The 20th Anniversary of September 11

The 20th anniversary of September 11 has been particularly charged for me this year. It always comes one-month after my son’s birthday who just turned 20. On that day I lived in a third-floor loft on 213 Pearl Street in lower Manhattan near the South Street Seaport with my one-month old son and ex-husband. The building was eventually condemned and torn down years later. The artists Colette and Jim Teschner lived upstairs. I don’t recall seeing them that day. I do remember Sally, the curious woman who lived next door and those working at the restaurant downstairs. I was one month into my three-month maternity leave from Fortune Magazine where I worked as a designer in the art department. I had a tough delivery and a C-section that I was still recovering from. I woke up that morning in the bliss of my new family. The first plane hit the North Tower at 8:46 am. I never realized it was AA Flight 11 until now. As we were arising for the day the phone rang and a friend called and asked if we knew what was happening and that a plane had hit one of the Trade Towers. I hung up and turned on the small TV we had and saw the towers burning a few blocks away. We didn’t hear the plane hit the tower. To my surprise and dismay X quickly got dressed and despite my pleas to stay, he left and went toward the towers. He and a partner had been working at 114 Liberty Street across from the South Tower doing high end architectural woodworking in 6000 square foot lofts each taking up a floor of the building owned by celebrities and wealthy clients. Russell Simmons and Kimora Lee owned the penthouse. Michael Gordon of Bumble & Bumble hair salon and products and his wife Sonia Kashuk, of the cosmetic line that later launched at Target and others lived there. The phone kept ringing and another friend called in more of a panic asking if we were OK. I told them that X had left and walked toward the Towers. I was tending to the baby and watching the news and calls kept coming in with more urgency after seeing the second plane hit the South Tower at 9:03 am.

There must have been talk of the towers falling because I remember imagining the towers falling sideways and calculating if they were tall enough to hit our building if they fell toward Pearl Street and thought we needed to get out of there. It was almost an hour until the South Tower fell at 9:59 am. I remember pacing and hoping that my husband would come home. I got dressed and got the baby ready. As I was watching the news the television picture was suddenly gone, there was static and then all the power went out in all of lower Manhattan. I was holding the baby when there was a loud boom and vibration that I can almost still feel in my body. Then came another Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom and then it went pitch black and completely silent. It was a deep blackness and eerie silence that is hard to describe. I couldn’t see myself, only blackness. Soon after that the room turned to a dark grey and as it gradually dissipated I began to hear shouting and screams outside in the street. I looked out the window into the ashy smoke that was slowly lifting and I could see a stream of Wall Street workers piling into the street below. I remember seeing a woman at a pay phone to the left next to the Pearl Diner across the street speaking frantically. I went to the door and opened it to the third-floor landing and there was smoke coming up the stairs. There were two workers on the second-floor landing from the Spanish restaurant below and we acknowledged each other in fear. I went back inside and rolled up a towel and put it at the bottom of the door to keep the smoky ash from coming in.

I gathered myself and proceeded to put Brett in a beige papoose on my chest. When ready I took a deep breath and removed the towel and left the house. When I reached the bottom of the stairs I walked outside to the chaos of the street and X was walking toward us covered in dust with a mask on and two masks in his hand. I put mine on and covered Brett’s mouth and nose with the other. We walked south toward Maiden Lane toward our Suburban parked on the same side of the street by the hardware store. The owners of the hardware store were outside handing out face masks on the sidewalk, where X had gotten the masks for us. The truck was covered with grey dust. There were people wandering around the street covered in dust, people crying and confused. X keyed the passenger side door and let Brett and I into the truck. Some of the dust had poured into the truck when the door opened. X got in the driver’s seat and more dust came in. I was grateful to have the face masks but don’t remember how long we kept them on. We pulled out and were able to make a left turn onto Maiden Lane and drive toward the Seaport. We were pretty quickly stuck in a massive pile up of cars with cops trying to direct the chaos. We were on the left side of the street and no one was moving. X, who is an adrenaline junkie, pulled onto the side walk and somehow managed to navigate past all the other cars with the cops screaming at us to stop. He kept going and we were able to drive north up First Avenue. The news was on the car radio and we were listening and starting to understand that it was a terrorist attack. Just then I looked to the right and we were next to the United Nations building on 41st Street. I panicked and told X to hurry, go, go, that the UN building could be the next target if we are being bombed. We continued north and made it to the 59th Street Bridge. There were mobs of people at the bridge entrance who started banging on the windows of the truck saying, “let us in.” I freaked out and said “No, keep going,” which he did while chastising me for not letting him stop and bring all these people with us. We proceeded over the 59th Street Bridge and I looked back and there was no one behind us. We were the last vehicle over the bridge before the city closed down all the bridges and tunnels in Manhattan.

We had a woodshop and my art studio in Greenpoint at 1155 Manhattan Avenue on the first and 4th floors. We proceeded directly to the 4th floor studio. I remember sitting and breastfeeding Brett. There were many people coming in and out of the studio and people milling around. Soon after to my shock and utter dismay X and another shop mate had the brilliant idea to take their bicycles and ride back to Pearl Street. He insisted that I needed the breast bump that I left behind. I insisted that I did not and we needed him there. In a flash they were gone. I don’t remember much after that except my focus on the baby. I vaguely remember X returning later in the day with the black breast pump bag over his shoulder proclaiming his heroism and me being aghast and angry at the whole thing.

At some point when we were able to travel we left the city and drove to a friend’s home in Philadelphia, then on to his parents in Stone Harbor, NJ. We stayed there a few days until X, in his intensity, decided to go back to NYC and Brett and I stayed with my in-laws. I remember getting an infection from breast feeding while there and asking X to come back for us and we left NJ shortly after that. After that 3rd abandonment, the first after the first plane hit, the second leaving us to go back into the city that same day and the third leaving New Jersey instead of staying put with us, I should have realized that my kids’ dad would always have one foot in and one foot out of the family.

My boss at Fortune magazine was very gracious and gave me an extra month of paid maternity leave to get re-settled. They also hired me as a designer when I was 3 months pregnant which they did not know at the time. I told them before I accepted the position and they hired me asking that I come back after 3 months, rather than the one year leave they offered new mothers. It would have been illegal to refuse to hire me because I was pregnant, but I very happily accepted the security of a staff position with a new baby on the way. It’s something I didn’t have up to that point being self-employed and freelancing to have the freedom to make art.

Because of X’s previous work at 114 Liberty Street he was hired to general contract the recovery, clean up and reconstruction of the Liberty Street building and spent the next few years working at Ground Zero in the immediate aftermath. He met a writer and photographer named Peter Joseph there who became a good family friend. Peter made a documentary film, “Liberty Street: Alive at Ground Zero,” produced by Barbara Mann and himself and wrote a book about the first year and a half after the attack in which X became a principal subject. In the book, “Liberty Street: Encounters at Ground Zero,” published in 2006, X describes in detail alternate facts that happened that day. His published story in the book tells the account of him having our son on his chest in a carrier and getting him into the truck in a dramatic story that almost leaves me out of the picture. It simply did not happen that way and I have always been infuriated about this fact that is not true. I feel a need to clear that today by telling my story which has always been overshadowed by his.

The marriage lasted another 16 years, divorcing 4 years ago with X now gone from our lives. Even though I saw many signs before 9-11, for me I see a tipping point that triggered a long, very slow journey into madness and addiction for X. Because of “coping with round-the-clock deconstruction at Ground Zero, toxic infestation, corrupt landlords, reluctant insurers”, * cops raiding and walking off with property at Liberty Street in the dark hours of the night, and his participation in the book and film, September 11 was his ongoing obsession becoming a presence in my daily life for years afterward.

This day 20 years ago changed the trajectory of my life. Being displaced we ended up squatting and making a home illegally in my Brooklyn art studio for 2 years after 9-11. We had just finished renovating our rent-controlled loft apartment in lower Manhattan in preparation for the new baby so it was a blow not to be able to go back. It was inside the outline of Ground Zero. X hired the same company that cleaned the homes at Liberty Street to disinfect and clean the Pearl Street loft somewhere from 4-6 months after the attack and we did attempt to move back there. I had hired a wonderful Tibetan nanny to watch Brett when I went back to work. I walked past soldiers with machine guns, who were still placed on every corner of Ground Zero, on my way to work. “The Pit” was still gassing toxic fumes so that stay was VERY short lived.

We moved to Java Street in Greenpoint and Humboldt Street in Williamsburg before eventually relocating up to Western MA in 2006. The Happy Valley and especially the community in Hatfield turned out to be an extraordinary place to raise our son. But I do wonder if I would be here now in Holyoke otherwise having drifted so far off track of where I had expected to be both professionally and personally.

Now my 20-year-old son and girlfriend are off to Los Angeles to start a new chapter of romance and adventure and I could not be happier.

Erika Knerr, September 11, 2021

* Liberty Street: Encounters at Ground Zero,” Peter Joseph, First edition 2006.