A Pinoy in New York: Running for my life

NEW YORK – It dawned crisp and clear, one of those endless blue days in New York that seem to stretch forever.

I never thought that at the end of the day, I’d be running for my life with my wife and daughter, their faces creased in fear.

The traffic along the Lincoln tunnel going into Manhattan was routine from New Jersey. Bustling crowds were rushing out of the Port Authority bus terminal to get to their offices from Central Park down to Wall Street on the southern tip of the island.

I was just settling into my chair, and flicked on the news to see how the raw sugar market was doing to get ready to pull together material for a cash market report.

I stole a glance at the TV set and saw the smoking, flaming top of the World Trade Center, something like a metallic cigarette on fire. A few minutes passed and I saw the silhouette of a jetliner duck behind the flaming inferno and knife into the second tower, spawning a fireball on the other side of the building.

I had been going down at the Trade Center after getting off the subway on my way to work in Wall Street for over three years, right underneath where the South Tower would eventually crash in a smoking pile of rubble.

Frantically calling my wife, I asked her to pick up our daughter down on East 14th Street a few score blocks from the carnage at the WTC.

But the subways had stopped running at the time and so did the buses criss-crossing this sprawling city on the Hudson River. She half-ran and walked to the school and they scampered back to her office on West 21st Street.

I cringed in fear and said a silent prayer for friends who worked in the commodity markets I covered and whose exchange is located at the WTC complex of buildings huddling below the twin towers symbolizing American financial supremacy.

My wife finally called, but she refused to go to our office because she did not feel safe there. I felt the same way.

Security officers in our 30-story building told us to shutter the windows, reasoning that it would provide a measure of protection from any debris that may crash through the windows if another building were hit by a flying jet bomb.

"I think I’d rather see what’s coming right at me," a fellow worker quipped.

My daughter sent me an e-mail, asking me to pick her up because she was scared. At that point, my wife called and said they were going out for lunch. By the time they got back, their building was shuttered as well and they were forced to walk over 20 blocks to get to my office on Times Square.

When they got there, they told me of stories that there had been reports of sporadic shootings around the city that turned out to be a hoax, but after what happened — bodies flapping through the air from the collapsing Trade Center — these only increased our unease and fear.

We could see the smoldering black smoke pouring out of the tip of Manhattan. The pictures came flashing on the TV screen as firemen, police and office workers started running away from the mushrooming cloud as the twin icons of New York fell in a heap.

We sat tight and finally got around half past five in the afternoon. A single train line was open to our home in New Jersey and we had to walk down Avenue of the Americas past animated people talking about the flying bombs that had struck the city.

The Path train we took at 34th Street snaked from midtown Manhattan into the Hoboken hometown of Frank Sinatra then to the gritty environs of Newark. I thought we were home free and would only have to switch trains to finally get a ride home.

When we got out, train officials greeted us with screams to "Get out! There’s a bomb threat in the building."

We ran and ran, striding briskly as far as possible from the station to find anything that could take us home. We ran in panic to a bus, and three hours after leaving Times Square, opened the door to our place.

"They found two vans so we got everyone out," a police officer said.

My wife’s father was overjoyed and close to tears. So was her brother. There were hugs galore. The heartfelt welcome from relatives was repeated around the area as people came home to the safety of their families.

"I never got so many hugs in my life. My friends and relatives did not know that my office is not anywhere near the World Trade Center. All they knew was that I worked in New York," he said.

After watching, again, the numbing sight of the World Trade Center burning like a match as bodies flew through the air, I finally fell asleep.

I had to go to work again the following morning and the train ride into the city was eerily quiet. The whole thing felt weird. Coming in from New Jersey, one could see the soaring spires of the World Trade Center as the bus or the train swung along the highways and wetlands of the Garden State.

All one could see in the chilling morning light was the smoking hulk of the Trade Center. It felt like a morgue walking through Times Square after coming out of the Subway near the office. Stunned Americans stared glumly at the news streamer along the Square as the non-stop news coverage of the terror attacks continued.

There was an ineffable sadness that enveloped this gay, frenetic city.

My daughter asked me why is America at war?

Someone said lower Manhattan looked like Beirut.

I used to fly into New York and look for those two towers and then say to myself, "I’m home."

(Rene Pastor is a commodity reporter for a financial news service in New York- Editors)