9/11/01 was an absolutely beautiful morning in NYC. Clear skies and warm.

I stepped out of the PATH train several blocks north of the WTC to a surreal scene. The opposite side of the street is lined with hundreds of people staring south. There is NOBODY on my side of the street. Very, very weird. I figure everyone is looking at a nasty car accident. Being a native NYer, I pride myself on not staring at nonsense like that, I'm that cool. So I walk a block to buy a paper. The guy at the newsstand has the radio on, and they report that a plane hit one of the towers.

So I figure that I ought to take a look at this. You may recall that back in the 40s a small plane hit the Empire State Building. So that's what I'm thinking as I cross the street to see black smoke pouring from Tower 1. I mill around with a group of people. Nobody knows what kind of plane it was at that time -- except one guy, who says it was an American Airlines plane and that this was an act of terrorism. Everyone around him tells him to shut up, that he doesn't know what he's talking about, and that he's scaring people.

I grab my cell phone to call my wife, who works in midtown. Can't get through. So I call my office in NJ and talk to one of my partners. They are listening on the radio. As I am talking to them, the 2nd plane hits. Huge fireball. Everyone screams. Terrifying screams that will stay with me forever.

I recall telling my friend on the phone that you're not going to believe this, another plane just hit. The first thing I think is what a coincidence, two planes hit. What a dummy. But you can't just think of the obvious as you're standing there. My friend on the phone does the greatest thing anyone could have done for me there -- he says "you better get out of there". It would never have occurred to me to do so.

So I hightail it back to the PATH. They haven't stopped the trains from running yet, and they haven't closed the City yet. So I get on a train, and there's a young couple that gets on with me. Across from me is an older woman, looked like a nurse, who seemed to be on her way to work. Rest of the train is empty.

After sitting in shock, the couple and I start talking about what we saw. It was obvious that the woman across from me had no idea what happened. She never said a word. Just listened, with this expression on her face of incredulity, again that I'll never forget.

We make it back to NJ. I get in my car, and it seems like we're in another world. Traffic is moving normally, like any other day. Again, surreal. Meanwhile on the radio they are talking about a plane down in Pennsylvania.

My wife did not get out of NYC until that evening when she was able to catch a train to Westchester (the exact opposite direction of NJ). I remember driving on Route 80 that evening to go pick her up. There is a spot where you can see all the way down Manhattan, and there was this very smoky haze over lower Manhattan. It was there for a few days.

I was far enough away from the whole thing that I was never in any danger. And I didn't hang around to watch people jumping to their deaths. But still, 3 1/2 years later, hardly a night goes by where I don't think about the images -- the people on the other side of the street, the smoke, the fireball, the look on the woman's face on the train -- and the scream when the 2nd plane hit. I cannot imagine what it must be like for people that (a) were a lot closer than I was or (b) lost a loved one.

Thank you for listening.