The day before everything changed forever

My LIRR train into NYC went to the Hunterspoint stop. From there it was a long climb up to street level, a dash to the 7 line, subway, 9 minutes to Grand Central, another horrible climb and into that wonderful terminal main room, the clock, up the escalators and out onto Vanderbilt, over to Fifth Ave. and to the office.

The first plane hit just as we got to the top of the stairs at Hunterspoint. The stairway up actually pointed dead on toward the towers.  I only saw the smoke. The second plane hit just as I got into the office.  We all went out to Fifth Ave. so we could see downtown. Another straight on view. The rest of the day was figuring how to get out of Manhattan and on to home and it was a couple days before we could return.

I think it was on a Friday when I could get back into town. The ruins were still smoldering. Not many people that morning. When I got up into the Grand Central main hall many of the exits were now security checkpoints. My path out changed.  There was a long bulletin type board near the 42nd St. exit and people were posting "missing" notices and pictures on it.  It was the most wrenching experience of my life; before or since.  The innocents had long since passed to paradise. The posters of these "missing: has anyone seen...." messages were in a hell not to be understood.

There were armed guards all over. Military rifles, armor, angry faces. New York stopped being New York and I now remember something different about the city; two memories of it actually.

The one before and the one after.