Thursday, September 13, 2001


talked this morning to yoga teacher nancy la nasa, who lives in a new tall building in the east village. since lower manhattan is closed, she's been trapped down there, basically. she told me an interesting story about her tuesday morning...

she was listening to a local npr station, which interrupted its usual news with a report of a fire at the world trade center. nancy has lived in new york since the 70s, and immediately thought uh-oh. the roof of her building had a beautiful line-of-sight view to the towers. she took the elevator to the roof at 9:05am. soon she was joined by a neighbor, who told her a plane had hit the building; at first reports were that the plane was small, a cessna, and people believed it a bizarre aviation accident. she told me this morning," well, i thought, a little plane had hit the big antenna on the roof." the first smoke cleared and she saw the gaping hole with little tongues of flame licking around the edges.

at that time, she simply thought it was an accident with a fire, which she could plainly see in the north tower. as she and the neighbor chatted, she glanced back at the world trade center and witnessed the commercial jet plane coming through the other tower.

soon her other neighbors joined her on the roof, and quickly all the surrounding roofs were filled with people. when the tower collapsed, everyone screamed, she reports. many threw up their hands as if to cover their heads. as i reported myself, the wind was blowing toward staten island, so she could see events clearly -- the smoke went away from her location. the cloud of dust blocked out view in brooklyn, but she could still easily see the jagged remains of the north tower, until it collapsed below her line of sight. she reports that the majority of people on her block stayed on their roofs until after dark, mesmerized at the event.

she knew several people who worked in the towers; one on a very high floor, who fortunately made it out with most of their staff.

the depth of this horror is endless and unspeakable. however, let me thank the caring and concern of all who have stopped by. this little page alone has received more than 3,000 hits in the past day and half; which indicates the great interest and sympathy that exists for those of us in new york. we appreciate it.

posted by fortune | 6:45 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments