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a stock shot on the left, and a satellite view as the towers burned on the right
(also in view - Bklyn Bridge - middle, & Manhattan Bridge - bottom left corner).

I live & work in Brooklyn.

The day started with an unusually crowded 8:30AM commute on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, heading south from Greenpoint to Sunset Park. Slowly rounding my way past the Manhattan Bridge, & the Brooklyn Bridge, the traffic got really dense near Atlantic Avenue. I got off the elevated expressway & went via local streets the rest of the way along the Brooklyn waterfront with lower Manhattan just across the East River.

I drove the local streets under the BQE and arrived at the Brooklyn Army Terminal where I work, at a few minutes to 9AM. Getting out of the car, I noticed a huge cloud of dark smoke rising between some buildings nearby on the South Brooklyn waterfront. Walking into the building, I couldn't tell if the fire was on the Brooklyn side or the Manhattan side, but it looked bad & I hurried in to take a look from our offices on the top floor.

Walking in I learned a plane had just struck the World Trade Center so I rushed to the front windows where a telescope is set up in my boss's office. A few other employees were watching the events thru it, as they were unfolding. Like everyone else, we assumed it was a small plane and an accident. From our view both towers were almost lined up with each other, but thru the telescope they were clearly distinguishable as seperates.

Then the second plane struck the second tower & the world suddenly changed. What had looked at first like an obvious tragic accident, suddenly became bizarre and literally inconceivable. I couldn't figure out where in my brain to put what was happening, no part wanted it. Within seconds it sunk in that this was no accident, but a deliberate act. NYC was under some kind of attack.

I had run down to my office, grabbed the digital camera, and returned up front to take a few pictures out of the window. The smoke was moving in 2 directions, streaking eastward from the 1st tower that was hit & billowing straight up from the 2nd tower to be hit.

As I began to focus on what had happened, reports were coming across the radio. They were saying that up to 8 jets had been highjacked and were unaccounted for. Were they all in the area? Aiming at other NYC locations? I wondered if we were in a followup target, being that it was the Brooklyn Army Terminal.

I decided to leave & try to get home, taking the camera with me. I left the parking lot to the sounds of frantic sirens, both near & distant. Black cars without markings were wailing & dodging in & out of traffic, their headlights strobing. The police had the entrances to the BQE closed off, allowing only emergency vehicles on for direct access to the Battery Tunnel. I took the local streets underneath the BQE, and was instantly struck by how empty they were. I had expected chaos & traffic jams, but there were only empty streets.

I turned on the radio and heard that the Pentagon had been hit too. The story got more intense as I sped the empty streets for several miles, listening to the news. As I got close to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel which links to lower Manhattan, coming out at the World Trade Center, a live report was being broadcast from a woman reporter. As the 1st tower suddenly fell she began screaming. Tunnel access was closed off from here too, tho' I wasn't trying to get thru it anyway.

Within minutes, the huge cloud from the crumbling building crossed the East River and it was like driving in a dense daytime fog or snowstorm. I could no longer look across the river & see the burning areas of lower Manhattan, it was all lost behind smoke & dust. I rolled up the car windows & turned the fans on to recycle the internal air. I started wondering if it was possible for the attackers to be be carrying Anthrax or some other dangerous bio-chemical weapon in the planes. I took another digital shot at the bottom of Atlantic Ave, at the river as the cloud approached. Usually, the lower Manhattan skyline is just on the other side and provides a spectacular view. Now it was completely gone, choking in smoke & ash.

Burnt pieces of letterhead blew around under the car as I inched along the entrance ramp back onto the BQE. The radio asked any off-duty firemen to show up to assist and I saw one. Fully dressed with boots, raincoat & helmet, he sped by me on the expressway shoulder riding a motorcycle, weaving in & out between cars. Traffic moved slowly with most drivers craining their necks to see something thru the smoke. I took another photo from the car as the smoke began to clear after the tower collapsed, with the darkest smoke still pouring from the remaining tower.

I had rounded the curve past the Brooklyn Bridge, & toward the Manhattan bridge when the 2nd tower suddenly came down. The radio again gave the news as it happened, and I looked in the rear view mirror to see a second cloud emerge from the scene. Seconds later, I couldn't even see the Manhattan bridge that I'd just passed. I leaned the camera out the window, pointing it in the direction of the scene behind me and blindly took a shot as the second plume of demolished cement, plaster, and glass billowed up.

I got home eventually, my car coated in a thin layer of ash & dust. As I walked up the street to my apartment, I turned around & looked in the direction of the river. For all the years I've lived here, the Twin Towers were the only part of Manhattan tall enough to be seen from my address. Now there was only the rising smoke from where they once stood.

I climbed to the roof a few hours later as the sun was setting and the World Financial Center building had just collapsed in flames, sending a new cloud of smoke into the air, merging with the rest in a trail that stretched as far as the eye could see, spreading out in the distance to cover the sky.

That night was pretty creepy, & for the first time since I moved here I felt uncomfortable turning off the lights to go to sleep. About 3AM, I woke up & couldn't fall back to sleep. I opened the back window & sat out on the fire escape to get some air. I have never heard it so quiet in all the while I've been here. The only thing I could hear was the far distant roar of the F-16 fighter planes that are now on constant patrol high overhead. A tiny flashing speck in the blackness of night, one would streak over every 3-4 mnutes.

Heading back to work 2 days later, I took another shot on the BQE where I'd photographed after the 1st tower fell. Much of the smoke had gone, tho the site was obviously still smoldering.

When I got to work I immediately returned to the front office windows to shoot the final image of the scene where it had all begun. It was the same time in the morning as 2 days earlier. An empty space now, where the towers once stood. How much the world had changed since then.