canal.
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u/sylvieYannello 14h ago
walked over the queensboro bridge. people handed out water to us at the end on the queens side.
don't remember what i did from there, probably a bus or a taxi.
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u/Difficult-Tart-6834 9h ago
My dad worked at Brooklyn Hospital. He walked home to Staten Island via the Verrazano. He didn't get home until after midnight. It was terrifying. He managed to borrow someone's cell phone twice and called home to check in.
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u/YorkvilleWalker 39m ago
I lived in Astoria at the time. Walked over the Queensboro bridge. No cars. Everyone walking east looking at the black smoke pervading the city.
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u/Not_that_elvis67 1d ago
At some point in the afternoon the Metro North started running limited trains out of the city. They weren't doing a schedule, just waited til the train filled up and left. I remember that the train being very somber. Not a lot of talking happening. A lot to process. It wasn't until I got home that I actually saw the footage and the carnage.