The first plane flew over my head while standing on the corner of 13th and 6th. I heard it before I saw it. Then, as I looked up, I watched it angle and fly into the first tower. The time between when it disappeared into the tower and the ball of smoke in its wake seemed like an eternity, but it was not, it happened in an instant. Later standing on the roof of Parsons School of Design the view of the second plane’s approach, was blocked by the second tower, but 1010 WINS warned us that it was imminent, so we saw the impact, then we watched as the architecture students gave a play by play of how and why the tower was falling.
Trump’s stolen valor, a despicable display of ignorance, of a lack of respect for an event of rare magnitude to our country, our city and for the people who actually demonstrated the courage to save what could be saved. I am merely an eyewitness but the force of what I witnessed on September 11 changed me in ways I can’t even begin to understand. The attack on our sovereignty, the hole in the skyline, the missing people and the shock to our psyche, so too, changed America. Trump was not there and he has no claim to any valor. He did not share in the community sprit of those days, of the understanding that was silently communicated between the eyes of New Yorkers conditioned to avoid eye contact.
His stolen valor is a sign of his depravity. We the people are offended.
So many of us were witnesses that day. Your account from New York reminds us that even if unscarred, none escaped unscathed. We have all changed, and been changed, in ways difficult to put into words.
In memory of all those suddenly lost, all those left behind, those whose suffering -- physical and emotional -- continue even now. We remember...
My office was in the student center of the college. The usually noisy space went suddenly deadly silent except for the television in one corner. All of us realized that our safety and security would never be the same again. This has been borne out from where we stand today.
Thanks as always, Jen, for your reminders and words of inspiration. While reading them, this image came to mind: a brave firefighter who did not, even once, care to determine whether or not a person trapped in one of the Twin Towers was or was not a muslim, who just carried or escorted that person to safety at great risk to himself, standing side by side with our decrepit, crazed, lying, stupid, crooked and sexually deviant president. We have a choice, and we must make it a good one.
"We are grateful for those in office and civil society who advocate for sane, sober foreign policy informed by reality and historical experience. We revel in a growing movement of valiant pro-democracy voices who combat domestic fascism. We can rejoice in seeing a righteous resistance arise to combat a movement that demonizes others based on religion or race, promulgates toxic misogyny, and perpetuates ludicrous conspiracy theories."
Beautifully written, as usual.
As bruised and sore as we may be from the past 10 years, we must continue to believe in ourselves, and that we can be better humans and better caretakers of our future.
Unfortunately, in the wake of Mamdani's election and the recent nomination of Muslim Americans for several political offices, the country is seeing a resurgence in Islamophobic bigotry that recalls the post 9-11 time.
The attacks on Mamdani and calls for him to not appear today at the commemoration are barely hiding the inherent open hatred of Muslims. Disgraced ex mayor Giuliani has recently said that 'Muslims “want to dominate us” and “Mamdani is a clear supporter of that.” At what can only be described as a hate rally this week at City Hall, city councilwoman Vicky Paladino yelled '“I am demanding that he not show his face at that sacred ground. He does not belong there", while my own shameful representative from Queens, Joann Ariola, said that Mamdani 'doesn’t understand that the people standing behind me.... feel that he is as much against them as those terrorists were on the day they lost their loved ones.”' There are plenty more examples.
So far, the response to this from leading Democrats has been lackluster at best. Our Democratic representatives should be taking a united, loud and principled defense of Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed, Ilhan Omar, and all other Muslims under attack.
Many of us who were here in NYC on that terrible day could not have imagined we would one day have a Muslim mayor who was only a child at the time. But we also hoped we would never see that kind of anti Muslim hatred so publicly, frequently and casually expressed, with so little pushback.
(I'd add that Mamdani's recent release of 170,000 pages of documents that among other things detail the Giuliani admin's knowledge of toxins in the area while they were telling everyone it was safe, leading to more deaths than the attacks themselves...not only prove the bigotry of these screeching reps, it makes them look incredibly foolish and desperate to change the subject.)
Jen, your words have always sung. You’ve offered up a trenchant and still tender review of our last quarter century. I thank you. What I hope we can each reflect on, through whatever proximate pain and sadness that still ensnare us, is our lasting responsibility to think forward and imagine our rebuilt and improved world — one organized with love at the centre that we daringly offer to the next generations. May it be something infinitely more life affirming, delicate and, yet, enduring than the madness being offered by the metastatic egotistic “tech bros.”
Love this passage the most: “There are many more Americans whose actions and values recall our better angels than there are those who would consign us to interminable war, strife, and hatred.” I’ll never stop believing this. Never. November is our time to start to repair our broken nation and steel ourselves against dangers both present and future. We can do it, because despite the legacy media’s utter failure to convey this: more unites us than separates us. And together we are strong.
As Trump sneers at NATO - he would withdraw from it if he could - we need to remember that the US invoked the clause about mutual protection immediately after 9/11, and many other countries assisted. That was the only time any member country has requested assistance.
I recently visited the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania for the first time. It was a beautiful, emotional experience. The people who designed the memorial did a wonderful job. The Laurel Highlands are so beautiful on a sunny day. It is a good place for reflection. The people on that flight were heroes. You can see all their faces and read about them. I was glad to see there were no children on that flight. The road through the Highlands from the memorial to the Breezewood interchange on the turnpike offers incredible scenic views. My wife and I spent 2.5 hours at the site, which was more than we expected. You can combine a visit to the memorial with visits to Frank Lloyd Wright houses at Polymath Park and the unparallelled Falling Waters to the south.
Don't forget Kentuck Knob! My sisters and I stayed at Polymath Park and visited both Falling Water and Kentuck Knob.
Back in the late 90s, early 2000s, some friends and I used to go up to Shanksville to another friend's property to camp for a long weekend each summer. We had been there two weeks earlier when Flight 93 went down—on an abandoned strip mine just over the ridge from where we had pitched our tents. Patti said the impact was so loud she felt like the plane had hit their house, which but for a few seconds, it might have. (Amazing no one was hit on the ground.) They spent that week serving meals to the first responders and workers and later because docents at the site as it was constructed.
The first voice I heard on 9/11 was Peter Jennings from ABC News. The Pentagon had been attacked and finally the truth was revealed. Everyone was so distracted that many of us were excused for the remainder of the day to donate blood to our fellow Americans in need. Strangely that day, I was wearing a bright red Ralph Lauren T shirt with a small American flag on it before I even knew what had happened. Our workplace was casual and comfortable filled with young scientists working to create solutions for the betterment of mankind. It was strangely quiet later that day as we watched all air craft being forced to land in the midst of chaos at the Huntsville International Airport in Huntsville Alabama. I went home put the flag out on my house and prayed there would be no more mayhem on the United States of America. 🇺🇸
The words “Lets Roll” spoken by Todd Beamer stay with me until this day.
an excellent column, as usual. But perhaps it's useful to remind people that although things changed after 9/11, airport security was started much earlier and instituted in stages:
2001 (Post-9/11): Following the September 11 attacks, Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. This created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), moving security operations from private contractors to the federal government. (https://www.history.com/articles/airport-security-timeline)
We used to stand in those security lines as a commonly shared sacrifice to ensure everyone's safety. Now some people can pay a private company to whisk them through. No big thing, but I find it emblematic of what's wrong with us these days.
“MAGA is in a political death spiral; Democrats are making headway, even in rural strongholds.”
Oh! I pray that those printed words are truly coming to fruition! We need to get this cancerous plague out of our system, pronto! The sooner the better! May this November bring us a first step in “righting the ship”. VOTE BLUE!
We did not recover. I believe that AQ succeeded beyond its wildest dreams of gutting us from within. Who could have imagined that we would have a President who would disrespect and demean (those words are inadequate) the memory of that day. Of course for him, it is just Friday. He disrespects and demeans everything we stood for every damn day.
Yeah I am not really seeing how we have improved..We elected the worst POTUS in history, twice..one of his first actions was to ban Muslims from entering the country...and who has aged a war against brown and Black people..and right now, Islamophobia is as bad as ever, with plenty of Democrats jumping in with the GOP.
Thank you Jennifer for an interesting take on September 11th. I was just walking into my office on the north side of the North Tower with a cup of coffee in my hand when that first plane struck my building. It swayed for several seconds before someone screamed to get to the stairs. We all ran down those stairs with the sprinklers going off and reached a lobby that was ablaze and people were lying on the floor bleeding. Firefighters moved us through to the South Tower but the lobby was so crowded that we were sent out to stand on the streets. Just then the second plane hit the South Tower and most of us were hit with debris from the Tower. The rest is a nightmare that I have lived with for 25 years and counting, but thank goodness for all the first responders who helped all they could. We should have left Afghanistan and Iraq once we got Osama bin Laden, and we should not be there now.
"The recriminations about national security lapses...."
There always has to be someone to blame. The dust had hardly settled when knee-jerk reactions started. One local FBI office knew about the pilot training program and a red flag went up when it was heard that the "pilots" didn't need to know how to land their aircraft. The message apparently failed to reach FBI national headquarters. We got the Patriot Act which substituted security for our freedoms, and ultimately, Trump latched onto the blame, hate and distrust, riding it all the way to the White House - twice. We may have recovered from the initial shock, though the repression, regression, hate and distrust have endured and grown in the second Trump regime. It's time to start retiring this poison. Vote.
The first plane flew over my head while standing on the corner of 13th and 6th. I heard it before I saw it. Then, as I looked up, I watched it angle and fly into the first tower. The time between when it disappeared into the tower and the ball of smoke in its wake seemed like an eternity, but it was not, it happened in an instant. Later standing on the roof of Parsons School of Design the view of the second plane’s approach, was blocked by the second tower, but 1010 WINS warned us that it was imminent, so we saw the impact, then we watched as the architecture students gave a play by play of how and why the tower was falling.
Trump’s stolen valor, a despicable display of ignorance, of a lack of respect for an event of rare magnitude to our country, our city and for the people who actually demonstrated the courage to save what could be saved. I am merely an eyewitness but the force of what I witnessed on September 11 changed me in ways I can’t even begin to understand. The attack on our sovereignty, the hole in the skyline, the missing people and the shock to our psyche, so too, changed America. Trump was not there and he has no claim to any valor. He did not share in the community sprit of those days, of the understanding that was silently communicated between the eyes of New Yorkers conditioned to avoid eye contact.
His stolen valor is a sign of his depravity. We the people are offended.
So many of us were witnesses that day. Your account from New York reminds us that even if unscarred, none escaped unscathed. We have all changed, and been changed, in ways difficult to put into words.
In memory of all those suddenly lost, all those left behind, those whose suffering -- physical and emotional -- continue even now. We remember...
A personal recollection from Washington.
https://sylvestercat.substack.com/p/recalling-911
My office was in the student center of the college. The usually noisy space went suddenly deadly silent except for the television in one corner. All of us realized that our safety and security would never be the same again. This has been borne out from where we stand today.
Thank you.
Thanks as always, Jen, for your reminders and words of inspiration. While reading them, this image came to mind: a brave firefighter who did not, even once, care to determine whether or not a person trapped in one of the Twin Towers was or was not a muslim, who just carried or escorted that person to safety at great risk to himself, standing side by side with our decrepit, crazed, lying, stupid, crooked and sexually deviant president. We have a choice, and we must make it a good one.
"We are grateful for those in office and civil society who advocate for sane, sober foreign policy informed by reality and historical experience. We revel in a growing movement of valiant pro-democracy voices who combat domestic fascism. We can rejoice in seeing a righteous resistance arise to combat a movement that demonizes others based on religion or race, promulgates toxic misogyny, and perpetuates ludicrous conspiracy theories."
Beautifully written, as usual.
As bruised and sore as we may be from the past 10 years, we must continue to believe in ourselves, and that we can be better humans and better caretakers of our future.
Unfortunately, in the wake of Mamdani's election and the recent nomination of Muslim Americans for several political offices, the country is seeing a resurgence in Islamophobic bigotry that recalls the post 9-11 time.
The attacks on Mamdani and calls for him to not appear today at the commemoration are barely hiding the inherent open hatred of Muslims. Disgraced ex mayor Giuliani has recently said that 'Muslims “want to dominate us” and “Mamdani is a clear supporter of that.” At what can only be described as a hate rally this week at City Hall, city councilwoman Vicky Paladino yelled '“I am demanding that he not show his face at that sacred ground. He does not belong there", while my own shameful representative from Queens, Joann Ariola, said that Mamdani 'doesn’t understand that the people standing behind me.... feel that he is as much against them as those terrorists were on the day they lost their loved ones.”' There are plenty more examples.
So far, the response to this from leading Democrats has been lackluster at best. Our Democratic representatives should be taking a united, loud and principled defense of Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed, Ilhan Omar, and all other Muslims under attack.
Many of us who were here in NYC on that terrible day could not have imagined we would one day have a Muslim mayor who was only a child at the time. But we also hoped we would never see that kind of anti Muslim hatred so publicly, frequently and casually expressed, with so little pushback.
(I'd add that Mamdani's recent release of 170,000 pages of documents that among other things detail the Giuliani admin's knowledge of toxins in the area while they were telling everyone it was safe, leading to more deaths than the attacks themselves...not only prove the bigotry of these screeching reps, it makes them look incredibly foolish and desperate to change the subject.)
Jen, your words have always sung. You’ve offered up a trenchant and still tender review of our last quarter century. I thank you. What I hope we can each reflect on, through whatever proximate pain and sadness that still ensnare us, is our lasting responsibility to think forward and imagine our rebuilt and improved world — one organized with love at the centre that we daringly offer to the next generations. May it be something infinitely more life affirming, delicate and, yet, enduring than the madness being offered by the metastatic egotistic “tech bros.”
Hear, hear! Well said.
Love this passage the most: “There are many more Americans whose actions and values recall our better angels than there are those who would consign us to interminable war, strife, and hatred.” I’ll never stop believing this. Never. November is our time to start to repair our broken nation and steel ourselves against dangers both present and future. We can do it, because despite the legacy media’s utter failure to convey this: more unites us than separates us. And together we are strong.
As Trump sneers at NATO - he would withdraw from it if he could - we need to remember that the US invoked the clause about mutual protection immediately after 9/11, and many other countries assisted. That was the only time any member country has requested assistance.
Including Canada
Jen Rubin's coherent and elegant piece reminds us that she is a national treasure.
So well said. Thank you.
I recently visited the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania for the first time. It was a beautiful, emotional experience. The people who designed the memorial did a wonderful job. The Laurel Highlands are so beautiful on a sunny day. It is a good place for reflection. The people on that flight were heroes. You can see all their faces and read about them. I was glad to see there were no children on that flight. The road through the Highlands from the memorial to the Breezewood interchange on the turnpike offers incredible scenic views. My wife and I spent 2.5 hours at the site, which was more than we expected. You can combine a visit to the memorial with visits to Frank Lloyd Wright houses at Polymath Park and the unparallelled Falling Waters to the south.
Don't forget Kentuck Knob! My sisters and I stayed at Polymath Park and visited both Falling Water and Kentuck Knob.
Back in the late 90s, early 2000s, some friends and I used to go up to Shanksville to another friend's property to camp for a long weekend each summer. We had been there two weeks earlier when Flight 93 went down—on an abandoned strip mine just over the ridge from where we had pitched our tents. Patti said the impact was so loud she felt like the plane had hit their house, which but for a few seconds, it might have. (Amazing no one was hit on the ground.) They spent that week serving meals to the first responders and workers and later because docents at the site as it was constructed.
The first voice I heard on 9/11 was Peter Jennings from ABC News. The Pentagon had been attacked and finally the truth was revealed. Everyone was so distracted that many of us were excused for the remainder of the day to donate blood to our fellow Americans in need. Strangely that day, I was wearing a bright red Ralph Lauren T shirt with a small American flag on it before I even knew what had happened. Our workplace was casual and comfortable filled with young scientists working to create solutions for the betterment of mankind. It was strangely quiet later that day as we watched all air craft being forced to land in the midst of chaos at the Huntsville International Airport in Huntsville Alabama. I went home put the flag out on my house and prayed there would be no more mayhem on the United States of America. 🇺🇸
The words “Lets Roll” spoken by Todd Beamer stay with me until this day.
an excellent column, as usual. But perhaps it's useful to remind people that although things changed after 9/11, airport security was started much earlier and instituted in stages:
1970s–1980s: Screening was initially handled by private security firms hired by individual airlines, often conducted right at the boarding gates rather than dedicated checkpoints. Security tightened further after the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. (https://www.history.com/articles/airport-security-timeline), (https://sassofia.com/blog/history-and-evolution-of-aviation-security/), [3] (https://bbcei.com/safeguarding-skies-the-early-years/)
2001 (Post-9/11): Following the September 11 attacks, Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. This created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), moving security operations from private contractors to the federal government. (https://www.history.com/articles/airport-security-timeline)
2002: Rules changed to allow only ticketed passengers past security checkpoints, ending the era of family and friends walking loved ones directly to their gates. (https://www.history.com/articles/airport-security-timeline)
We used to stand in those security lines as a commonly shared sacrifice to ensure everyone's safety. Now some people can pay a private company to whisk them through. No big thing, but I find it emblematic of what's wrong with us these days.
Some earlier security changes were the response to hijackings of planes.
“MAGA is in a political death spiral; Democrats are making headway, even in rural strongholds.”
Oh! I pray that those printed words are truly coming to fruition! We need to get this cancerous plague out of our system, pronto! The sooner the better! May this November bring us a first step in “righting the ship”. VOTE BLUE!
Great article, Ms. Rubin! Thank you! Well said!
Thank you for another thoughtful, and at times beautiful, piece.
We did not recover. I believe that AQ succeeded beyond its wildest dreams of gutting us from within. Who could have imagined that we would have a President who would disrespect and demean (those words are inadequate) the memory of that day. Of course for him, it is just Friday. He disrespects and demeans everything we stood for every damn day.
Yeah I am not really seeing how we have improved..We elected the worst POTUS in history, twice..one of his first actions was to ban Muslims from entering the country...and who has aged a war against brown and Black people..and right now, Islamophobia is as bad as ever, with plenty of Democrats jumping in with the GOP.
Thank you Jennifer for an interesting take on September 11th. I was just walking into my office on the north side of the North Tower with a cup of coffee in my hand when that first plane struck my building. It swayed for several seconds before someone screamed to get to the stairs. We all ran down those stairs with the sprinklers going off and reached a lobby that was ablaze and people were lying on the floor bleeding. Firefighters moved us through to the South Tower but the lobby was so crowded that we were sent out to stand on the streets. Just then the second plane hit the South Tower and most of us were hit with debris from the Tower. The rest is a nightmare that I have lived with for 25 years and counting, but thank goodness for all the first responders who helped all they could. We should have left Afghanistan and Iraq once we got Osama bin Laden, and we should not be there now.
"The recriminations about national security lapses...."
There always has to be someone to blame. The dust had hardly settled when knee-jerk reactions started. One local FBI office knew about the pilot training program and a red flag went up when it was heard that the "pilots" didn't need to know how to land their aircraft. The message apparently failed to reach FBI national headquarters. We got the Patriot Act which substituted security for our freedoms, and ultimately, Trump latched onto the blame, hate and distrust, riding it all the way to the White House - twice. We may have recovered from the initial shock, though the repression, regression, hate and distrust have endured and grown in the second Trump regime. It's time to start retiring this poison. Vote.