I was crossing Chambers Street that morning with Eileen, after dropping our daughter Sadie off at elementary school, when the first plane flew over our heads. I had a sightline down Church Street and watched that plane fly - actually glide - nose dead center, slowly right into the building, on that blue morning. It still seems inconceivable to me that I was standing there at that moment. And today it's all coming back to me. The run across Chambers Street to pick up Sadie from school, as we heard the sound of the second plane hitting. The walk north to get out of the area. And turning around to see the first building fall as the three of us neared Houston Street. I walked back downtown the next morning to my apartment on Maiden Lane near the Towers with my upstairs neighbor Kathy to get our cats. All the checkpoints, then all the dust. My apartment was covered in it, and we never did move back in. The enormity of that day is still incomprehensible.
Sadie crossing the Brooklyn Bridge 1 month before 9-11
