Most Americans (United Statesers) in my demographic remember where we were when three major events in the life of our country happened: President Kennedy was assassinated; Neil Armstrong walked on the moon; and, on 9/11. (I realize most of the rest of the world thinks of it as 11/9).
Where Were You on 9/11/2001?
The US Custom House in Philadelphia is a handsome building dating from 1932-34 when it was built as a project under the Works Progress Administration (WPA). (Photo Credit: Wikimedia by Bruce Andersen, CC Lic. 3.0 Unported)
I was a more than full time lawyer in 2001. I was scheduled to attend an 11:00 a.m. Social Security disability hearing in the United States Custom House at Second and Chestnut Streets in Philadelphia. At around 9:30 a.m., I noticed that my normally very industrious legal assistant was intently listening to the radio. Her family lived in Brooklyn, New York. She told me about the airplane crashes into the two buildings of the World Trade Center. She tried calling her parents, but couldn’t get through because all circuits were busy. As I stood there, the third plane struck the Pentagon.
The scale of the attack was already abundantly clear. We all gathered around her desk and listened in horror as the plane crash in a field in western Pennsylvania was reported in near real time. At that point, it occurred to me that maybe my hearing in a federal building was cancelled. We checked with the Judge’s office and we were told it was still on.
I hoisted my briefcase and set out to walk the 15 blocks to the Custom House as I had done on many days. I had made that walk in all types of nasty weather, but that day, I noticed there wasn’t a cloud in the cobalt blue sky. I took my usual route, cutting through the portico of Independence Hall.
The U.S. Custom House is a massive architecturally interesting building that towers over the nearby colonial era historical buildings in a Center City Philadelphia neighborhood known as Old City Philadelphia. It was built between 1932 and 1934 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression era project intended to support local economies. The Custom House is on the National Register of Historic Places. Unlike the usually boxy modern Federal buildings, the government buildings of that age were meant to inspire awe and confidence. I always enjoyed looking up at the impressive domed ceiling of the building’s lobby.
On that day, needless to say, everyone at the Custom House Social Security hearing office was distracted, but we duly started our hearing on time. As much as it didn’t feel right to be doing anything other than being riveted to news reports, I was glad we were having my client’s hearing. There are long scheduling delays for Social Security disability hearings and this lady’s prior hearing date had been continued (postponed) because of a snowstorm.
Halfway through the hearing, there was a knock on the door. We were informed the building was being evacuated immediately. I set out to walk back to my office, but I would never again cut through the portico of Independence Hall. It was already locked down with armed park rangers guarding the perimeter. Ever since that day, visitors to Independence Hall must go through airport level security to enter the major historic buildings and to visit the Liberty Bell Center across the street.
We had planned a staff meeting for lunch that day, and I had been instructed to stop off at a Dunkin Donuts on my way back to the office to buy some doughnut holes as a treat. At the empty Dunkin Donuts, the counter people told me that all buildings over 10 stories in Center City Philadelphia had been ordered to evacuate. Under the circumstances of that awful day, this was a reasonable precaution. Philadelphia is only 100 miles south of New York City, a straight shot down I-95 which would have been plainly visible from the air on such a clear day.
I arrived back at my office to find that my law partners had closed the office for the rest of the day, so the staff could get home to loved ones. The 3 of us decided to have lunch in Center City to wait for the traffic leaving town to lessen. Then is when I finally saw TV coverage of the morning’s events in the Chinese restaurant where we were the only customers. Once home, I watched the TV special news reports for most of the night. I was so sad. So angry. So—-everything.
The 9/11 Memorial and Museum
Last fall, I had a chance to visit the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in Lower Manhattan in New York City for the first time. New York City can seem brash and the streets of Manhattan sometimes feel over the top to out of towners. Philly, the 5th largest city in the United States, seems almost provincial in comparison. However, New York got the Memorial and the Museum right. It is a place of calm, reflection, and reverence in the foot print of the twin towers that fell on 9/11.
The 911 Memorial in New York City is composed of two large deep, walled ponds with cascading water down the sides, in what was the footprints of the Twin Towers. Each pond is surrounded by a low wall with bronze plaques containing the names of all the victims killed in the 2001 attacks in the US as well as an earlier World Trade Center bombing in 1993. On each victim’s birthday, the 9/11 Museum and Memorial staff place a white rose on that person’s name. They are not forgotten.
Next to the Memorial, stands the new World Trade Center, the large antenna on the top reaching towards the sky at 1776 feet. I assume the height is no coincidence. 1776 is the year the United States of America was born. The resurrection of the gleaming new One World Trade Center highlights American resilience.
I took this photo of the forest of buildings in Lower Manhattan from a park in Brooklyn. The tallest building is the new One World Trade Center.
Share Your 9/11 Experience
If you are so inclined, please share your memories of September 11, 2001 in the comments below.
Hump Day Zentangle® Challenge #13: Let the Tree Nymphs Be Your Muse
If you’re new to the Zentangle Method start with this: What is Zentangle and Is It Habit Forming
It is not official fall in the Northern Hemisphere until September 23rd, and the days here in the Mid-Atlantic states are still quite warm. However, Mother Nature is ready to move on, and already there are subtle changes to the trees. This observation provided the seed (as it were) for this week’s challenge.
For this week’s Hump Day Zentangle Challenge, let’s be inspired by trees! Last year, when I don’t think I was intending to tangle something tree or treelike, I did this:
Some might think this looks like a mushroom, but Mr. Excitement thinks it looks like a tree, so that’s all that matters. Unfortunately, the only tangle I can identify for you is Flux, making up the trunk. If you recognize any others, please chime in.
I also did this one.
I seem to have settled on Shattuck, for tree trunks, a Zentangle Mother Ship official tangle. There is a tangleation of Tipple background (also a Zentangle Mother Ship official tangle) and then that unidentifed tangle again on the bottom.
Finally, I received some black 6 x 6 inch black tiles I ordered 2 days ago. I thought this one cried out for some lacy looking interwoven Shattuck trees.
I used a white Gelly Roll pen and a mettalic Gelly Roll pen with a silver Gelly Roll pen for the triangles on the white tree and a gold Gelly Roll pen for the triangles on the copper tree.
Enough about me, I look forward to seeing what you all come up with.
Please Share Your Hump Day Zentangle® Challenge Creations!
Please share your responses to this week’s challenge with us in the Hump Day Challenge Facebook Group and/or on your Instagram, Twitter or Flickr feeds. Use the hashtag #hdchallenge13. If you’re not a member of the FB group, ask to join and I’ll add you.
There are other ways to share your work: We also have a Pinterest group board to share our Hump Day Challenge responses. Email me at suzanne@boomeresque.com if you’d like me to add you as a contributor to the Pinterest board or you can mention that in a comment with your Pinterest name below.
If you have your own blog and are posting your challenge responses there, leave the URL to your blog in a comment below so people can paste it into their browser and find your post. (PS: The first 2 times you comment, I will have to moderate the comment. After your first two comments on Boomeresque, your comments will appear without moderation.)
Feel free to share your work for this or any challenge at any time—even next week, next month, next year, ad infinitum. Participation in the challenges need not be linear!
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Since I am behind on many Hump Day Assignments, I was at least able to keep track of what each week’s theme was. However, the list of 1 – 10 has of course disappeared. Even a 1 or 2 word description of each weeks assignment would be very helpful. I have noticed there are those who have just joined. Any help is appreciated.
Hmm. They should be pinned at the top of the FB list, and if you go to the home page of https://www.boomeresque.com, they are all there too. But, I’ll also work on a list and maybe keep that pinned to the top on FB. Thanks.
That would be perfect !! Thank you. !! I will be sitting in waiting rooms again for additional testing. Hopefully I will.be drawing while I wait.
It has been awhile since I have responded to a blog, but I do think the tangle name you are looking for is a “relaxed” version of Molly Hollibaugh’s Peanuckle.
It does resemble Peanuckle, but I think I also remember it as a separate tangle. Of course, I have been known to more than sometimes misremembered.;)
On 9/11 I was working at Harborside Financial Center in Jersey City which is directly across the river from the World Trade Center site. Our space faced away from the river and I didn’t know what was going on until my wife called and said “you should go downstairs and look, I just heard on the radio that a plane hit the World Trade Center.” I headed down to the concourse assuming that a small plane or helicopter had an accident. While I was looking out at the building, I saw the second plane hit. I didn’t fully appreciate the magnitude of what happened until a short time later when I saw the first tower collapse on a TV monitor.
I spent the next two days on the docks in Jersey City helping to load boats with supplies for the first responders across the river. Mostly it was food that was being donated by the restaurants in Jersey City. My most poignant memory from that time is when one of the boats came back from the site I watched a Jersey City fireman disembark and as he got closer I saw there were tears streaming down his face.
Thank you for sharing your 9/11 story. I remember seeing TV news shots from the NJ side of the river that day, and I remember that some people were able to leave lower Manhattan on the ferries to NJ.
On 9/11 I was in an office on the 29th floor in Kansas City, less than a mile from the downtown airport. We all joined in the conference room to watch the early television coverage and were watching live when the second plane hit the Towers. And the reports kept coming in. Our managing attorney told us to all go back to work and I remember confronting him (we were both children of the 50s and 60s) about our alerts as children of getting under our desks to protect us from Cold War attacks. Didn’t this bring back memories of that and what might be happening? I criticized his lack of empathy for what was going on and told him I was going home for the day. He was all business and said to do what I needed to do but before I could leave, the corporation we worked for closed for the day and our building was also evacuated. My son was in the Army stationed in Germany with my daughter-in-law and grandson. It took forever to make contact with them to ensure their safety. Later that week, three of us at the office decided to take the stairs down to see what it felt like and entered a maze of discomfort. The stairs stopped on 7th floor and continued across the room but in a smoke filled room it would have been impossible to find. So we informed property managment and our corporate management of what we found. Our corporation formed a security department after that and I ended up spending six years working with that security department. so I have a lot of additional memories from that day, as well as crying every time I see coverage of the event and the people that were affected. Oh, and by the way, my boss did apologize to me later in a subtle way.
That day brought out a range of emotions and reactions. For many, it brought us closer to our shared humanity.
Oh my goodness, these are just absolutely gorgeous!!!