I grew up on Long Island, went away to school in South Carolina and returned home in mid-July 2001 to look for work in Manhattan with my crisp journalism degree in hand.
Flash forward a little more than a month, I somehow managed to luck myself into a job with Random House. I started in mid-August with a severe undiagnosed case of a.d.d. & a touch of wanderlust. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I arrived in my office & almost immediately received word that some sort of airplane accident had happened downtown at the World Trade Center. My stupid live-blogged reactions are still immortalized somewhere in the depths of the internet (ohh, Livejournal!). From the cozy & safe confines of my Park Avenue office just north of the Met Life building, I couldn't see the same images everyone else was watching live on television or (God-forbid) in person. I was there, but I wasn't *there*.
I bounced from office to office that morning joining co-workers who were listening on the radio. Time & again the air was sucked out of the room as we received each new update. A second crash. One building collapsed. The second also fallen. It felt surreal, like we were listening to a 'War of the Worlds' broadcast, & so sometime around mid-morning shortly after the towers fell & it was obvious no work would be accomplished that day, I headed south on foot.
Block after block, I started to feel more like a salmon going upstream. Crowds of people grew steadily thicker. People appeared increasingly shaken. Over time, more of them were covered in dust. Whiteknuckled men covered head to toe in it, clutching their briefcases & pushing through the crowd as a few stopped to gawk. Women carrying their heels in-hand, tears streaking down their dusty faces, trudging forward away from what was almost surely the most traumatic experience of their lives. I witnessed my share of nervous breakdowns that day, from the dusted business class to the Irish man in the middle of Broadway shouting at God from his knees, cusses flying fast & furious.
I'd dropped into a corner store to buy a disposable camera only to take an entire roll of film of the exact same shot - the southern sky obscured by grey smoke. At one point I walked into a church & sat in a pew. It was still & silent, but completely packed. Several people were weeping softly, others prayed the rosary, but many were just staring ahead. I made it about 12 blocks from where the towers had stood just hours before, slightly north of the financial district. The air smelled acrid & police barricades weren't letting anyone through. I wound up at my boss' East Village apartment to watch Tom Brokaw barely keeping his shit together on air, & after several hours of slow-motion instant replay horror, finally walked north to Penn Station & rode the train home.
The "never forgetting" message isn't something I was comfortable with on several levels. For starters, it became deeply politicized...a tool to be used for powerful military force in the Middle East, a veritable dumptruck of red meat for what felt like an increasingly conservative base of extremely angry Americans. Grief led to rage. Reflection was a place, it seemed, that people would stop to get a glimpse of that rage. It didn't seem like we were capable of acceptance, & it made me cynical about everything. I spent years avoiding thinking about it, talking about it, feeling about it. But time has softened many of these sentiments for me.
Since music has always been a time capsule for me, I thought maybe I'd get this down on paper, as it were. I don't have a special story of survival or heroism but as a New Yorker in NYC that day, what I saw, did & experienced isn't going anyway. I haven't always been able to say this, but it's a part of me I would never wish away.
Each of the below songs/albums reminds me of late summer into autumn of 2001. Some directly remind me of the day, some don't. I guess you could say the below is my soundtrack to the 9/11 experience.
Bruce Springsteen - "Born to Run"
The perfect coping mechanism for drowning out the conversation I heard on the train coming home from Manhattan on 9/11, a girl asking her friend "where are all the people who work in the World Trade Center going to go when they come in for work tomorrow?" (I wish I were kidding). Not coincidentally, this song/record became a rallying cry and the perfect soundtrack for the escapism that was to follow.
The perfect coping mechanism for drowning out the conversation I heard on the train coming home from Manhattan on 9/11, a girl asking her friend "where are all the people who work in the World Trade Center going to go when they come in for work tomorrow?" (I wish I were kidding). Not coincidentally, this song/record became a rallying cry and the perfect soundtrack for the escapism that was to follow.
Bruce Springsteen – ‘Born to Run’
U2 - "The Joshua Tree"
The only album I could listen to for about a week afterwards. Really hit on all the right levels for me right then. Escape, love, loss, faith, hope, war, helplessness. I mean, who in their right mind doesn't think this is a great record? I'd just never really had to understand it before. I’d drive around my hometown listening to this record with the volume turned as loud as I could stand. There’s a little spot on the Long Island Sound where you can see the city. I’d drive down there & watch the smoking rubble. When the prevailing winds were right (as they were for a few days after the attacks), my town smelled like jetfuel. Listening to ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’ under these circumstances was epic in a way I don’t think I’d ever experienced before & haven’t since.
The only album I could listen to for about a week afterwards. Really hit on all the right levels for me right then. Escape, love, loss, faith, hope, war, helplessness. I mean, who in their right mind doesn't think this is a great record? I'd just never really had to understand it before. I’d drive around my hometown listening to this record with the volume turned as loud as I could stand. There’s a little spot on the Long Island Sound where you can see the city. I’d drive down there & watch the smoking rubble. When the prevailing winds were right (as they were for a few days after the attacks), my town smelled like jetfuel. Listening to ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’ under these circumstances was epic in a way I don’t think I’d ever experienced before & haven’t since.
U2 – ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’
Wilco - "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"
Though it wasn't formally released until early 2002 due to a dispute with the band's label (who wanted them to scrap the album & make something more radio friendly), my friend Emily shared a very rough, single track version of the whole album with me in September & it immediately hit me like a bag of hammers. At the time, the record sounded to me like it had been written about 9/11. Still one of my all-time favorite bands/albums.
Though it wasn't formally released until early 2002 due to a dispute with the band's label (who wanted them to scrap the album & make something more radio friendly), my friend Emily shared a very rough, single track version of the whole album with me in September & it immediately hit me like a bag of hammers. At the time, the record sounded to me like it had been written about 9/11. Still one of my all-time favorite bands/albums.
Wilco - "Ashes of American Flags"
The Strokes - "Is This It?"
"Is This It?" happened at just the right moment to underscore NYC's swagger. Considering the timing, this record felt like an act of defiance & a middle finger in the face of some very real pain.
"Is This It?" happened at just the right moment to underscore NYC's swagger. Considering the timing, this record felt like an act of defiance & a middle finger in the face of some very real pain.
The Strokes – ‘Take It Or Leave It’
Bjork - "Vespertine"
Oh man, what a *seriously* haunty precursor this was. I distinctly remember that creeping feeling of autumn while listening to this record on the way back home from a trip to Saratoga Springs in late August. Gorgeously ominous.
Oh man, what a *seriously* haunty precursor this was. I distinctly remember that creeping feeling of autumn while listening to this record on the way back home from a trip to Saratoga Springs in late August. Gorgeously ominous.
Bjork – ‘It’s Not Up to You’
Ryan Adams - "Gold"
An album full of love songs about being young & reckless. Needless to say, it spoke to a restlessness that would only intensify in the wake of 9/11. "Heartbreaker" had really gotten me into him, & despite being a far more radio-ready, slickly produced effort, I ate it up.
An album full of love songs about being young & reckless. Needless to say, it spoke to a restlessness that would only intensify in the wake of 9/11. "Heartbreaker" had really gotten me into him, & despite being a far more radio-ready, slickly produced effort, I ate it up.
Ryan Adams – ‘New York, New York’
Radiohead - "Amnesiac"
Paranoia, paranoia, everybody's comin' ta get me. I distinctly recall walking from my office to Penn Station one evening after work (in early October) while listening to this record & feeling like it perfectly soundtracked the mood of the city, all the way up to the exact point where I approached the escalators flanked by armed police & set foot on the top step at the exact moment of the creepy piano breakdown of "You and Whose Army". Goose. Bumps. I still can't listen to this record without feeling a sinking dread creeping in my bones.
Paranoia, paranoia, everybody's comin' ta get me. I distinctly recall walking from my office to Penn Station one evening after work (in early October) while listening to this record & feeling like it perfectly soundtracked the mood of the city, all the way up to the exact point where I approached the escalators flanked by armed police & set foot on the top step at the exact moment of the creepy piano breakdown of "You and Whose Army". Goose. Bumps. I still can't listen to this record without feeling a sinking dread creeping in my bones.
Radiohead - "You and Whose Army"
Jeff Buckley - "Grace"
Now considered a classic on many levels, I was listening to “Grace” on my way into work on September 11th. It will always remind of of that sunny Tuesday morning.
Now considered a classic on many levels, I was listening to “Grace” on my way into work on September 11th. It will always remind of of that sunny Tuesday morning.
Jeff Buckley – ‘So Real’
Air – “10,000 Hz Legend”
A supremely underrated, flat out gorgeous record that pulls beauty from chaos. ‘People in the City’ is to this day one of my all-time favorite songs, and this my favorite Air record, no doubt. I was listening to this a lot late in the summer & it's always seemed like a good soundtrack to a ghostly urban future.
Air – ‘Radio #1’
The White Stripes – “White Blood Cell”
This record powered many an escape out of town during the fall of 2001. I pretty much spent every available weekend from late September to November visiting friends in either Boston, DC or South Carolina. I haven't quite liked anything the band has done since nearly as much. No polish, just grit.
White Stripes – ‘Dead Leaves & the Dirty Ground’
Deltron 3030 – “Deltron 3030”
Because wouldn't ANY vision of a dark, apocalyptic future benefit from some slick beats & samples? If you can't bob your head in the face of doom, you're doing it wrong. Del the Funky Homosapien & Dan the Automator set the bar high, & tales of a bleak future seem somehow less disparate & more defiant when recalibrated through the hip hop lens.
Deltron 3030 – ‘3030’
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