911 and the Cranes
Posted September 11, 2026 by JanFeature image:
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Bangkok
Thailand
10 September 2026
Hello,
I remember exactly where I was and exactly what I was doing in the early afternoon of November 22, 1963. I was in the library at the City College of New York studying for an American History midterm exam. Uptown City.
For the afternoon of September 11, 2001, I had scheduled piano lessons with my young students. But at 9:00 am that morning I was in the dentist office in North Miami Beach. I watched the events unfold on a TV in the waiting room and then on a small monitor from the reclining chair in the clinic. Later that morning I called the parents and recommended we keep the schedule and try to maintain a somewhat normal day for the kids.
Two months later in November 2001, I visited New York and found my way to Ground Zero. The deep, multi-story pit still shouldered with red molten steel and concrete. Acrid, choking, noxious black fumes rose into the neighborhood. To clear my aching head I wandered west. I boarded a commuter ferry for a round trip sail to Jersey across the Hudson. So broad. So breezy. So bright.
Later in the day I took the train uptown to Grand Central. Shocking! Stunning! Heartbreaking! At stops and stations along the way, desperate and hopeful relatives and friends had posted dozens of large photos of their Missing.
In 2002 I heard a radio announcement from The Digital Archives. They were collecting WTC Memories. So from Miami, I phoned one in.
Back in the day I lived in The City. Every day, floor by floor, I watched the inexorable rise of the Twin Towers. No, not from the street. From the window of the subway as we crossed over the East River on the Manhattan Bridge. Amazing! I was en route on the RR and the N from my apartment on Shore Road in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn to my job at The Plaza on Central Park South in Manhattan.
My Memory? The Construction Cranes! Eight of them! One on each corner. Higher and higher almost every day. The Cranes!
In the early morning, Quite a Sight.
What do you remember?
Did you know anyone?
Click on the links below:
My Memory: A recording of a brief telephone call.
The Legacy: Images of the Eternal.
Peace my friend. Peace.
Jan
The Legacy The Lives of September 11.