INNOCENCE COLLAPSES: MY 9/11 PAIN
The very idea of responding to a media request to discuss how the 9/11 attacks affected my wife, Nancy, and I seemed like a very selfish one at first. To discuss the pain and despair and sense of loss that that we felt, even having grown up in the greater NYC/metro New Jersey area, makes me feel guilty even today. We did not lose an immediate loved one nor had to sacrifice anything instantly, and we did not have to yield to a change of family environment as so many others were forced to as a result of this tragedy and historical seminal event.
What we lost, though, (and in the end, my children as well) was the wonderful innocence and joy of growing up in the 50's and 60's in the NYC area and watching the World Trade Towers rise, one layer at at time, over the years from our favorite teenage "parking spot." We grew up in the well-known Essex County town, of Livingston, New Jersey, and upper middle-class melting pot that produced well-known greats such as Jason Alexander from "Seinfeld" (one of my first acting students from the Livingston Teen Theatre Program), Harlan Coben, best-selling author of "Promise Me," "The Innocent," "No Second Chance," and scores of the Myron Bolitar, Sports Agent/Lawyer novels, not to mention The Amazing Kreskin, famed Hypnotist who I can remember practicing on us at Livingston High School in the 1960's. Even the psychiatrist played by Lorraine Bracco on "The Sopranos" has to have therapy, herself, on the show from the best Livingston, NJ psychiatrist.
We ALL had the opportunity to ride up South Orange Avene, west toward NYC, and pull into the South Mountain Reservation, a winding, imposing, yet lovely topographical reminder that we were separated by the "haves" and "have nots" (the 'burbs from the greater Newark metro area). However, on any given night after sundown, you could sit in your car and see THE most awesome, career-inspiring view of "electric Manhattan" from north to the George Washington Bridge all the way south to Lower Manhattan and the Battery. You could even see the Staten Island Ferry making it's runs from the Jersey side.
We took it for granted. We never REALLY knew the gifts we possessed; the world's best culture, restaurants, sports, shopping, etc., just 20 minutes away. We watched the World Trade Center go up all through the 60's and early 70's layer by layer and we would sometimes make fun of it because we were ALL Empire State Building loyalists of the first "King Kong" movie order.
However, when it was finished and open for business, everyone in the Metro NYC area (NJ, Penn, Conn, north of the Bronx, Queens, Long Island, etc) just had to go up to the top eventually. I can't even remember the number of times I was on the 106th floor to have a bite to eat or a drink and watch the views. When I flew my daughter, Nicole to an NYU audition at the Tish School of the Arts (we were in Nebraska at the time), we celebrated the excitement by having dinner and a drink in Windows on the World cocktail lounge. I allowed her to "cheat" and have a sip of wine.
One cannot describe what it is like to watch Lower Manhattan, Statue of Liberty, and west to Jersey at sunset as the sun goes down and the magnificent lights of NYC come up. And, we did the same thing for my second daughter when she graduated R J Reynolds High School here in Winston-Salem. Only THIS time, swing dancing was in and there was a group ROCKING that 106th floor as the building swayed and my daughter, Jewel giggled from too much "champagne" cheating. However, we laughed and it was so memorable.
For our family, Lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center in particular represented our roots our joy and our pride of country. For years, my father and I would go in late on a Friday night to enjoy some Italian cooked shrimp in Little Italy a few blocks down.
My wife and I both saw each tower collapse from our worksites. It really seemed like a Bruce Willis "Die Hard" movie and eventually we would see the words "The End" come up. They never did. It was real and horrid and devastating. Jewel called from Nebraska crying to Mom and Dad as she was unable to express the horror of seeing innocent workers in the Windows on the World restaurant leap to their deaths to avoid being consumed by the "flames from hell." All these good people did was show up for work one lovely September day to take care of themselves and their family.
Everyone has a story. Each important and each relevant. We lost our innocence. We lost the feeling of freedom of mobility in a cultural area that gave us so very much in the 50's through 90's. It was so "weighty" for me that I actually sought therapy here in town for 4 months just to be able to carry the reality.
But the REAL loss? I have a daughter that lives in the city now. As a parent I live with fear for her safety daily. And even my precious child goes about her business and social life in New York City but ALWAYS has that thought in the back of her mind; When is the next 9/11?
My children can NEVER enjoy the innocence we enjoyed in Lower Manhattan. It collapsed forever on 9/11/01. Peace on earth!!
Bob Imperial
Winston-Salem, N.C.