Not sure why this year was different. 18 is no milestone anniversary year. Birthday, perhaps. Lot of things can happen at 18 that previously weren’t avaiable. But 18 shouldn’t be anything special like 10 or 20.
But as I sat in my car, at times the speedometer topping out at 15 in a 65 zone and the brake getting an extensive workout, my mind started to wander. Usually when this happens in traffic I just blank out or lose myself in a song on the radio or the shape of a cloud overhead. Today, on September 11, memory kicked in and took over and filled the blank spaces with what had happened on this day in 2001.
Some of the details are fading, that is certain. I don’t remember the exact time the radio alarm clock went off. It would have been on WXRT 93.1FM that’s for sure. In those days I always woke up to Lin Brehmer. Much prefered his voice and choice of music to the sound of an alarm buzzer, although really it was just background noise. I wasn’t much of a morning person, but at the time living by myself (no dogs even at the time) I usually got up, rolled out of bed into the shower, dressed and was out the door to catch the CTA Blue Line at the Western stop in Bucktown to Clark & Lake in the Loop, then walk to the Tribune Tower, sometimes stopping for a breakfast biscuit or donut with an orange juice or chocolate milk along the way.
That morning, I didn’t hear anything on the news of what was going on yet, but while on the train I started overhearing people talk. A couple guys near me talking about planes hitting the Twin Towers and it was likely no accident. This was before smartphones, where when news is breaking one could just whip out their phone and be instantly connected to breaking news. In fact, this was a day we’d learn how technology was going to cover breaking news forever.
Not knowing exactly what had happened my pace to the Tribune Tower that morning was a little quicker than usual. As I crossed the Michigan Avenue Bridge, I could already see the crowd gathering outside the WGN Radio showcase studio watching the television screens. That’s when I saw it for the first time – smoke coming out of both Towers on live television.
I went in to the Tower down to Lower Level 2 where my desk was back then. The Tribune had recently gutted the old printing press rooms and coverted them into office space we called “The Digital Underground” where all Tribune Interactive (non-editorial) employees sat and worked. While the office space was interesting, the lack of natural light was often depressing. Only a little atrium on the east side of the building let in sunlight. We often felt like mole people.
My role at the time was lead design support for metromix.com and chicagosports.com, the Tribune’s online entertainment and sports web sites. My coworker Chris H. was the design lead for chicagotribune.com, and he’d been in the office for a while now and we were starting to already feel the effects of what was happening. This was by far the first test of a major breaking news event in the Internet age, and we weren’t prepared to handle the site traffic of audiences flooding our site to find out what was happening in New York.
And then, on one of the small televisions we had in the basement, we watched the first Tower fall.
Chris was already working with IT to slim down the home page. Anything non-news related, Leisure, Sports, Business, Features, etc., was being pulled off the front page. The ad server was shut down and removed. Anything that didn’t need to be there was pulled. Pretty sure I remember Chris able to tune it out as best as he could and keep doing his job. I already began to feel numb. Some people already started leaving for the day. No product development or sales support was going to be needed today. It was called the “non-essential” staff that usually left early before holidays and such decided that they felt the need to go home to families, some just wanted to get out of the way of a news staff that still had a job to do.
The Sears Tower was evacuated, as rumor spread there could be more planes in the air targeting other buildings across the nation. So much had happened in a short time, and no one knew what else might come.
Back then, the Print and Online newsrooms both on the 4th floor of the Tribune Tower, but on opposite sides of the floor, very much separated. I didn’t go into the main newsroom much, they were frantically tring to piece things together and had decided a special afternoon edition would happen with what little they did know. I knew the people in the Digital Newsroom a little better, so I hung out there to see if there was anything I could help with. It was a small staff, but just as stressed. They had the ability to not have to wait for an evening press. Information came in, they got it out. And the audiences were coming to get as much information as they could.
I remember looking in the photo desk tool and seeing images come in. By now both Towers were gone, a plane had hit the Pentagon and another crashed in western Pennslyvania. Plenty of pictures of the buildings on fire, shocked citizens around lower Manhattan gazing upwards in disbelief. People walking away from the Trade Center covered in ash. And then the pictures of people trapped in the Towers before they fell. Hanging out of windows. Falling.
As the afternoon went on things began to stabilize. Planes started to become accounted for so threat of any more attacks subsided. Information about the hijacked planes started to come in. Crash sites still smoldered. People had left their offices and their workplace desktops to go home and watch television. What little I had helped out with that day was done, and I decided it was time to leave too. Come back tomorrow and try and start putting our sites back together.
The walk to the train was quiet. The normal rush hour hum of Chicago in the Loop was muted as most of the city had cleared out already. No planes flew overhead.
I got to my apartment, and before even going inside I got in my car and drove to my parents house in La Grange Park. I grilled myself a burger (the first food aside from chips and candy bars I’d eaten all day). The shock of what happened still in the air, but now attention was already being given to who was responsible. bin Laden’s name was already high on the list. I sat and watched the TV with my mom and dad as television couldn’t stop replaying the images of the morning. The worst of the 24 hour news cycle started that day.
Soon I went back home to my apartment in Chicago. Occassionaly heard the faint hint of a jet fighter engine above the city. I pretty much went right to bed, I couldn’t handle any more of that day. A lot was different now. I worried about how it was going to get worse before it got better.
