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Midtown Manhattan.
I couldn't go home to Brooklyn because the subways were shut down. Later I found out they didn't know if the subways would flood drowning everyone on account of the WTC path station being demolished. But they didn't want to instill mass panic, so let them go.
I sat in my office, watching people stream uptown all day covered in cement dust, and a few with blood. At about 4 pm., I walked to try and give blood without luck. At about 5 or 6, I finally found a running train. When the train emerged from a tunnel and rose on a trestle, I turned to look at Lower Manhattan. I guy said to me "don't look, they just ****ing took it all, don't look." Many people around me wouldn't look. Some cried.
That night people wandered the sidewalks of the neighborhood (Park Slope), not wanting to be alone, putting out flowers, candles and signs. It's the only time I've seen people pound on closed church doors, trying to get in. There was an overpowering odor of burnt plastic everywhere, and the cloud of cement dust started to settle on Brooklyn. Didn't sleep that night, but listed to the radio news.
The truly frightening thing about 9/11 is that we didn't how it was going to turn out. We didn't know if it was the first of 100 planes being flown into buildings. We didn't know if it was Pearl Harbor.
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