|
 |
|
|
| |
My Neighborhood is Gone - Photographer Cheryl Dunn's first-person account of what happened September 11
Watching this tragedy on TV might seem very surreal, but in real life it was incomprehensible. You know I live 1 and a half blocks from the World Trade Center. My boyfriend and I were sleeping and at 8.45 we heard a very loud boom. We turned to each other and kind of joked that that was the loudest truck yet. Our neighborhood is constantly under construction so loud noises are just a part of life there. But then I heard people screaming outside. I was on the 3rd floor of my 10-story building. I jumped up and looked out the window to see the tower on fire. Shaking, I threw on some clothes and ran downstairs to my 2nd floor apartment and got a couple cameras and sprinted outside. We ran all the way to Church street right under the tower and shot pictures.
Everyone thought it was an aviation accident. There was shock, but mostly curiosity. After five minutes I wanted to get another lens and my video camera so we went back to my apartment. While inside, the next plane hit. This impact being much worse. Glass vases crashed off my windowsill. We ran outside again. This time the police were pushing people back to Broadway.
At this point people started to get the idea that it was a terrorist act. Cell phones stopped working so people were lining up for the pay phones and calling loved ones. We were all standing in the street in disbelief but never thinking our lives were in danger. The trains kept rolling and commuters kept streaming out of the trade center unknowingly. We all knew how fucked it was
but stood there and stared . People were drinking coffee and watching. We could see bodies falling and the flames and smoke getting higher.
About 45 minutes went by and I thought I should get some identification on me remembering even during the ticker tape parades I needed my id to get back home. As Michael and I walked
into my building, I said in jest that maybe we better not go in cause every time we do there is another explosion. He went to 3rd floor to change clothes and I put on the news and went to my window to film the shit that had smashed in my apartment.
Suddenly, there was the loudest noise imaginable out my window and for all of you that have been to my apartment you know how big my windows are, which were wide open. After the noise people started screaming and running on the street I just turned the camera and was shooting video out the open window.
Michael ran down and screamed at me to get back from the window. He said he saw the window bow out like a bubble and right then, the big grey tidal wave cloud that you see on TV engulfed my apartment. I was thrown back and everything went black .You couldn't see anything and there was no oxygen. The stuff was a mix of concrete, metal, drywall, and asbestos dust of the finest texture.
We had to find air so I thought outside. We ran to the front door and tried to push it open. It wouldn't budge. Upon looking up at the small square window, we could see faces pressed against the glass. The small vestibule was packed with people crying , and screaming covered with tons of grey debris. We yelled for them to move back and we pushed the door open. Five very fucked up panicked gasping people tumbled inside.
I thought to go to the roof, anywhere to find oxygen. I started running up the stairs. The 7th floor hallway had some air but I kept going to the roof . When I opened the door it was just solid grey.
We ran back and into a 5th floor apartment that had their windows shut and got the people from the street calmed down and water. I ran back into my apartment to find my cats. Luts was on the loft and came right to me. I got him up to five.
Then back for Dev. My smoke alarm was blaring and I couldn't locate his cries. I ripped it off the wall and finally found him crawled into the back of a dresser. After the fall I kept checking out the window to see what was happening with the air. It was the eeriest thing. There were no more sirens, no more screaming, just dead silence. The TV was saying that the tower had collapsed and that the other could go anytime. We got everybody together and started down thinking to run to the east river.
As we exited the building to head east people were running or walking fast. Many people were in shock like zombies. Many people weeping and disoriented. I was shooting video without being foolish and lagging too much and we were trying to help frightened confused people many of them older women secretaries by themselves. We went one block north and 3 blocks east when the next one fell. At this point everyone just started screaming and sprinting to the east river as the grey tidal wave cloud chased us. Then it was just thousands of people walking over the Brooklyn Bridge and up the FDR drive. It was like the end of the world.
We were pretty much OK physically. Went to the hospital a few days later for some oxygen because it felt like someone was standing on my chest and it wasn't going away. My apartment is totally messed up and filled with an inch layer of grey stuff in and on everything. As of now, one 50 story building 50 yards from my home is still in danger of collapse.
There is so much more and it's still happening. The kindness and love that people are pouring out to each other is so moving. For me, I've lived there for almost 13 years and many people that I barely even know have run up to me and hugged me. Everyone is wearing masks over their mouths. Thousands of people are just lining the west side highway cheering the emergency workers. Firemen, cops, and construction guys coming in and out with signs of well wishes and praise, food, water and towels. Nobody knows what to do but they all want to do something. Every fire house has thousands of flowers and signs in front of them. Last night at dusk there was a candle light vigil.
Micheael and I rented a tandem bike and we were cruising uptown shooting video. People were coming from everywhere walking with candles. Or just coming out of their buildings or businesses and talking with their neighbors. At Union Square thousands and thousands of people met with candles gathering around made memorials with pictures of the missing, flowers, candles, and pictures of the trade center, singing and preying .
Seems like when I see pictures of those towers, I find it hard to contain my emotions. I feel like those towers where like giant redwoods in my front yard that I looked at everyday. That was my neighborhood that I loved and photographed all the time. I loved that neighborhood because it was not about bars and restaurants and entertaining oneself, it was about workers.
There are a lot of finance professionals, but way more than that were the security guards, the messengers, the construction guys, the secretaries, dudes that clean the offices and take care of the buildings. These are the faces that I looked at. At night when everyone went home from work it was just you and the buildings and you could cruise around on a bike or a skateboard without cars and just weave in and out the skinny streets. No sounds of people just the hum of machines.
The weather was always different down there. The wind is crazy, the cold is colder and the heat is hotter. Extreme in every way. This may not seem cool to most, but it was to me. I've often found myself wondering of all the places you can live in the world, I lived there. It would make me kind of laugh, but obviously I couldn't think of any other place I'd rather live.
I will really miss my old neighborhood, and I hope maybe they make a beautiful forest of 5,000 trees in its place. I had a birthday party down there on Sept 7.Many people came that probably never really go down there that often. And I hope that when they left and walked to Church street to get a cab, that they glanced up in the sky there and took in that sight one last time.
Love to all,
Cheryl
|
|
|
|
|
|
