9/11
Friday, 11 September 2009
It was a beautiful, crisp September morning as I looked up from my Wall Street Journal to watch the sunrise over the East River. It was a peaceful moment, a pause to reflect on the beauty of the landscape and my place in life. That was the first thing I remember about 9/11, how sharp the horizon was as dawn illuminated lower Manhattan. I was president of a $400 million hedge fund and while bearish on the macro landscape, we were positioned for a counter-trend rally heading into that fateful day. As my driver navigated the FDR and I soaked in the scene, none of it mattered for a few, short seconds.
The first boom shook our office walls. I scanned my trading desk and asked my team, “What the hell was that?” One of our analysts yelled, “The World Trade Center’s on fire!” as we turned to see flames raging and black smoke billowing into the clear blue sky. I turned to write on TheStreet.com (TSCM), posting commentary at 8:47 AM. “A bomb has exploded in the WTC, may God have mercy on those innocent souls.” All of this occurred in a matter of minutes, if that…
I’ve since learned that the reason we couldn’t look away from the towers was that our mind had no way to process the information. No matter how hard we tried to mentally digest what our eyes were seeing, there was nowhere to “file” images of human beings holding hands and jumping from atop the World Trade Center. It’s an image I can’t shake to this day, bodies falling through a maze of confetti; it’s a sight I wish I never saw. We huddled by our window with our mouths gaped open as somebody repeated “Oh my God!” over and over again. The second plane circled the tower and entered it from behind. In slow motion, the [explosion] again shook our office as the fireball exploded directly towards us…
Was this really happening?
Text written by Todd Harrison. Pictures sourced from Boston Globe. Please go to National September 11 Memorial & Museum for more information.