Standing in the Shadow of No Towers

By August, the Tribeca nightclub Vinyl had reached a Peter Gatien-era decline. Time magazine had published a dramatic cover story the previous year ("What Ecstasy Does to Your Brain") and dancefloors displayed posters cautioning about undercover sting operations. Talcum powder remained on the floor for dancing, but euphoric substances were gone.

I had never thought about how close Vinyl was to the Twin Towers during my Sunday dancing there. That Tuesday in September, by nightfall, the pavement outside the club was filled with plastic bags containing socks, t-shirts, and sweatpants collected for survivors of the towers. We waited until midnight, and it became evident that no one had survived.

HBO Television, where I worked at the time, had a satellite office downtown. Upon exiting the Broadway-Lafayette subway, Amin Miah, the fruitseller who usually provided me with the "best" banana, began shouting in a frenzy, "Two planes hit, I saw it." As I gazed down Broadway at the smoke plumes, I hurried to the office, arriving at 9:15am.

My co-editor of Altmuslim, Zahed Amanullah, was unreachable as he was in Cuba visiting José Marti's grave when a tour guide announced, "Something terrible — el cataclismo — has happened, we have to get back to the hotel." HBO's Interactive Ventures head, Kevin Dowdell, attempted to maintain a semblance of normalcy, insisting that the staff meeting begin on time at 10am.

The South Tower collapsed shortly afterward, and we watched it through the window, witnessing events unfold in slow motion. Everyone was attempting to call loved ones, but phone lines were jammed shut. My girlfriend, Reiko Yamamoto, had no cell phone, and I had no way to reach her. I bicycled to Tribeca to find her, only to discover that the office had already been evacuated.

Tribeca lay within the blast radius of the towers, and residents had sensibly shut down offices and evacuated. It took another four hours before Reiko returned home.