From the NJN Archives...
Individual Voices

Damon Williams
Poet/Essayist

The Twin Towers meant a great deal to me. I enjoyed driving into New York City and gazing at the majestic beauty of such structures. Aside from the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, The Twin Towers were the modern day symbols of New York City. Those three landmarks together made The City -- as far as I was concerned.

I was at Liberty State Park in Jersey City one fall during a marathon event and I remembered how awe struck I was while looking at the New York City skyline with the World Trade Center being so dominant and strong – just glistening and simply breath taking to look upon. Those bigger than life buildings were something to see – now they’re gone ... Why? How could it happen? What is God trying to tell us?

Back in the late 70’s my family and I drove over from Trenton to visit my uncle and aunt in Brooklyn one Sunday. They invited me to bring the wife and kid so we all could go to the Twin Towers. Boy were we excited about the trip. We rode over to lower Manhattan and when we got near the buildings we had to almost lie down in the car … trying to look up to the top. When we stood on the sidewalk, we had to lean our heads and bodies so far back it made us almost fall backwards trying to look up to the top of those one hundred and ten stories. The buildings were frighteningly beautiful standing so, way up there in the sky.

As we ascended to the observation deck via the elevator our ears began to get stuffy and pop like taking off in an airplane. It was just a fascinating experience as I watched the faces of my young son, wife and relatives looking nervous while we continued to go up, up and up into the New York sky. We stepped off the elevator and walked into this enormous glass enclosed area that over looked the BIG APPLE. What a sight …  Edna, my wife walked along measuring her steps making sure not to get too close to the windows. My son Shawn and I along with many other people went right up to the windows in the observation area. My wife called out to me saying in a very stern and nervous wifely voice, “Get Shawn away from that window!” She called out to me, “Damon – don’t let him lean up against that window!” We both began to lean against the window, smiling, and asked her to come over and join us. Edna was ready to leave that very moment and take the elevator back down. She hated the height and was completely uncomfortable. My son and I leaned more against the window and laughed to aggravate her even more. She gave us both one of those certainty looks that a wife and mother can give when fear is in the air. Her action was sincere to the utmost – kind of chin down and eyes up and lips pressed together. She directed her attention appealing to me only, across the room in a kind of low tone, “Stop kidding and let’s get out of here.” I understood, but ignored her demand. Shawn said, in his little child’s voice loud enough for us both to hear, “Mommie’s scared isn’t she Daddy?” He was a little tickled by her fear and at the same time proud of his on bravery by still leaning on the large window while looking over the New York City scenery. It was a sunny hazy day. The visibility was not thoroughly clear, but good enough. I took a couple of pictures of which I still have. We all looked around for a good while but because of my wife’s discomfort and determination to stay as far away from the window as was possible, we soon left. When we got down stairs I took a family picture in front of one of the side doors of tower two. My wife still had a few remnants of fear in her face but was relieved to be on the ground.

On that unforgettable day of September 11, 2001, when it appeared as though the world stopped spinning -- I was doing some part-time work for a call center in Robbinsville, New Jersey. Our clients included Carnival Cruise Lines and the New York City Convention and Visitors Bureau. We provided literature information to our callers. It was a beautiful sunny day. I got to work around 8:15 a.m. We were all busy getting the morning started. The center was teeming with the usual noise of phones ringing one after the other through out the room. People were doing their jobs taking calls, talking with customers and giving out information. The room was filled with the busy buzz of phones and chatter. 

I guess around a little before 9 a.m., one of the girls got a call from her father telling us that a plane had crashed into The World Trade Center. We didn’t get too alarmed but thought some small plane screwed up or something. However, we did scramble around to get a radio going to hear what was actually happening in the news. Before we could get the radio plugged in we got another call telling us that the crash was a possible terrorist attack and Tower One of the World Trade Center was engulfed in flames. Now we all began to get up from our cubicle workstations to hear or see just what the heck was going on this Tuesday morning. When we tuned in the radio to New Jersey 101.5 the Reporter announced, “The World Trade Center had been attacked by what is presumed to be terrorists.” As he was giving this information, our colleagues’ father called again saying the other tower had been attacked. At the same time the reporter was excitedly screaming the same thing (repeating it in astonishment). “Tower two has just been attacked by another plane and it’s engulfed in flames!!” The announcer’s voice was filled with the unbelievable excitement of this breaking news event happening before his eyes as he was delivering the report. The radio news report informed us that the planes were commercial airlines, not small planes as we had original thought.

Now the call center was on full alert with people talking to one another in disbelief as to what was happening to us – The U.S. This generation had never experienced anything remotely like what was taking place around America right now.  The other workers were scurrying to phones to call home or love ones and friends that may have been working in The City or up in The Twin Towers. I tried to reach out to my wife who was working about twenty minutes away, in Trenton. The normal activity of busy noise from incoming calls and the chatter of talking to customers eerily stopped. We keyed into the radio reports. It was obvious the nation was trying to find out what was happening in New York. Then we heard the Pentagon was attacked. Everyone in the call center came out from their workstations and all heads and eyes were focused on one another in silence while listening to the radio for the latest updates. We all had fear in our eyes. People were crying and just trying to make heads or tails out of what was going on. It wasn’t long before we heard a plane had gone down in Pennsylvania. The reality started to sink in that this was all so real – this was very real! However, we still could not believe it was happening.  The Twin Towers, New York City’s skyscraper to beat all skyscrapers.

This is a piece of cityscape that represented our skyline to the world. This is that piece of braggadocio that is you and I -- Americana. It is for those who would come to see it from around the world and want to tell their friends about its majesticism.

Now to think it had been attacked brutally and fatally and was coming apart from the top down, not simply on the streets of New York’s lower Manhattan but on America and Americans and all our ideals where ever we were. Why? It was truly unbelievable. Some one came into the call center where we were listening to the radio and told us there was a TV in another part of the building. We could go see what just happened. A couple of us rushed over to take a look. CNN broadcasted the shots. There it was in living color, the first attack, as we crowded in what was an empty office … sat, stood or kneeled in front of each other to watch in awe, for the first time. Work associates who had never been around each other or spoken were huddled together like brothers and sisters. As if seeing the first attack on TV was not enough, then there was the second attack about to happen. You could see the plane seemingly slithering across the sky. Other workpeople rushed in bending down to keep from obstructing the view of those that were already watching. The second plane looked black because the sun was shining from the opposite side casting a dark shadow that dissolved any distinguishing commercial airline insignia. Before it actual hit the second tower, we could see the plane banked slightly left being positioned by its evil pilot for a more direct hit. Then it penetrated the glass, steel, concrete and the lives of innocent people in the upper floors of Tower two as well as other lives across the world in one deadly act … and exploded into red and yellow flames with black smoke.

It’s shocking to think of the reality of people dying in such a way on a plane. Those who were working, going visiting and just taking care of their everyday business dealings. Those who were working in the building or having their morning breakfast  – not a clue that September 11, 2001, on an absolutely gorgeous Tuesday morning – would be their last day on earth. Deliberate weapons of mass destruction in the form of two exploding planes and the damage to the towers along with certain death to the passengers and the people in the buildings was only the beginning of this madness. The buildings and surrounding area began to take on another drama. No one really thought the buildings would actually come down because it was reported emergency workers, fireman, policeman and all types of rescue personnel hastily rushed in to save lives as they ran into and up the stairs of the towering infernos. We all watched in absolute horror as our worlds on this beautiful sunny Tuesday in September changed in a way that we could have never imagined. The people in this room, where we watched on TV an attack, an act of war, in assumed safety, had worked together, some laughed together but would have never thought we would actually experience sharing our emotions of fear, death and tears together.

We stared in astonishment at the TV while people in the towers hung out of windows waving pieces of clothe to get some potential rescuer’s attention. At the same time it was apparent they were verbally pleading for help … hundreds of stories above the ground looking and hoping for someone to come and save them from the flames and the smoke fumes. One oriental young man stepped out the window on a small ledge seeking temporary safety trying to escape the heat and smoke but eventually had to let go.

Another camera shot followed a woman leaping to her death with flowing black clothing fluttering in the wind as she fell in a swan dive. There were later reports of people on the ground were being injured by falling bodies. After 45 minutes of this terror, Tower Two crumbled and submerged straight down within itself, one floor on top of the other. Not long after, Tower One, repeated the same action and went down in ruins. No one ever thought those fantastic buildings would come tumbling down. Smoke billowed and flames scarfed around. No chance for anyone, who was trying to work his or her way to safety by hanging out a window or descending steps. On the ground the smoke and soot rushed from the collapsed buildings, covering everything in sight, seemingly chasing people down the streets who were running for their lives to safety.

We all were helpless and exhausted from the scenes that were pouring out of the TV screen upon us.  All those lives – so many unanswered questions … Who did this to us and why? What would be happening next? Was this all out war? Would the building that we are working in right here, right now in Robbinsville, New Jersey, this farm area – be next? The use of planes as weapons of mass destruction is something that did not make sense to us as Americans.

People began to leave the office where we were captured by the TV and its haunting scenes to go back to workstations with all this madness running through our heads. Fortunately, our bosses had the good judgment to close the building down and send everyone home. It was the best thing to do because we were all numb and in a daze of disbelief.

While driving home to Ewing in my truck I scanned through my favorite radio stations and they all were broadcasting the latest updates about the attacks on New York City, The Pentagon and the crashed plane in Pennsylvania. I can still see the tenseness in people’s faces that I observed while driving along Route 33 toward Trenton. People were intently staring down at their car radios. There were worried looks being worn on every one’s face. I saw small clusters of people at gas stations peering into each other’s eyes for answers. Moreover, the streets seemed uncharacteristically empty. The scenes that cling to my memory from the drive home were like those in Norman Rockwell’s paintings of people’s actions during World War I and II. What a horrible day in the life of America, when those planes were highjacked by terrorists and crashed into The Twin Towers in New York City, The Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C.  and a field in Pennsylvania. It was a day that not only destroyed landmarks and countless innocent lives -- but also America’s FREEDOM forever -- as we once knew it.  (Damon Williams 11-8-01)