The email asked if I’d be coming into work the night of the 9/11 tragedy. “Of course!” I responded. Even if I had to walk from Penn Station to my job on Centre Street, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. I did it all the time. “Can I sleep at my desk?” Sure, was the reply. My coworkers had frantically emailed me to see if I was okay. Almost everyone who worked at Globix had checked in.
The LIRR train was empty as I made my way towards Penn Station. K-9 Units patrolled every silent corridor. The subways were not running right, so I took whatever would get me to Canal Street. The few people on the train were dressed in black; we were all mourning. Looking into the eyes of a young woman seated across from me, I saw sorrow. No one pushed or shoved. Everyone spoke quietly, with more politeness than ever before. “Excuse me” and “sorry” were the words of the night.
When I emerged at Canal and Centre, I smelled the smoke from “The Pit”. It hung in the air like fog., and many of the streetlights were out. Canal Street was deserted. A barricade barred my way, a fully armed SWAT team officer asked for I.D, and took me to my door. I was shaken. Never before had I seem anyone armed with a semi-automatic patrolling the streets.
The GNOC (Global Network Operations Center of Globix Corp) was almost silent. Several very tired Police and Firemen were napping on the couches in the cafeteria. The black slate stairs leading up there were covered in some sort of powder. I swept my finger in it. It was Sheetrock mixed with ash, remnants of the building and people from the World trade Center. When I took a break I went outside. A passerby gave me a bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies and a peanut butter sandwich. She was giving them out to all the Emergency crews, and she had a few left over. No New Yorker ever gave me a free lunch on the street. Ever. How anyone could endure working at The Pit, I don’t know. The glow from the fire could be seen every night. The smoke lingered for 3 months. The faces of New Yorkers melted into one sad, but silent crowd.
The “missing” posters on every lamppost, the smell of the fire burning at Ground Zero, the months of investigation, the sight of the body-part cart (ambulance) passing by, the polite and quiet mourning of every soul in New York City dramatically changed everyone in NYC. The loss of friends, loved ones, and the Twin Towers had forever changed it, and me. As a result of the loss the Internet Backbone, Globix Corp at Centre Street was finally shut down for good. I lost my job, and have been searching for a job like the one I had there ever since. NYC will never be the same.