9/11 Stories
Barbara Joan Grubman
On Monday night, September 10th, I went to the Yankees game with some cousins. It was raining very hard, and I was delighted, although the game was canceled. I was delighted because we almost never see such a wonderful storm with hard driving rain, and lightening, in Los Angeles, where I live. I was happy also to be in the Bronx, the borough of my birth and where I lived for the first 27 years of my life. When I look back on it, it seems that the sky was actually sobbing for what was to happen the next morning.
My friends that I was staying with live in the Gramercy Park area on 18th St. We were getting dressed to go to Ellis Island, as the day was so sunny and clear. We were also going to stop at the WTC to get some information on a Quebec festival that was coming to town that week.
We were listening to the T.V. in the background and naturally heard and saw what the rest of the world heard and saw. My friend Judy said to me, “Oh, my God, I HEARD that plane. It was so low and so close, I thought that it was the loudest truck I had ever heard.”
I rushed down and bought two disposable cameras. I made my way down Broadway as far as 8th St.What was I thinking when I even stopped to buy coffee and a pastry!
When I got to 8th and Broadway, I went into 60th E. 8th St, where a dear Aunt had lived for 30 years and just recently died. The doorman let me up to the roof where about 50 others stood, watching the second tower burn and burn. We all knew that we were really waiting to be witness to it as it fell. About 30 minutes later, there was a strange, grating kind of noise..and then a ‘mushroom’ like cloud and then the building was no more. Strangers, held each other and cried. I stayed in New York till September 21st. and then flew back on a very uneventful flight to LAX.
I was very glad and proud to have been in MY HOME TOWN during the most horrible of tragedies. I would not want to have been anyplace else. Last night I dreamed that I was at ground zero, the first of my World Trade Center dreams.
Barbara Joan Grubman
Woodland Hills, California