Stephanie Amalfe, ‘12
I was in the hallway of my middle school in Clark, NJ. My classmate approached me frantically saying that a plane crashed in to the twin towers. To be honest, my first reaction was, "What idiot pilot didn't see the towers ahead?" I think that sums up how naive I was then.
I never knew terrorism existed. I never knew someone hated America so much that they felt the need to kill my fellow countrymen. Soon after I raced to the nearest television and watched the second plane hit and eventually the twins falling. Living in New Jersey, numerous parents worked within the city so many students were crying. For the rest of the week, we weren't allowed to go outside during lunch. The debris from the city made the air polluted and the sky black.
Abby Harri, ‘14
My elementary school was divided into four sections that each met in large groups every morning before the start of school. On 9/11, the teachers turned on all of the TVs on in the large space of my group, switched them to news stations, and told us, "All of you pay attention. You all need to know how important this is because it's going to change the world forever. Nothing will ever be the same." I never suspected at the time how right they would be."
Nathan Risinger, ‘11
I don't really remember all that much about the day itself. Afterwards, it became an event, an iconic image that was seared into the consciousness of anyone with a US passport. A day can't really encapsulate an event of such magnitude. It is only a small unit of time, and doesn't seem to do justice to the lives that were lost both then and on the days that followed.
I was in sixth grade [in] Ms. Leader's class. It was a day like any other. I do remember that the sun was shining. Because of the time change (London is five hours ahead of New York) our day was well underway when the first tower fell. They didn't tell the students until after both towers had toppled. The teachers must have known, in hindsight. I can almost picture them gathering by the photocopier and discussing the news in hushed tones, but that is probably the fog of memory.
Right before the end of the day, Ms. Leader gathered us all in a circle. She told us the facts: The falling of the towers, the attack on the Pentagon and the downed aircraft somewhere in Pennsylvania. She told us not to worry and that we were being sent home to be with our families. After that we had a moment of silence and were dismissed.
It only really began to register on the bus ride home. Our driver had the radio on and unsurprisingly all of the coverage was focused on the attacks. Again my perception seems to be slightly distorted. I have a memory of hearing the collapse of the second tower on the radio but the chronology doesn't work (I've crunched the numbers) so again this is most likely a figment of my overexcited imagination, and little else. However, it was on the bus that I first began to understand what had happened. I don't know why – perhaps it was the frantic screams of the BBC's New York correspondent – but the entire thing lost the cool, calm tones of Ms. Leader and took on the painful and visceral importance that, to some degree or another, has never left.
Once we got home my brothers and I huddled around the television for the next several hours, attempting to absorb what had happened. I remember my mother sitting on the couch behind us crying softly. The next day in school we had an assembly where we attempted to mourn the dead and the teachers tried to give us closure. For the next several weeks our school was guarded by armed Marines on loan from the American Embassy. We were not allowed out of the building unless we were under close adult supervision.
Yunus Sevimli, ‘14
It happened at night in Turkey and I was sleeping. I heard about it when I went to school in the morning. Everybody was shocked. Sitting around the radio, we all tried to understand exactly what happened.
Hyunsup Kim, ‘14
I'm pretty sure I was sleeping in Korea because of the time difference. I wasn't really old enough to know about things happening abroad, so it did not really affect me. Not out of ignorance, but I was just so young and so far away.
Man Chi Wong, ‘14
I was in Hong Kong. When I heard about the news, I was in my bedroom with my mom. My father called us from England who had just heard about it... We thought it was a small plane; we thought it wasn't a big deal... It wasn't until the next day that I found out... The school had security searches when we came in... In school, we watched a rerun of ABC News and that's when we found out for real.
David Silberstein ‘14
As my 4th grade teacher gathered us for what seemed to be a normal Tuesday morning meeting, she let our class know that something had taken place downtown. As rumors circulated throughout the school, I wasn't sure what to think. The gravity of the morning didn't hit me until I left school, walked out onto Lexington Avenue, and saw a grey cloud of smoke over the sky of downtown Manhattan.
Melanie Gersten, ‘13
I was in my fifth grade classroom. The principal of our school came in shortly before 10 a.m. and whispered something into my teacher's ear looking very serious. Our teacher put on a radio in the back of the room and we were all just listening. Our parents came throughout the day and picked us up. I remember in the car driving home I could see the skyline of Manhattan and the black cloud of smoke where the World Trade Center was. My grandmother worked across the street from the World Trade Center and had to walk home over the bridge. Two days later, when classes resumed, we had recess on the roof of my school and my classmates and I could still see thick smoke in the sky.
Rachel Sax, ‘11
I was in math class in 6th grade. I remember our principal came on the loudspeaker and he told us there was a terrorist attack. I didn't understand and I thought there were terrorists in the building. All the classrooms had TVs, and he told our teachers that they could turn them on so we could watch the news. Our teacher, Mrs. Ring, was definitely in shock. it was an early morning class, so we saw the second plane hit. We all knew it was something big, but we didn't understand it.
