imaginarycircus

I have a photo on my desk of my father and I standing on the observation roof deck of one of the Twin Towers. It was two days before Christmas in 2000, and I had no idea that nine months later the towers would be gone. I remember the view. I remember how cold and windy it was up there. I remember looking at the Verazano Narrows Bridge. And I remember getting coffee soon after to warm up.

I was born and raised in New York, but I had never been to the top there before. My uncle had law offices on four floors of one of the towers so I had been in the buildings several times. He was there when the bomb when off in 93. But he had moved to London to open a new branch of his law firm, and was thankfully not in NYC on 9/11. He was sadly on one of the subways trains bombed in London a few years later, but was fine--just very shaken.

I had forgotten what day it was when I first woke up this morning and I turned on the news. MSNBC is showing the news they broadcast on 9/11/01 synched up minute for minute. It is eerie. I was at work in Cambridge at the Observatory the morning it happened. The secretary for the Astronomy Department came up and told me. She was crying. It was just before nine am.

I live in New York again, and I have to make the long slow subway ride to Manhattan now. God, I love this city. I know I probably won't be here more than another year, because after I graduate I think we'll have to relocate.

I plan to take many long walks through the city this fall. I really want to show David the wonderful parts of the city he hasn't seen. We just went to Wave Hill in the Bronx. It is a little green jewel on the Hudson.