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On 9/11 I was working in Manhattan with a clear view of the World Trade Center towers, in another skyscraper, One Penn Plaza, which is the 50 story tower looming over Penn Station and Madison Square Garden in mid-town Manhattan, 2 avenue blocks west of the Empire State Building at 34th and 7th Avenue.

Every workday I had (until that date) a beautiful view from my desk of the Twin Towers plus the Statue of Liberty, looking from mid-town south down the island, with the Statue of Liberty appearing across the water just to the right of the towers. I always used to try to pause for a few seconds at least a few times per day just to take in that magnificent view and try not to take it for granted. I also (before 9/11) had to try to prevent myself from daydreaming while looking down the length of Manhattan to such a beautiful view of the towers and the SofL.

OK, here goes..... I want to emphasize that while this is a genuine “I was there story” and I was indeed living and working in the middle of Manhattan on 9/11, I worked in mid-town, not downtown, and I lived on the upper east side, so I was not in direct physical danger unless the terrorists had hit more targets. Still, the intensity of those minutes and hours is almost indescribable, far beyond what can be imagined from seeing it all on TV, since from the moment it was clear that it was terrorism at the WTC there was great uncertainty about how many targets might be hit, what other buildings and locations might be hit, whether there could be any WMDs involved etc. I have to say that I almost immediately thought about possible bio and chem weapons, because I did not think terrorists would come to Manhattan unless they planned to cause the maximum possible carnage (the real attacks were bad enough, but I immediately pondered even more devastating scenarios that might possibly be unfolding). Also, the subway system had been closed down very quickly and some of us were wondering almost immediately whether there had been any attacks within the subways, etc.

Anyway, when the first plane hit (though I wasn’t at my desk or looking at the WTC at that moment), there were gasps and shouts and everyone in my office was both mesmerized and horrified as we could immediately, in real time and real life, see one tower of the WTC burning..... this was real life, not TV, and although we were not downtown in the immediate danger zone we all knew substantial numbers of friends, family, former colleagues and classmates, etc. who worked in and around the WTC. Although I did not yet know it, one of my college classmates had died in the first plane’s impact, probably instantaneously.

Then we were all frantically trying to get information, calling people and check the web for news, etc. I did not happen to be looking toward the WTC when the 2nd plane hit, even though if I had happened to look up from my computer monitor at that instant I would have been looking right at the impact zone. I heard shrieks and yells and someone yelled “oh, God, another one!” Now we could see both WTC towers on fire.

At that point, within not very many more minutes, our company received an order to evacuate the building. As the main office tower overtop Penn Station and Madison Square Garden, we were imagined to be another possible target, although the Empire State Building and Grand Central, etc. probably would have been next had there been more targets. Still, we were evacuated while both towers were still standing.

I was 2 blocks away on 34th St. walking right in front of the Empire State Building, when a guy started hollering “the tower’s collapsing, the tower’s collapsing!” My first thought, seriously was that the Empire State Bldg. had just been hit and I remember the instant of wondering (1) why had I not heard the impact right above me, (2) was I about to die in seconds, (3) why had I not walked uptown first rather than crossing directly in front of the Empire State Building, and (4) was there any chance to run??? I looked up the ESB in an instant, expecting to see disaster directly above me, but I could not see anything out of the ordinary happening on the ESB. I was puzzled, but hurried onto 5th Avenue to get away from that tower. Then someone listening to a car radio, I assume, yelled out his window to everyone on the street that one of the WTC towers had collapsed.

Soon I was walking uptown with a friend, and oddly enough we managed to flag a cab that had just dropped off a passenger - I never expected to be able to flag a cab at such a time, but it happened.

I lived near the New York Presbyterian Hospital and Cornell Medical School, and my roommate was a doctor in the hospital there. They were put on alert to expect to receive potentially a large number of patients, nobody knew for sure what the situation was, and they have one of the premier burn units in the country as well as a large ICU and hundreds of hospital beds. They began discharging as many patients as could leave to free up space. They did end up receiving around 20 burn patients, I believe, many of them very severe. However, aside from those cases there were few if any injured surivors from the WTC. FOr the most part people either got out in time or else died in the collapse of each tower.

Due to a very serious medical condition I was neither allowed to give blood nor do too much of anything.... I had spent the night in NY Presbyterian Hosptial just days before 9/11, having round-the-clock tests and monitoring, and was under medical orders to do nothing more than gentle walking, so I just stayed home the rest of the day and monitored websites such as FR to try to keep up with what was happening. I could go up to the roof of my apartment building (above 36th floor) and see the huge plume of smoke from the WTC site, but it was not really possible to determine anything specific once the towers had collapsed — there was obviously still major fire(s) but my only real info at that point was coming from the Internet, even though I could see the smoke from the site in the distance. I thought a lot about ignoring my doctors’ prior medical advice and trying to get down to the WTC to see if I could bring bottled water and supplies, or help people or do anything at all, but I knew that rationally speaking I would only risk getting in the way of EMS personnel who would be swarming there by the hundreds or thousands, or even becoming a medical problem for rescuers myself for pre-existing reasons.... so I felt uselessly worthless but just stayed the hell away, then and in the days afterwards.

The friend whose office was next to mine at that time had a best friend who was a NYFD firefighter, and who had been the best man in my friend’s wedding. He died in the towers that day.

Not too long after 9/11 I was diagnosed with a serious case of cancer and had to spend much of the next year in an intensive serious of chemo treatments and major surgeries, so in addition to the horrors of 9/11 for everyone else I was soon dealing with my own personal battle for survival from competely non-terror related causes.

Now, six years later, I feel amazement at being alive, because of the strange personal coincidence of the 9/11 attacks and my own subsequent battle with cancer so soon after. Strange times in every way.