Herb Lowe: What I Saw, What I Wrote Down on 9/11

On the evening of Sept. 10, 2001, a Newsday deputy city editor gave me – a reporter in the Queens bureau – my assignment for the following day: Starting at 10 a.m., if not called earlier, cover “all non-Election Day news” in New York City. From crime to quirky, if it happened in the five boroughs and wasn’t linked to Primary Day, I would scoot to the scene.

Just before 9 a.m., the phone rang in my Brooklyn apartment. “What are you doing there!” an assistant city editor cried. Turn on the TV, she said. News reports told of an airplane crashing into one of the World Trade Center towers, not 10 minutes earlier.

The first reports said a small plane had hit the north tower. Accidental perhaps, the reports said. My phone rang again. This time, it was the deputy city editor. Get going, she said. I hung up and, moments later, watched TV reports of a second plane smashing into the trade center’s south tower.

It was horrible, huge, practically incomprehensible. I quickly dressed, said goodbye to my wife, Mira, and left our apartment, on Linden Boulevard near Brookdale Hospital Medical Center in Brownsville. My car was parked near our polling place. Only a couple of people stood in line, so I stopped to vote in the primary. Word was spreading about the trade center incident, but no one seemed particularly alarmed.

Read the full story on Substack here.

Category: College News
Tagged: Herb Lowe
Subscribe to our News Digest