hey guys-ari and i are both ok. he was at work when all the chaos started and i was walking to work from my building. i talked to charlie wood and he’s fine and so is everyone that he knows that either lived or worked downtown. i did talk to joe mashinski however and he is worried b/c one of his friends (haalser?) who i’m sure at least mclaughlin knows works on the 50th floor of the wtc and he hasn’t heard anything from him. not good. please forward this email around to anybody to let them know that ari and i are fine. if your watching tv, as i’m sure that you are, i was really in the middle of all that shit and a few hours ago was one of those guys covered in soot from head to toe...

here’s how i saw it:

i was getting dressed in my apartment, which is 3 blocks south of the world trade center on the west side highway (which is the main road on the west side of downtown manhattan). i heard what i thought was a car accident outside. since i live on the 4th floor and have 3 windows on the highway side, i’m used to hearing traffic and horns and shit. but then, a few seconds after i heard the crash, i could hear lots of debris hitting the building and i thought that maybe a car bomb had gone off. at that point i finished getting dressed and took the elevator down to the lobby. i exited the building and saw my doorman who looked white as a ghost. i asked him if a car bomb went off or something and he replied that he thought so and that it must have been a meat truck or something b/c there was meat all over the place. i walked out into the street and he was right-there were chunks of flesh all over the place but i thought it was just regular meat like he said. i then walked north to the corner and there was a human hand on the ground. someone quickly threw a coat over it so it couldn’t be seen. i then crossed the street and was looking around at all the cars around that were wrecked and all. then ari called my cell phone and i told him " that a fucking car bomb just went off at the world trade center. " " no, a plane hit the building! " i looked up and saw that the north tower had a big burning hole at the top of it and i couldn’t believe it. at this point i was staring skyward walking north towards where i work. a security guard was starting to tell people that we should walk south, so i headed one block west into battery park. at this point there were a mob of people in the streets, but everyone was calm. all of a sudden, i heard the sound of an airplane and looked up to see a fucking commercial jet slam right into the south tower. i was probably only 200 yards from the base of the building and watched the plane come in, hit the building and explode. all of a sudden it was like a movie scene, where everyone just turned and were literally running for their lives. i ran over to the western edge of manhattan (right on the hudson river). i could hardly believe what i had just seen. planes just falling out of the sky. at this point, i kind of gathered my thoughts and tried to figure out what the fuck i should do. i made a bunch of attempts to call people but only about one in 50 calls went through. i never really took my eyes off the towers and after about 15 minutes i saw about 10 people jump from the top of the building. at least 2 of them were on fire. i decided to walk north for some reason and i got to the marina outside of the world financial center, which is where i work. i was just standing there, with i guess 2 or 3 buildings between myself and the world trade center complex. i was looking at the south tower and all of a sudden it blew up, about 75% of the way up. it looked like a demolition explosion because it blew out in all directions and the top quarter just started to fall downward. everyone was pretty much paralyzed for a second or two as we watched it fall and then i think we all realized that a massive cloud of debris and/or building was heading our way. people were fucking jumping into the river. i ran south down the walkway because that was the closest building i saw that i could get to to shield myself. i still had a few of my training manuals in my hands. i just fucking dropped everything and sprinted to the building, which turned out to be a restaurant with a large glass wall facing the river. i was pressed against the glass with a few other people when the cloud of debris finally came over the building. i thought at first that i would be fine, but the air quickly got pretty thick full of ash. i took my shirt off and wrapped it around my face and head and started banging on the window with 2 other guys trying to figure out how to get into the restaurant. i could barely breath let alone see. it was pitch black and even with just squinting, my eyes were on fire. on the other side of the glass, a hand pointed to my left, and we all kind of felt our way along the building to the door. inside the restaurant, tablecloths were being ripped off tables and glasses of water that had been sitting on the tables were being passed around. i grabbed a pitcher of water and tried to help all the people that were piling through the door was their eyes. there were all sorts of people around me in all sorts of states. one guy had a bloody leg and had said that he had jumped through a window or something. we tied a tablecloth around his leg and washed away the blood to find that he wasn’t badly hurt thank god. after a few minutes, some fireman and policeman got into the restaurant and told us to make our way south along the river where we could get on a ferry to new jersey. i was heading for the door when the north tower fell. same story all over again — dark as night. when the dust settled from this one, the police shuffled everyone out and we all walked to the southern tip of manhattan. there, i got onto a police tugboat that looked like an illegal immigration scene. there were so many people piled on the boat that i could hardly believe that it was still floating. more boats were heading over and it looked like they were doing a good job getting everyone out. i climbed aboard one, and found a seat towards the back. as the boat shoved off and pulled away from manhattan, i could hardly believe what i was seeing. it looked like the entire downtown section of manhattan was on fire, b/c there was just a massive stream of smoke and debris coming off of it. when i got to liberty park in new jersey, i ran into a guy that i work with. he told me that he was in the world financial center when the first one hit. all the people he was working with went to the corner office to check out the scene. they saw the 2nd plane come in, and b/c we all work on the 30th floor, he said it seemed to be at eye-level. it hit and they just turned and ran for the elevators. they all got out safe, as it seems everyone who worked in our building did. there is only one building between where we work and the world trade center, but we could see from jersey that it was still standing. at this point i got through to my dad on my cell phone and he told me that a friend of the family had a house that was relatively close by. 3 buses and a bunch of stops to ask directions later, i finally got here. i’m here now and am writing this email in their kitchen, watching all the shit on the tv. at this point, i’m just going to spend the night here and then figure out what the next step is tomorrow. i’ll talk to all of you guys soon, thank god.

[The writer asked to remain anonymous]

" The dude abides "

Issue Date: September 12, 2001