September 11th holds a strange significance for me. My father died just three days before the attacks, on September 8, 2001. He had been sick with bladder cancer and was only 53 years old. I was a sophomore in college and I didn’t have much experience with death. That was my 1-year sobriety date. I was still getting myself back together. His funeral was on Monday, September 10th. The funeral was at Riverside Memorial Chapel on Amsterdam Avenue, and afterward, the procession of cars drove to Clifton, NJ where he was buried. His grave was at the top of a gradual hill, and I have a vivid memory of looking out and seeing the entire skyline of New York City. I turned to my sister and brother and said “At least Dad will always have a view of the Twin Towers.” A day later, the towers were gone.
That morning, my mother woke me up with the news of the attack. We were reeling from my father’s death and suddenly the entire city was engulfed in tragedy. My brother and I, determined to help in some way, walked downtown. We lived on the Upper West Side, so it wasn’t a short walk. I had grown up in New York, but I didn’t go downtown much, and I completely misjudged where in the city the Twin Towers were located. We ended up walking too far east, getting as far as Canal and Broadway before the police stopped us and wouldn’t let us go any further. The entire walk we speculated about the implications for New York and the world, trying to make sense of what was happening. Once we couldn’t go any further, there was a line of buses waiting to bring people back uptown and away from Ground Zero. We took a Department of Corrections bus that dropped us at 66th and Park Avenue and walked the rest of the way from there.
The days following the funeral were so strange. Because my father died so young, a lot of people came to his funeral. But then they were stuck in New York, unable to leave because of the aftermath of the attacks. Our apartment became a sort of gathering place. Ostensibly it was for sitting shiva, but in reality, it was more of a refuge where everyone watched CNN, trying to make sense of what was unfolding in the world.
I remember a strange sense of unity that emerged in the city in those first few days/weeks. People were kinder, more helpful, looking out for one another in a way that felt refreshing. It’s odd to say that 9/11 brought a positive spirit of unity, but it did. Of course, it was horrific that so many lives were lost – I’m not saying it was anything but a tragedy. But there was this strange feeling in the air, a kind of collective understanding that we were all in it together. I think back to President Bush standing at Ground Zero with a bullhorn, with the entire crowd chanting “USA, USA.” That moment felt like the peak of national unity, a kind of spirit we haven’t seen since. Maybe the early days of Covid had a sort of unity, but not really. It’s sort of incredible to think of how badly the Bush administration squandered that feeling of unity, but the purpose of this essay isn’t politics, so I can write about that another time.
My grandparents lived on 81st Street, just nine blocks from our apartment on 72nd Street. My aunt had flown in from Oregon for my father’s funeral and was staying with them. Every evening, we’d walk her back to their place. I remember Central Park West had recently been repaved before the attacks, but they hadn’t yet painted the double yellow lines or lane markers. My brother and I would sit on the steps of the Natural History Museum, watching a giant cloud of black smoke that was slowly drifting north over the city. For a few days, everything felt like it had stopped. But by Friday, the city workers were out there, painting the lane lines. That moment always stuck with me—life resumes, no matter what happens. Whether you’re dealing with personal loss or collective tragedy, eventually, the lines have to be repainted, and you have to move forward.
I thought about that this week, not just because it’s the anniversary of 9/11, but because Central Park West was just repaved again. As I walked there, I noticed the lane lines hadn’t been painted yet. It brought me back to that strange, heart-wrenching week in 2001, when it felt like the world had stopped but also somehow kept moving. Life resumes, even when it feels impossible. And maybe that’s the point—no matter what happens, we eventually get back to painting the lane lines.