Seven years ago today, just before 9 o'clock, my subway screeched to a halt a block from the World Trade Center. Accustomed to New York, I thought it only a little strange that several panicked women ran into the station and out again. I left the train, emerged onto Broadway, looked up, and saw that everything was changed. The clear blue sky was marred by smoke and flame from the burning Towers.
An hour later, my coworkers and I switched our gaze between a television and the window of a conference room. The falling towers were first an impossible vision on the television, then a boiling cloud of smoke in the street below, debris hitting our window, then darkness in the late morning. The ventilation was switched off to protect the inside air. For a time, we sat in the unnatural quiet and heat and fear.
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